There will come a time when he will come,
A man, a hero, beholden of the Mark of the Sun.
He will have the courage to do battle with great lizards,
He will have the jinga,
He will enjoy the aid of bravehearted men,
Men who would give of their lives, in honour of his noble cause,
And he will fall from the sky in order to save our spirit.
He is the Chosen One.
I ask myself, am I a 'bravehearted man'?
It is strange most strange, but now, after all that I have been through, I actually think that I am.
Worthy adventurer, this tale is at an end.
May these writings find you in good health and I wish you every happiness in life and love.
Farewell.
Race sat in the back of the Goose, staring at the last page of Alberto Santiago's notebook.
He was pleased that the kind-hearted monk had found happiness after his adventure. He deserved it.
Race thought about Santiago's transformation—his transformation from timid monk to stalwart defender of the idol.
Then Race looked at the prophecy again and thought about Renco. And then for some reason that he couldn't fathom, he began to think about the similarities between Renco and himself.
They both bore the Mark of the Sun.
And they had both fought with caimans, and they had each displayed cat-like balance and movement.
Both of them had most certainly enjoyed the aid of brave- hearted men, and they had both risked their lives for their cause.
And lastly, of course, they had both fallen from the— Wait a second, Race thought.
Renco had never fallen from the sky…
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Have you always wanted to be a writer?
I guess I always liked to write, but it wasn't until I actually began writing my first novel, Contest, that I realized that I wanted to be a writer. I was studying at university at the time, and I took to writing the book in my spare time. I soon found that I'd start writing at nine in the morning and suddenly it would be seven at night—and yet it felt like barely five minutes had passed! That was when I knew I was a writer.
Early signs were: in Second Grade at school I set out to write the novelisation of the original Star Wars. It was going to be the longest story ever written by a seven-year-old. I got to page 2 and gave up. But the intention was there! And during the HSC, for a three-page 'creative writing' assignment I wrote a story which had a twist in the last line. I think that says something.
When did you begin writing your first novel, Contest?
I wrote Contest in my first year out of high school. I was 19 when I started it and 20 when I finished it. My motivation at the time was to write a book that was all action—action from start to finish—a book that thrust the reader back into his or her chair because of the sheer pace of the storytelling.
To be quite honest, I'd been finding that the books I was reading were too slow, or taking too long between action scenes. I also saw no reason why books couldn't have really massive action scenes, action scenes that were even bigger than those you see in blockbuster Hollywood movies.
Movies are constrained by budgets. But with books, the limit of your budget is the limit of your/magination. I like to think I have a big imagination.
What is Contest about?
Contest is the story of a man who is placed inside the New York State Library and told that he has been chosen to rep resent the human race in a contest that is held once every thousand years. He is told that six aliens have been placed inside the building with him and that all the entrances and exits to the building have been sealed. No-one is allowed out until only one contestant is left alive. Seven enter, only one leaves. In other words, it's a good old-fashioned fight- to-the-death. Lots of really scary aliens and clever escapes.
More so even than either Ice Station or Temple, I like to think of Contest as a roller-coaster ride on paper, a non-stop series of hold-your-breath, foot-to-the-floor thrills. The movie version will be great—kind of like Die Hard meets Aliens.
What led you to self-publish Contest?
Simple. I offered it to every major publisher in Sydney and they all rejected it! What drove me to go down the path of self-publishing was my desire to see it get picked up. I honestly thought it had the goods and, on top of that, I kind of thought that the publishers I'd offered it to hadn't given it a fair go (some, I am certain, didn't even read it).
So I figured that I had to get the attention of a major publisher some other way. I reasoned that publishers go to bookstores to see where their books are placed etc, so if I could get Contest onto the shelves of major bookstores, maybe someone in the publishing industry would see it.
And so, with the help of my brother, Stephen, I published Contest myself—complete with blockbuster-style
