Matthew Reilly Biography

Matthew Reilly was born on July 2nd, 1974 in Sydney. He was one of Australia's best action thriller authors. His great action book series have made him famous worldwide today.

Discovering, at age 15, that adventure books could be enjoyable and fun to read, he decided to try and create stories of his own. While attending the University of New South Wales, he wrote his first book called "Contest". He finished writing it when he was 19, in 1994. Sadly, the book was rejected from every major publishing company in Sydney. So, Matthew decided to publish the book himself, creating 1000 copies at $8.00 each. He then went on and sold it to the bookstores in Sydney by hand. One copy was read by an editor at Pan MacMillan who found his copy in a local bookstore and they loved it immensely. Pan MacMillian was thrilled to find Matthew working on his next Novel, Ice Station. Based on the first few chapters, she signed Matthew up on a two-book deal with Pan Macmillan.

On December 31st, 1997, Matthew Reilly, only 23 years of age and having completed the manuscript during the final year of his Law degree, submitted the finished Ice Station to Pan Macmillan. It had taken 11 months to write, was 140,000 words long and 540 pages thick. Ice Station became his first international best-seller.

Fulfilling his two-book deal in spectacular fashion, Matthew went on to create one of the most unique action-adventure stories ever told. His new novel Temple, was released in 1999 which shortly after doubled the sales of Ice Station.

After the roaring success of Temple, Matthew knew he would have to spend some time making sure that his next book did not disappoint. In doing so, Matthew toured the locations he was planning on using in his next book.

In 2000, his original book, Contest, was revisited and corrected (where necessary), with new characters added and the weaker scenes given extra