AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW REILLY

WRITING SCARECROW AND THE ARMY OF THIEVES

SPOILER WARNING!

[WARNING—This interview contains SPOILERS from Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves. Be careful if you are reading it before you read the book!]

Matthew, your last three novels have featured Jack West Jr. What made you return to Shane Schofield, a.k.a. Scarecrow, whom—apart from his special mission in Hell Island—we haven’t seen since 2003’s Scarecrow?

When I was on tour with The Five Greatest Warriors, fans would always ask me, ‘When are we going to see a new Scarecrow novel?’ As I said to them back then, I have always wanted to return to Schofield, but I wanted to wait for two things: first, for the world to change, and second, I wanted to wait until I was ready to write about him again.

Let me backtrack a little. I really enjoyed writing Scarecrow. Really enjoyed it. With that book, I wanted to take the concept of the thriller novel to the ultimate extreme: to extremes of pace, action, thrills and sheer emotional rawness. Scarecrow was supposed to be an ultra-intense thriller. It was intense to read (yes, I received hate mail for the guillotine scene) and it was intense to write.

It was partly because of that intensity that I wrote the Jack West series, Seven Ancient Wonders, The Six Sacred Stones and The Five Greatest Warriors. They are not as severe as the Scarecrow novels (Schofield’s world is both harder and meaner than the one Jack West inhabits) and thus are very different to write. I like to think the Jack West books are more ‘adventure’ than ‘thriller’, and I will often recommend them to a parent looking for reading material for a younger teenager.

The other reason is that after September 11, 2001, the world changed, with America getting embroiled in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I didn’t want to set a Schofield novel in either of those two countries (although he did visit Afghanistan briefly in Scarecrow). The Jack West books, however, are about the small countries of the world standing up to the big ones, and post-9/11, this kind of story reflected how I perceived the world from 2001 to 2008. (The Jack West books also allow me to write about the mysteries of history, a topic that I love but which doesn’t quite fit in with Scarecrow’s world.)

But then came the extraordinary rise of China, exemplified by the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and China’s continued economic rise in the years since. This was the change I was waiting for. As you now know, having read the book, the rise of China is the basis for Calderon’s decades-long plan in Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves. So, I waited for the world to change and finally it did, providing me with a story I could put Shane Schofield in.

And so, after writing three Jack West books, I found myself thinking about Scarecrow again. And the main thing I thought was, How on Earth would he pull himself back together after the horrific death of Libby Gant in Scarecrow? This would be one of the key plotlines in Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves.

On that topic, did you spend more time thinking about his state of mind for this book?

I really did. In fact, I went even further than that. I thought, Who would be the worst possible villain he could face, given that he is probably still traumatised in some way? My answer: a villain who is an expert in psychological warfare and torture. A key event in Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves was always going to be the torture scene, where I hope readers will really worry that Marius Calderon has broken Scarecrow’s mind.

The notion of how Scarecrow fortified his mind—the idea of a loci of memory—was integral to this. I asked myself, How do you defeat an expert in the art of breaking people’s minds? My answer: you create a virtual vault in your mind. The flow-on question was even more interesting: by creating such a vault with a purging option, is it possible that you might forget loved ones?

I thought these were all good character issues that fans of Shane Schofield would really like to see explored. If I could weave them into a full-tilt, rampaging, action-packed plot, then I just might have something.

Speaking of the plot, how did you come up with the idea of the atmospheric weapon at the heart of the story?

Given the kind of novel that I write, I am always, well, looking for new ways to destroy the world. (If the CIA is tracking my Google searches, I am in so much trouble!)

I read a lot of non-fiction and, over the years, I have read a bit about the inventor Nikola Tesla. He was an absolutely brilliant man. (For a brief look at Tesla, check out the movie The Prestige, in which David Bowie plays him very well; it’s not a bad movie either). When I first came across the quote from Tesla in which he fears that he might ignite the atmosphere with his experiments—yes, it’s a real quote—my storytelling brain started ticking: Hmmm, ignite the atmosphere, you say . . .

I had actually intended to use the atmospheric device as an ancient weapon in a Jack West novel, but then in 2010 I got stranded in Singapore thanks to that volcanic ash cloud from Iceland that swept across Europe. Looking at the satellite images of the ash cloud, I thought of Tesla and asked myself, What if that ash cloud were flammable? And, Who would build a weapon that could ignite the northern hemisphere using such a cloud?

Of course, the answer was obvious. The Soviet Union would! And the good thing about the Soviets is that when they did something, they did it big. The story quickly followed: what if there were a long-abandoned Soviet base up in the Arctic that housed this terrible weapon and a band of terrorists decided to seize the base and set it off?

