Matthew Reilly, born July 2nd, 1974, is an Australian thriller writer.

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.

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.

External links

• http://www.matthewreilly.com/
• http://www.hovercarracer.com