Matthew Reilly
Zoos have always fascinated me. What child hasn't wondered what would happen if all the animals escaped from the zoo? Or what would happen if they got caught in an enclosure?
I wasn't one of those kids who dreamed of writing novels when I was 8 or 12. I wanted to be a film director. I wanted to make big action movies. I loved movies like 'Die Hard,' 'Predator,' 'Aliens,' 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.'
I write about all manner of things: a guy fighting aliens in the New York State Library, Antarctica, Inca civilization in Peru, the Great Pyramid at Giza, and people often ask me, where do I get these ideas from? They come from reading widely, watching a lot of documentaries, and increasingly ,as I was able to, travelling around the world.
My first book, 'Contest,' had a guy fighting aliens in the New York Public Library. The second book, 'Ice Station,' and 'Temple' were present-day military thrillers.
Fantasy enabled me to break the shackles and create a whole new level of 'the world is in danger' stakes.
I imagine I'm a very unusual guy to date. You know, I've got toys on the shelves, and I've got the cars.
I'm very good at plot.
I've been around long enough now that people who don't get into the outrageousness, the over-the-top stuff, they know not to buy my books anymore.
I read 'The Hobbit' only when I was an adult. I had a lot of friends, teenagers, who discovered reading through 'The Hobbit,' but it wasn't something that I discovered until later in life.
I think 'The Time Traveler's Wife' is one of the most brilliantly marketed books I have ever seen.
In 'Seven Ancient Wonders,' Jack West and his team break someone out of Guantanamo Bay. I'm not going to preach to people and say, 'Guantanamo Bay, bad', but I will have my hero go and break somebody out of it, and maybe people will think about it that way.
What I do is write books for an audience that thinks in a movie language. That's the way I think, and I also believe that not enough authors keep up with the audience.
When I started writing, I was reading people such as Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton, who did 'Jurassic Park,' which is possibly the most action-filled book you'll read, apart from mine, and I said to myself, 'Why aren't these guys doing big-scale action like you would see in a movie?'
A friend's loyalty lasts longer than their memory. Over the course of a long friendship, you might fight with your friend, even get angry with them. But a true friend will forget that anger after a while, because their loyalty to their friend outweighs the memory of the disagreement.Collection: Loyalty
To anyone who knows a writer, never underestimate the power of your encouragement.Collection: Encouragement
There is no such thing as an "aspiring writer". You are a writer. Period.Collection: Writing
There’s an Oriental saying I like: “If aggression meets empty space it tends to defeat itself.Collection: Space
I have both held and beheld unlimited power and of it I know but one thing. It drives men mad.' - Alexander the GreatCollection: Men
One of the things I have come up against time and again in my career is the notion that because a book is easy to read it was somehow easy to write.Collection: Book
We didn’t come this far just to come this far.Collection: Persistence