Contest (novel)

Contest is the self-published first novel by Australian thriller writer Matthew Reilly. In 1996, after being rejected by several Australian publishing houses, Reilly personally paid for 1000 copies of the book to be published privately under the label of 'Karanadon Entertainment', and sold them himself.

Before publishing the novel in North America, Reilly rewrote most of the novel, placing the contest in the New York Library, rather than a fictitious library, and added descriptions of and encounters with the other contestants to improve his story.

Synopsis

The story focuses on Dr. Stephen Swain, a radiologist, who manages to fight off two gang members despite having no combat experience. While at home, Swain and his daughter Holly are teleported into the New York City Library. A mysterious alien named Selexin explains that Swain has been chosen to represent humans in a contest called the Presidian. The rules are simple: seven different intelligent beings are teleported into a place such as the Library, and must fight to the death. The last being standing must then find the teleporter that will take them out of the labyrinth. However, an animal called the Karanadon will also be in the labyrinth. The Karanadon was teleported into the Labyrinth a day before the contestants and has already killed Ryan, a security guard at the library. Swain has been chosen to represent Earth because of his natural fighting abilities, as demonstrated in the gang fight. Selexin's species is too small to compete, so they serve as guides and witnesses to a kill. If a contestant says "initialize" a tiny teleporter will appear from a cap on Selexin's head, allowing officials to see what is going on.

Novel

A novel is a long narrative, normally in prose, which describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story.

The genre has also been described as possessing "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years". This view sees the novel's origins in Classical Greece and Rome, medieval, early modern romance, and the tradition of the novella. The latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories, supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century. Ian Watt, however, in The Rise of the Novel (1957) suggests that the novel first came into being in the early 18th century,

Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era; the first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605.

The romance is a closely related long prose narrative. Walter Scott defined it as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents", whereas in the novel "the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society". However, many romances, including the historical romances of Scott,Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, are also frequently called novels, and Scott describes romance as a "kindred term". Romance, as defined here, should not be confused with the genre fiction love romance or romance novel. Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo."

Contest

Contest may refer to:

Geography

Ships

Books

Film and TV

Music

Acronyms

See also