Matthew Reilly
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Matthew Reilly, born July 2nd, 1974 Sydney, is an Australian action thriller writer. His books are based on warfare(normally) and are filled with action throughout the entire book.
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, which drove Reilly to self-publish 1,000 copies. In order to do this, Matthew had to borrow some money from his family since he did not have enough money to print enough copies.
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 an editor at 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 Australia, the USA, the UK, Canada, Germany, South Africa, Japan and China.
Reilly is well known for his style of writing, which, unlike any other before it, 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; 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 and George Lucas. His latest work is an eight part online novel called Hover Car Racer, aimed at a younger audience than his previous books. It has since been released as a published novel.
Matthew Reilly has also sold the rights to Contest to make a movie which will shortly be completed.
Matthew Reilly is considered to be one of Australia's successful young men since his books have sold millions of copies and becasue he is only 30 (as of June 2005)
Bibliography
2005 Hell Island (novella)
2005 7 Ancient Wonders