ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, IF YOU NEED HELP, JUST MAKE THE CALL AND I'LL BE THERE.
YOUR FRIEND,
THE BLACK KNIGHT
P.S. I AM SURE SHE IS WATCHING OVER YOU RIGHT NOW.
Schofield folded up the card. And stood up.
And started walking out of the yard and down the driveway, heading for his car out on the street.
'Hey!' Mother called, concerned. 'Where are you going, champ?'
Schofield turned to her and smiled—a sad but genuine smile. 'Thank you, Mother. Thank you for worrying about me. I promise, you won't have to do it for too much longer.'
'What are you doing?'
'What am I doing?' he said. 'I'm going to try and start living again.'
The next morning he appeared at the personnel offices of Marine Headquarters in the Navy Annex building in Arlington.
'Good morning, sir,' he said to the Colonel in charge. 'My name is Captain Shane Schofield. The Scarecrow. I'm ready to get back to work.'
AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW REILLY
THE WRITING OF SCARECROW
[WARNING—Some of the later questions in this interview address plot points in Scarecrow. Be careful if you are reading them before you read the book!]
What were you trying to achieve with this new novel?
From the very beginning, I was aware that Scarecrow would be closely compared to my other books. This is natural—hey, as soon as you write two books, people automatically compare them and decide which is their favourite. With that in mind, what I really wanted was for Scarecrow to be seen as a new kind of Matthew Reilly novel, a faster book, a book that was more densely packed with plot: a book that was a stylistic leap forward from my previous efforts. I'm hoping people will see Contest, Ice Station, Temple and Area 7 as 'Matthew Reilly Version 1.0' and Scarecrow as the beginning of 'Matthew Reilly Version 2.0'.
It's funny, in the interview at the back of Area 7, I mentioned that I wanted to create a new level of speed and pace in my next book—and then I'd meet people at book signings and they'd say 'How are you possibly going to make it faster? I like to think that Scarecrow has lived up to the promise of being faster and completely out-of-control!
How have you tried to achieve this?
Mainly by combining action and exposition—I wanted my characters to be running away from the bad guys while they were figuring stuff out. A lot of thrillers have rest breaks between the action scenes during which the author spells out the plot. I wanted to fuse the action and the plot advancement together. The result is that
Scarecrow is about the same length as Area 7, but has a lot more happening in it.
What was the inspiration for the bounty hunters in Scarecrow?
It's odd, you know, but for me bounty hunters have only ever appeared in two storytelling spheres: westerns and the original Star Wars trilogy (I haven't read any of Janet Evanovich's books, but I believe her lead character is a bounty hunter).
The idea of international bounty hunters, with their own planes and units and even submarines, was something I adapted from the (real-life) concept of mercenary forces: private armies that sell themselves and their hardware to the highest bidder. In Australia, such forces got a lot of press when Papua New Guinea engaged a mercenary army a few years ago; I also read about them operating in Sierra Leone, helping the government stay in power in exchange for diamonds.
In addition to this, I have always been intrigued by the concept of the Wild West freelance bounty hunter, a concept which was adapted to a sci-fi environment in the Star Wars trilogy, in particular The Empire Strikes Back. Indeed, this is why Demon Larkham's gang—the Intercontinental Guards, Unit 88, or 'IG-88'—is proudly named after the obscure bounty hunter of the same name in The Empire Strikes Back. (For those who don't know, IG-88 was the very tall robot bounty hunter who stands in the background as Darth Vader offers a reward for the bounty hunter who finds the Millennium Falcon. IG-88 utters no dialogue, nor does he actually move, but he became one of those cult Star Wars action figures— probably because he was always the one left on the shelf!).
In any case, the idea of these elite hunters-of-men really appealed to me, and I wanted to fashion a story whereby my hero, Shane Schofield—an able warrior himself—was being pursued by the best manhunters on the planet. And thus Scarecrow was born.
Speaking of bounty hunters, you introduce in Scarecrow a character named Aloysius Knight, a.k.a. the Black Knight. What lay behind his creation?
I had a lot of fun creating Aloysius Knight. From the start, he was designed to be Schofield's darker shadow, his amoral twin (he even has an eye dysfunction to match Schofield's). I wanted him to be the equal of Schofield in battle skills, but darker, more ruthless—as shown, for example, when we first meet him at Krask-8, when he kills the pleading mercenary in cold blood.
But most of all, I wanted Knight to be a guy whose reputation preceded him. The men of ExSol are worried that he's coming to Siberia. David Fairfax discovers that he's the second-best bounty hunter in the world—at a time when Knight is standing right in front of Schofield.
As a writer, it's very liberating to create characters such as Knight— it's the same with Mother—because you can do all sorts of things with him. For the simple reason that there are no boundaries. Characters like Knight and Mother are not governed by socially acceptable norms, and so are fun to write about. They swear, they kill bad people, they do crazy things. But having said that, there is one special thing common to both Mother and Knight: their loyalty to their friends—Mother to Schofield, and Knight to his pilot, Rufus. However wild and crazy they may be, they stand by their friends.
As an interesting aside, Knight is named after St Aloysius (pronounced allo-wishus) Gonzaga, a Jesuit saint and the namesake of my old high school, St Aloysius' College, in Sydney.
[THIS QUESTION CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS]
Okay. To the big question: how could you kill Gantl Seriously, Scarecrow sees some of the biggest 'character moments' you've written. What made you make those choices?
You cannot believe how hard that scene was for me to write. Unlike other characters who have met their end in my previous books, Gant had been with me for two-and-a-half books, and I virtually considered her a member of the family. I've neverConsidered myself to be an emotional, fall-in-love-with-my-characters kind of writer, but I remember vividly the day I wrote that terrible scene—I recall physically standing up from my computer and saying (aloud, to my empty office) 'Can I really do this?'
And so I thought about it. A lot. But then I said to myself 'No. This is what makes my novels different to other kinds of books. No character is safe. I've got to hold my nerve.'
It took me another day before I could sit down and actually type the scene, but I did. In the end, though, this is the essential feature of the action-thriller novel—the reader must believe that the hero and his friends might not make it.
Ultimately, however, it was a 'character motivation' thing that made me go through with killing Libby Gant. I decided that I wanted to see what would happen to the hero, Schofield, if such a terrible thing happened. What that led to was one of my favourite scenes in all of my books: the fistfight between Schofield and Mother (I don't know about you, but ever since I created them, I have wondered who would win a fight between Schofield and Mother: in the end, the answer is Schofield).
How do you interact with your military advisors?
This is a good question. My two military guys, Paul Woods and Kris Hankison, are two of the most knowledgable men I've ever known. And their input into my books has been beyond value, for the simple reason that no matter how much research you do on a given topic, someone 'in the industry' will always be able to give you that little bit of nuance, that little bit extra. That is what Paul and Kris do for me on military matters.
That said, sometimes the dictates of my story mean that I have to say to them, 'Sorry, guys, but I'll have to invoke poetic licence on this point.' A good example is the big MOAB bomb in Scarecro
w. MOABs are actually satellite-guided, but my story required Gant to place a laser inside the Karpalov Coalmine. So, despite the protests of the guys, I made the MOAB laser-guided.
The best thing about my military advisors is that they have a keen sense of the tone of my books—they know that my novels are outrageous and over-the-top. So they accept that I sometimes have to bend the truth (and, hell, the laws of physics!) for the sake of a roller-coaster story.
Matthew. The French. They were the bad guys in Ice Station. And now Scarecrow. What have you got against the French?
Ha! Er, yes, the French do cop a bit of a pasting in Scarecrow. You have to understand, though, that I don't dislike France. Not at all!
What it boils down to is this: I write fiction. And I'm always looking for new dastardly villains. Back in the days of the Cold War, authors could just make the Soviet Union the evil bad guy. But that doesn't apply anymore. The world has changed. The way I see it— and as I suggested in Ice Station—international alliances are more fickle than we imagine. And France, more than any other major
Western nation, has been a vocal and active opponent of United States hegemony. Since Shane Schofield is American, France is often at cross-purposes with him.
Add to that France's chequered geopolitical history—the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, her nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean, and her outspoken opposition to the US invasion of Iraq—and you have a nation that could, in the world of fiction, have nefarious anti-US plans.
But I stress: it's fiction!
So what else have you been doing?
