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While the other kids of the neighbourhood were playing with Lego, Matthew Reilly was in his bedroom building movie sets for his action figures. He loved behind-the-scenes videos about how films were made.

"I wanted to be a film director. I wanted to make big action movies," Reilly says.

"I loved movies like Die Hard, Predator, Aliens, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Movies which were escapist, which took people away from the real world."

It was only in his teens that he realised no-one was going to give an enthusiastic amateur a big budget to make the films he wanted to direct.

It was far more practical to put his grand visions on paper than the screen and so he began to write.

"I realised I could have all the special effects and all the big blockbuster action I could dream of, and it didn't cost me a cent," Reilly tells Australian Story.