Three of Matthew Reilly’s books have been the highest selling Australian titles of their years of release – Seven Ancient Wonders (2005), The Five Greatest Warriors (2009) and The Tournament (2013).

Reilly has published stand-alone novels including Contest (1996), Temple (1999), The Tournament (2013), Troll Mountain (2014), and The Great Zoo of China (2014). Reilly has also published books in two series: the Shane Schofield book series includes Ice Station (1998), Area 7 (2001), Scarecrow (2003), Hell Island (2005) and Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves (2011); and the Jack West Jr series includes Seven Ancient Wonders (2005), The Six Sacred Stones (2007), The Five Greatest Warriors (2009), and The Four Legendary Kingdoms (2016).

Reilly’s writing career had an unconventional start. Following a string of rejections from major publishers, Reilly self-published his first novel, Contest, in 1996 with an initial print-run of 1000 copies. He approached Sydney bookstores, one at a time, to sell the book.

Reilly’s decision to self-publish paid off when a commissioning editor from Pan Macmillan Australia happened upon a copy of the novel in a Sydney bookstore and signed Reilly for a two-book deal. Two decades on, Reilly is an internationally acclaimed author of more than a dozen books. Reilly was born in on 2 July 1974 in Sydney, Australia and is now based in Los Angeles.