Tell us about the origin of the Army of Thieves?

Quite simply, I didn’t want my bad guys to be just a standard group of terrorists. I don’t like that kind of story. It’s also been done many times before.

I want twists, I want intrigue, I want deeper conspiracies. I thought the story would be a lot more interesting if this horribly violent yet very capable terrorist group might actually be part of a complex plan that originated nearly three decades ago.

I should also add that I wanted the Army of Thieves to be really, really nasty.

Good villains are hard to find. And when I decided to bring Scarecrow back in a new novel,* I wanted him to go up against totally impossible odds: a large, brutal and ruthless terrorist army. Even more, I wanted him to go up against this army with a group of civilians and not his usual band of battle-hardened Marines. Worse still, Scarecrow himself would be on an emotional razor’s edge when it all happened. All this is why Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves is rather visceral and, at times, quite violent; indeed, it is perhaps the most visceral and violent of all my books. I thought Scarecrow was pretty tough, but I think Thieves is tougher—it does, after all, have the torture scene, including the very gruesome rat torture.

But in the end, villains must be feared. Death must be feared. And death at the hands of these villains, this Army of Thieves, was always going to be really, really scary.

(*A quick note: I don’t consider Hell Island to be a full novel, and I think my fans think the same way. For the record, in my mind Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves follows on directly from Scarecrow. As far as Hell Island is concerned, even though it is a very cool and action-packed Scarecrow story, it was written as part of a special government-sponsored project in Australia, and did not get a release in the rest of the world. So, to me, Hell Island exists as a nice side adventure for Scarecrow and Mother, and a great short book for new readers who might wish to try my work. That said, just for the fans, I did mention the plot of Hell Island in passing in Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves. And for the eagle-eyed among you, Hell Island does provide the only crossover character between the Scarecrow and Jack West universes: the Marine named Astro.)

Technology seems to be developing so quickly—although everyone will be glad to see the return of the Maghook! Do you enjoy keeping up with the developing weaponry available to your characters?

I love discovering new high-tech weapons. Indeed, this was exactly why I put Schofield up in the Arctic with a equipment-testing team in this book! It gave me a chance to put the latest weapons and technology in his hands.

I am constantly on the lookout for new weapons and tech. Often I find out about new stuff just by reading the newspaper (this was how I found out about the explosive-resistant goo made by DSS; go online and check out the ‘before and after’ photos of a building that had the goo painted on one half of it; very cool).

Mind you, this also worked for Schofield’s character and this was very important to me. After the trauma he suffered in Scarecrow, I figured that the natural question a reader would ask is, Where would the Marine Corps put a Marine who might have become unstable? The answer: you send him to the Arctic to test some new weapons and devices.

It also allowed me to create Bertie. Bertie is loosely based on existing battlefield robots like the Talon, the Packbot, the SWORDS and one anti-explosives robot I saw at a military base, but as I often do, his capabilities have been augmented. Those other bots are not—so far as I know—capable of totally independent action, whereas Bertie is, and that’s what makes him a lot of fun to have around. I love the idea of this determined little robot that just never gives up.

As for the Maghook, I am its biggest fan. But I am also aware that I could easily overuse it, so I try to use it only for major moments in the story. That said, when I started writing Thieves, I found myself thinking that perhaps other armed forces might have developed their own, better, Maghooks by now, and thus we get to see the French version of it, Le Magneteux.

Your books keep getting bigger and faster, not to mention even more gruesome with your torture scenes! How do you keep defying expectations?

I only have one goal with each new book that I write: it must be better than the one that came before it. It must be faster or cleverer or more intense. It must, in some way, take the kind of story that I like telling to a new, never-before-seen level.

When I wrote Scarecrow, I set out to make it faster than anything I had read before. The Jack West books were more epic in their scale than anything I had done till then. With Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves, I was after a new level of pace and intensity—my motto was: ‘Leaner, meaner, faster!’

I like to think that one of my strengths as a novelist is that I have read lots of thrillers and seen nearly every action movie known to man. This means that I know what has been done before. If I ever find myself writing a scene and saying to myself ‘Oh, this was like that scene in . . .’ I immediately stop and re-conceive the scene. On the other hand, I love it when I am writing and saying to myself, ‘In all the many movies and books I have seen or read, I have never seen this before.’

That said, I do like to make references to some of my favourite 1980s action movies, and in Thieves I even mention one of my favourites, Predator. And my long-suffering wife, Natalie, will tell you that, like Mother, I think that music peaked in the 80s!