Since finishing Scarecrow, I have completed two screenplays. I enjoy writing scripts in between my books—a novel takes me a year to write, whereas a screenplay takes me about two months. I adapted my own short story, Altitude Rush, into a full-length screenplay, and have finished the first part of an epic science fiction trilogy that I think will rock the world one day!
Any more books on the way?
Yes indeed. Earlier this year I signed a new two-book deal with my publishers, Pan Macmillan, so there will be at least two more books from me. I have now moved to producing one book every two years—I would love to be able to produce a book every year, but I fear the quality would suffer and I just don't want to end up churning out books simply to keep to a timetable.
Not sure what they'll be about at this stage. One will probably be a Schofield book, although maybe Aloysius Knight could get a novel of his own. And I keep getting asked at book signings if I will be writing a sequel to Templel
Any final words?
As always, I just hope you enjoyed the book. Keep reading and take care.
Matthew Reilly Sydney, Australia November 2003
Matthew Reilly Contest
The New York State Library. A brooding labyrinth of towering bookcases, narrow aisles and spiralling staircases. For Doctor Stephen Swain and his daughter, Holly, it is the site of a nightmare. For one night this historic building is to be the venue for a contest. A contest in which Swain is to compete - whether he likes it or not.
The rules are simple. Seven contestants will enter. Only one will leave. With his daughter in his arms, Swain is plunged into a terrifying fight for survival. He can choose to run, hide or to fight - but if he wants to live, he has to win. For in this contest, unless you leave as the victor, you do not leave at all.
'Matt Reilly, genius ... the arrival of a rare talent' John Birmingham, the Sydney morning herald
'An electrifying . . . novel for the X-Files generation' Jessica Adams, cleo
'Matthew Reilly is our Michael Crichton'
DAILY TELEGRAPH
Matthew Reilly Ice Station
At a remote ice station in Antarctica, a team of US scientists has made an amazing discovery. They have found something buried deep within a 100-million-year-old layer of ice. Something made of METAL.
Led by the enigmatic Lieutenant Shane Schofield, a team of crack United States Marines is sent to the station to secure this discovery for their country. They are a tight unit, tough and fearless. They would follow their leader into hell. They just did ...
'The pace is frantic, the writing snappy, the research thorough. Unputdownable . . .'
WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
'It never slows down ... it is unlike any other new Australian novel'
DAILY TELEGRAPH
'There is enough technological wizardry, military know-how, plot convolution and sheer non-stop mayhem to place it in the premier league of international bestsellers'
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN
'His publisher compares him to Grisham and Crichton, but I reckon the 23-year-old is a cut above'
RALPH
'This is Indiana Jones goes to Antarctica .. . backed by good research about weaponry, science and international jealousies'
NW
Matthew Reilly Temple
Deep in the jungles of Peru, the hunt for a legendary Incan idol is underway - an idol that in the present day could be used as the basis for a terrifying new weapon.
Guiding a US Army team is Professor William Race, a young linguist who must translate an ancient manuscript which contains the location of the idol.
What they find is an ominous stone temple, sealed tight. They open it -and soon discover that some doors are meant to remain unopened . . .
There is no denying it. Matthew Reilly has really arrived'
DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Like Ice Station, Temple is well researched and technically adept. Diehard action buffs will enjoy'
WHO WEEKLY
'Probably the most breathless read in the history of airport fiction'
AUSTRALIAN BOOKSELLER & PUBLISHER
Matthew Reilly Area 7
It is America's most secret base, hidden deep in the Utah desert, an Air Force installation known only as Area 7.
And today it has a visitor: the President of the United States. He has come to inspect Area 7, to examine its secrets for himself. But he's going to get more than he bargained for on this trip. Because hostile forces are waiting inside ...
Among the President's helicopter crew, however, is a young Marine. He is quiet, enigmatic, and he hides his eyes behind a pair of silver sunglasses.
His name is Schofield. Call-sign: Scarecrow.
Rumour has it he's a good man in a storm.
Judging by what the President has just walked into, he'd better be...
THE AUTHOR OF ICE STATION IS BACK AND THRILLERS JUST GOT A WHOLE LOT FASTER.
'Buckle up, put the seat back, adjust the headrest and hang on'
THE SUNDAY AGE
'Australia's new master of action'
DAILY TELEGRAPH
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