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 Gant! 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 never considered 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 Scarecrow. 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 Temple!
Any final words?
; As always, I just hope you enjoyed the book. Keep reading and take care.
Matthew Reilly
Sydney, Australia
November 2003
First published 2003 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
Published in Pan 2005 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney
Copyright © Karanadon Entertainment Pty Ltd 2003
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-publication data:
Reilly, Matthew, 1974–.
Scarecrow.
Scarecrow / Matthew Reilly
Reilly, Matthew, 1974–
Scarecrow series ; 3.
Assassins—Fiction.
A823.3
EPUB format: 9781742621944
Online format: 9781741977561
This is a work of fiction. Characters, corporations, institutions and organisations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.
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on behalf of Michael B. Yeats.
The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War by Robert Kaplan
Originally published in Atlantic Monthly, February 1994.
Copyright © 1994 by Robert Kaplan
Reprinted by permission of Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.
The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our
Country and Civilization by Patrick J. Buchanan.
Copyright © 2002 by Patrick J. Buchanan
Reprinted by permission of St Martin’s Press, LLC.
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Ice Station
THE DISCOVERY OF A LIFETIME
At a remote ice station in Antarctica, a team of US scientists has found something buried deep within a 100-million-year-old layer of ice. Something made of metal.
THE LAW OF SURVIVAL
In a land without boundaries, there are no rules. Every country would kill for this prize.
A LEADER OF MEN
A team of crack United States marines is sent to the station to secure this discovery. Their leader – Lieutenant Shane Schofield, call-sign: SCARECROW. They are a tight unit, tough and fearless. They would follow their leader into hell.
They just did . . .
‘It never slows down . . . it is unlike any other new Australian novel’
DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘The pace is frantic, the writing snappy, the research thorough. Unputdownable’
WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
Area 7
A HIDDEN LOCATION
It is America’s most secret base, a remote installation known only as Area 7.
THE VISITOR
And today it has a guest: 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 . . .
HIS SAVIOUR
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 . . .
‘Buckle up, put the seat back, adjust the headrest and hang on’
THE AGE
‘Enjoy, let it shred your mind’
BULLETIN
‘A roller coaster ride’
WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves
THE SECRET BASE
It is a former Soviet base known only as Dragon Island.
It houses a weapon of terrible destructive force . . .
that has just been re-activated.
A RENEGADE ARMY
The island has been seized by a brutal terrorist force calling itself the Army of Thieves, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.
ONE SMALL TEAM
There is an equipment-testing team up in the Arctic. It does not have the weaponry or strength to attack a fortified island held by a vicious army. But it is led by a Marine captain named Schofield, call-sign: SCARECROW. And Scarecrow will lead the team in anyway, because someone has to.
Hell Island
It is an island that doesn’t appear on any maps.
A secret place, where classified experiments have been carried out.
Experiments that have gone terribly wrong . . .
Four crack special forces units are dropped in. One of them is a team of Marines, led by Captain Shane Schofield, callsign: SCARECROW.
Nothing can prepare Schofield’s team for what they find there.
You could say they’ve just entered hell.
But that would be wrong.
This much, much worse.
‘A publishing phenomenon’
WEST AUSTRALIAN
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 solider, 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
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 should come with health warnings . . . not for the faint-hearted’
DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘Action, adventure and heroism of the Hollywood block
buster ilk . . . escapism has no greater enthusiast than Reilly . . . The fact is he writes stories people want to read’
WEEKEND GOLD COAST BULLETIN
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 many 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 will soon 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’
Scarecrow Page 37