It was fantastic to see Mother again, but you also introduced us to a new character who is the male equivalent of her: Baba. Are we likely to meet with him again?

Ah, yes, Baba! I’m so pleased with how he turned out.

Part of the fun of writing a sequel is that you get to play with the characters you have a history with. Mother has been an awesome character to write about and she’s fun because she breaks all the rules of conventional society. She is a favourite among the fans (readers have said they will hunt me down if I ever kill her off), and her character is well known and much loved. As I thought about the story of Thieves, I decided that I wanted to test Mother by making her meet her male equivalent. And thus Baba was born. I also wanted Scarecrow to have a new, but edgier, female interest. To get that edge, I decided to make Veronique Champion and Baba assassins working for Scarecrow’s old enemy, the French, and to also make Veronique a relative of one of the French scientists killed in Ice Station, so that when she meets Schofield, all she has is hatred of him. If she is eventually going to like him, he is going to have his work cut out for him in winning her over.

You want to know a secret? After I delivered the manuscript for Thieves, Baba was the subject of some serious discussions with my editors in Australia, the UK and the US. My editors thought he perhaps should die, given that he had been shot so thoroughly on the megatrain, and that it might be a better story if he died heroically (and with the taste of Mother’s lips on his). I gave this serious thought but, in the end, I decided that he was too much fun to have around, and so I looked up blood-clotting agents and had Mother save him. So, yes, Baba will return, still chewing the scenery, drinking like a Viking and making love like a silverback gorilla!

And the rat torture. Can you take us through why and how you wrote that scene?

As I said earlier, I wanted Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves to be very visceral and graphic. The rat scene exemplifies this.

In the end, however, that scene was all about Mother’s and Baba’s characters: it’s about the lengths they are prepared to go to in order to avoid a horrible death. That turns out to be biting the heads off live rats. Unfortunately, that did require me to demonstrate to the reader just how horrible that kind of death was, and Jeff Hartigan was the unfortunate one to suffer for it.

My thanks to Alice Cooper for the inspiration!

And you have created a great new super-villain in Marius Calderon. Will we see him make a deadly comeback anytime soon?

The creation of Calderon was actually a big thing for me. In all his other outings, including Hell Island, Scarecrow killed the villain of the story. Now, sure, those villains deserved what they got, but I decided that it was time for Scarecrow to have a nemesis, a villain who could come back in future adventures if only just to mess up Scarecrow’s world. A Moriarty, so to speak, or a Blofeld.

This is why Calderon’s past is described is such detail in Thieves. He’s smart, he’s cunning, and he’s also ex-paramilitary, so he can hold his own physically, too. Having a villain like him around opens up my mind to new story possibilities. Right from the start, he was always going to survive Thieves, but when we see him again in a future book, he might have a totally new face.

I also loved writing that last page, where Scarecrow finds his scratched glasses on his pillow and so knows that Calderon has been in his room!

Any Hollywood news?

I wrote the first draft of the Scarecrow screenplay and now a new screenwriter has been brought in to rewrite my stuff. I’m not upset by this. It’s actually standard Hollywood procedure, especially on a movie as expensive as Scarecrow could be.

And Hover Car Racer is still ticking along with Disney. I am less involved in that project than I am with Scarecrow, but they were talking about directors a few months back. In the end, because of their scale, my books would make very expensive movies, and when studios make expensive movies, they want to get name actors and top directors, and to get those, you need a kick-ass screenplay. This means a bit of waiting, but I’m happy to wait . . . and keep writing new novels in the meantime.

So what is next—is it back to Jack West Jr or another Scarecrow novel?

Believe it or not, last year I actually wrote a whole new novel in secret. This book is also a little different: it’s a murder-mystery thriller set in the year 1550. Imagine ‘Matthew Reilly meets The Name of the Rose’! It may be set in the past, but it is whip-fast and definitely not for the squeamish.

Having said that, I do now find myself thinking about what to write next, and yes, that is a choice between Scarecrow and Jack. I have to admit I quite liked hanging out with Scarecrow and Mother again, and Baba is a lot of fun, too, so a new Scarecrow novel is currently looking good.

Any final words?

As always, I just hope the book took you away from the real world for a few days and showed you a good time. I hope you enjoyed Scarecrow’s big return.

Matthew Reilly
Sydney, Australia
October 2011

 

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, to 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.

‘edge-of-your-seat suspense’
DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘Matt Reilly, genius . . . the arrival of a rare talent’
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

‘A publishing phenomenon’
WEST AUSTRALIAN

 

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 . . .

