The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly

Literary Superstars got that close to the top of the mountain and fell to nothing. We had ABC and NBC in America both bid for that show. 'The strike lasted for five months, and my show died. Actor Jenna Elfman was attached to the project and other casting was well under way when the American Writers Guild went on strike. The one that hurts the most, though, was Literary Superstars, a script for a TV pilot set in the publishing industry that was picked up by Sex and the City producer Darren Star in 2007. His novels Ice Station, Scarecrow, The Great Zoo of China and Hover Car Racer were all optioned by Hollywood but stalled in various stages of development. There have been many false starts in Reilly's efforts to forge a film career. Loading YouTube content Slings and arrows of Hollywood Reilly is now published in more than 20 languages and has sold more than 7.5 million copies of his novels. Impressed by Reilly's chutzpah - and the draft of his next novel, Ice Station - she signed him to a two-book contract and the rest is history. It was there that it caught the eye of Cate Patterson, then a commissioning editor at Pan Macmillan Australia, which had previously rejected the novel.

He put enormous thought into the cover design so that it would sit comfortably alongside other contemporary action thrillers and convinced a bookstore in central Sydney to stock it. How he came to be represented by Pan MacMillan after putting out that novel himself is now the stuff of publishing legend.Īfter being rejected by every publisher he approached, he decided to self-publish Contest, taking out a loan to do so. Reilly wrote his first novel, Contest, at 19 while studying law at university.

This week, the 47-year-old author releases his 19th novel and the last in the popular Jack West Jr series. Reilly considers Back to the Future among his favourite films of all time.

The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly