Matthew Reilly
“I sympathise greatly with this man. You want to kill a particular race, (or a character in Matthew's case), thinking it will make the world (or story in Matthew's case) a much better place, (or a much more interesting story in Matthew's case)... and people don't appreciate it! Its very annoying.”
Matthew Reilly is a (relatively) young Australian thriller writer born in Sydney in 1974. His books are best known for their explosions, car chases and break-neck pace. In fact, Reilly has been asked by authorities to stop making his books so fast, because 'enough people have broken their necks already'. In response to this, he wrote a novella, Hell Island, that blew their faces off. He writes mainly airport fiction. This means that the books are sold in dodgy, second-hand bookstores. Americans coming to Australia found them and read them, and the craze spread like a virus (Mind you, some of his books are thick enough to have wings stuck on the side and count as an Antonov An-225). Now, they've been translated into 18 languages (which include Yiddish, Old High German, and Arabic).
When asked to direct a film adaptation of one of Reilly's novels, Hollywood director Michael Bay declined, commenting; "Simply too many explosions for my taste." He then went off and cried in a corner.
Reilly invests a lot of time into research for his books. Whole chapters are used up to describe helicopters and automatic weapons, and almost always contain the words 'ultra futuristic' and 'mean-looking'. This has led to his reputation for being a glorified arms catalogue writer.
Reilithians[edit]
Reilly's books are enormously popular, so (naturally) he has his own crazed followers - the Reilithians. They formed shortly after the release of Contest, Reilly's first novel. The Reilithians used to be vast in number, but over time their population has diminished, mainly because of members gruesomely murdering each other for no apparent reason. It is unclear whether Matthew uses this theme in all of his books in memory of them, or whether they killed themselves to honor that theme.
But the Relithians weren't out of danger yet. After the release of 'Scarecrow' many avid Reilly fans couldn't cope with the death of an important character, and bombed several Dymocks stores before becoming Scientologists.
Matthew's Favourite Phrases[edit]
Scientists have begun to tally up the amount of times certain phrases appear in Matthew's books. These include, but are not limited to; 'for his/her part', 'wasn't going to make it' and 'the Maghook, which didn't exist in real life, magically saved him for the umpteenth time'.
Other honorable mentions include 'the plane exploded', 'his head exploded', and 'everything exploded'. The phrase "Jack West's mechanical arm saved him from the giant boulder," just missed out on an award (with 217 appearances)
Becoming Cool- A lesson in pictures[edit]
The nerdy picture is bigger to emphasise the nerdiness, while the cool picture is much smaller. Mr Reilly is undoubtedly much cooler next to the car than next to a computer screen. Such is life... sigh...
Hover Car Racer[edit]
The reactions to Reilly's book Hover Car Racer have been mixed. It was intended to be for younger readers and thus has copped some critisism....
“Where are all the f**king swear words??”
“WHY IS NOBODY DYING??”
“This is friggin awesome.”
“Hehehehe... I like the cars.”
“Bwah! Hawh! Hawh! He has the same name as me!”
“There is only one thing worse than a book with a golden cover that blinds you. And that is a book without a golden cover that blinds you.”
“Man, that bitch can drive!!!!”
“There's something very familiar about the main character and his car...”
“This is a *children's* book??”
“This is my favourite book. Where's the next book???”