‘action, action and more action’
DAILY TELEGRAPH

The pace is frantic, the writing snappy, the research thorough. Unputdownable’
WEST AUSTRALIAN

 

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 . . .

‘Matthew Reilly has really arrived’
DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘Reilly can be entered with deafening gunfire, in the Crichton/Grisham showcase’
WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

‘The action just keeps on coming . . . Michael Crichton meets Indiana Jones’
KIRKUS REVIEWS

 

Matthew Reilly
Area 7

It is America’s most secret base, a remote installation known only as Area 7.

And today it has a visitor: the President of the United States.

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. 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 . . .

‘a roller coaster ride’
WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

‘Buckle up, put the seat back, adjust the head-rest and hang on’
THE AGE

‘Enjoy, let it shred your mind’
BULLETIN

 

Matthew Reilly
Scarecrow

IT IS THE GREATEST BOUNTY HUNT IN HISTORY
There are 15 targets. And they must all be dead by 12 noon, today. The price on their heads: $20 million each.

ONE HERO
Among the names on the target list, one stands out. An enigmatic marine named Shane Schofield, call-sign: SCARECROW.

NO LIMITS
And so Schofield is hunted by gangs of international bounty hunters, including the ‘Black Knight’, a ruthless hunter who seems intent on eliminating only him.

He led his men into hell in Ice Station. He protected the President against all odds in Area 7. This time it’s different. Because this time SCARECROW is the target.

‘a metal storm of a book’
WEST AUSTRALIAN

‘Reilly is as amazing as his hero . . . a cracking pace’
MELBOURNE WEEKLY

‘The pace makes you giddy’
DAILY TELEGRAPH

 

Matthew Reilly
Seven Ancient Wonders

AN ANCIENT SECRET
Two thousand years ago, it was hidden within the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Now, in the present day, it must be found again . . .

ONE HERO TO FIND IT
Captain Jack West Jr – part soldier, part scholar, all hero. The odds are stacked against him and his loyal team: nine brave companions taking on the most powerful countries on earth.

AN ADVENTURE LIKE NO OTHER
From the pyramids of Egypt to the swamps of Sudan, to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the boulevards of Paris: the desperate race begins.

FOR A PRIZE WITHOUT EQUAL
The greatest prize of all: the power to end the world or to rule it.

AND SO THE GREAT ADVENTURE BEGINS

‘Reilly at his best . . . unrelenting menace and dangerous situations that unfold at breakneck pace’
DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘A story of such action-packed intensity as to make Raiders of the Lost Ark look like an outing for the Retired Archaeologists Pension Club’
THE AGE

 

Matthew Reilly
The Six Sacred Stones

THE END OF THE WORLD IS COMING
A mysterious ceremony at a hidden location has unlocked a catastrophic countdown to world annihilation.

ONE HERO
Now, to save the world, supersoldier Jack West Jr and his loyal team of adventurers must find and rebuild a legendary device known as ‘the Machine’.

SIX FABLED STONES
The only clues to locating this Machine are held within the fabled Six Sacred Stones, which are scattered around the globe. But Jack and his team are not the only ones seeking the Stones, there are other players involved who don’t want to see the world saved at all . . .

‘Nobody writes action like Matthew Reilly’
VINCE FLYNN

‘Reilly’s talent for coming up with ingenious new twists on every page is awesome. So are his characters’
GUARDIAN (UK)

‘Action, adventure and heroism of the Hollywood blockbuster ilk . . . escapism has no greater enthusiast than Reilly . . . The fact is he writes stories people want to read’
WEEKEND GOLD COAST BULLETIN

 

Matthew Reilly
The Five Greatest Warriors

THE END OF THE WORLD HAS ARRIVED
Jack West Jr and his loyal team have been separated, their mission is in ruins, and Jack was last seen plummeting down a fathomless abyss.

OCEANS WILL RISE, CITIES WILL FALL
After surviving his deadly fall, Jack must now race against his enemies to locate and set in place the remaining pieces of the Machine before the coming Armageddon.

WHO ARE THE FIVE WARRIORS?
Jack will learn of the individuals who throughout history have been most intimately connected to his quest, but not before he and his friends find out exactly what the end of the world looks like . . .

‘Ace of action . . . one of Australia’s most popular authors . . . The master of mass-market murder and mayhem’
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

‘Think of it as watching an Indiana Jones film on a moving roller coaster. For fans of action, this is essential reading’
LIBRARY JOURNAL (US)

‘Thrills and spills galore . . . A blinding read’
THE SUN (UK)