Matthew Reilly
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Matthew John Reilly, (born 2 July, 1974 in Sydney), is an Australian action/thriller writer. Most of his books are based on warfare and filled with action throughout the entire book.
Biography
Reilly graduated from St Aloysius' College in 1992. While attending the University of New South Wales, he wrote his first book Contest in 1994. It was rejected by every major publishing company in Sydney on the basis his story concept was unoriginal and full of cliche and tired synonyms, which drove Reilly to self-publish 1,000 copies using money borrowed from his family. Unfortunately some books were stolen from the back of his car and the original Contest books have become such a rarity that they have been known to fetch up to $300.
Reilly went to a bookstore in Sydney and asked if he could place the copies on one of their book shelves. They accepted the offer and placed them up. Very shortly after, the books had sold out and the owner of the bookstore called Reilly to order more books.
One copy was read by Cate Patterson, Commissioning Editor for Pan Macmillan, who immediately signed Reilly up to write Ice Station, which became an international best-seller.
In the years to come, he wrote Temple, Area 7, and Scarecrow, which have since been published in over fifteen countries, including Norway ,Australia, the USA, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, South Africa, Japan and China (notably he has not been published in France, maybe due to the fact that the French have been the antagonists in all of their appearances in his novels).
Reilly is well known for his style of writing, which focuses entirely on Hollywood-style action scenes, relegating drama and character development to second priority. Many critics condemn this, and point out that Reilly unashamedly writes his books to read like movies, with improbability following improbability; however, Reilly's fans argue that his writing style is what makes the books unique and exciting.
Reilly's main influences include Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and possibly Art Bell. His latest work is a novel called Seven Ancient Wonders, a book inspired, or at least influenced, by Indiana Jones. The book was released as Seven Deadly Wonders in the United States.
Matthew Reilly has completed an eleven minute trailer that depicts the beginning sequences of his book Contest. This trailer will form the basis of promotions in Hollywood to help secure funding/distribution for a full length film of Contest directed by himself.
In August 2005, as part of the Australian Books Alive Promotion, Reilly penned the novella Hell Island, a close to 100 page short story following on from Scarecrow.
As seen on 60 Minutes in 2006, Reilly owns and drives a Delorean, one of only a few in Australia. He also has a life-size replica of Han Solo encased in carbonite.
Matthew Reilly has announced on his fansite during his 2006 chat [1] and elaborated further in a later post [2] that the next book will revolve around Jack West, Jr. and his father, and is due for release in 2007. Although he didn't reveal the full title, he has said that it will be "Six Sacred XXXXX". Matthew Reilly then further elaborated in a forum post that the working title is "The Six Sacred Stones", and that it would be released in Christmas 2007. [3]
Heroes
A common feature of all of Reilly's major books are their central characters - strong, capable men with distinguishing features. Shane Schofield, nicknamed "Scarecrow", the hero of Ice Station and its sequels Area 7 and Scarecrow, bears two scars across his eyes. William Race, the hero of Temple, has a triangular birthmark on his cheek. Stephen Swain, the main character of Contest, has a scar on his upper lip. The Australian hero of Seven Ancient Wonders, Jack West Jr, has a bionic arm. There is only one exception to this rule - Jason Chaser, the 14 year old child from Hovercar Racer. All of Reilly's heroes are adept at finding solutions to the many problems they encounter, even if farfetched.
Books
Stand alone novels
- 1996 Contest (Self-published in 1996; published by Pan Macillan in 2000)
- 1999 Temple (appears to be set in the same universe as Reilly's other novels, is referred to in passing in both Area 7 and Scarecrow)
The Shane Schofield Series
- See Shane Schofield
- 1998 Ice Station
- 2001 Area 7
- 2003 Scarecrow
- 2005 Hell Island (Novella which was an Australian "Books Alive" exclusive; reworked version for people with reading difficulties, released for the "Quick Reads" program in UK, now on amazon.co.uk)
The Jack West Junior Series
- 2005 Seven Ancient Wonders (Also known as Seven Deadly Wonders in the U.S.)
- 2007 The Six Sacred Stones (Sequel to Seven Ancient Wonders, due to be released in October 2007)
Hover Car Racer
- 2004 Hover Car Racer (released online at www.hovercarracer.com; published by Pan Mac same year)
- 2005 Crash Course (US release only; 1st third of Hover Car Racer novel, illustrated by Pablo Raimondi)
- 2006 Full Throttle (US release only; 2nd third of Hover Car Racer novel, illustrated by Pablo Raimondi)
- 2007 Photo Finish (US release only; final third of Hover Car Racer novel, illustrated by Pablo Raimondi; set for April 2007 release)
Notes
- ^ "The 2006 Annual Matthew Reilly/TP.net LiveChat Transcript". Retrieved 2007-05-08.
- ^ "Happy Birthday Matthew Reilly ... July 2nd". Retrieved 2007-05-08.
- ^ "Happy Birthday www.ThePresidian.net ... September 5". Retrieved 2007-05-08.