Hell Island

INTRODUCTION

It may surprise some people, but of all the books I’ve written, Hell Island has been the most rewarding. Allow me to explain.

As many readers will notice immediately, it is a lot shorter than my other novels. But there’s a reason for this.

Hell Island was originally written for an Australian Government initiative called Books Alive, the objective of which was to get Australians into bookstores and reading more. I was approached to write a short novel, no longer than 110 pages, that would be given away to Australians for free for a month. I thought this was a fantastic idea and jumped at the chance.

I wrote Hell Island.

More than that, I set out to write 110 pages of the most kick-butt, over-the-top, blindingly fast action I could. It’s not often you get a chance to show your stuff to the general population for free, so I seized the opportunity with both hands.

Anyway, the initiative was a roaring success, with over a quarter of a million copies of Hell Island given away. (While Australian readers received the book for free, within days of its release, copies of the book found their way onto eBay, where Aussies were selling them to my American fans for fifty bucks!)

In the time since Hell Island’s original release, though, something strange has happened.

When I do book signings, I often ask my readers, “So, which was the first book of mine that you read?” The most common replies used to be Ice Station or Contest.

But these days, it’s Hell Island.

And I think the reason is: It’s short.

My books have a huge success rate with getting reluctant readers (especially teenage boys) into reading. And when you offer a reluctant reader a short novel, they think: Okay, it’s only 110 pages, I can manage that.

And since Hell Island is a non-stop rampage of all-out action from start to finish—with special forces soldiers going up against an unstoppable and pitiless enemy—the reluctant reader gets into it, enjoys it, and goes on to try a full-length novel. And thus a new reader is created. This is why Hell Island has been so rewarding for me.

Hell Island was an absolute blast to write and the response to it has exceeded my wildest expectations—so much so, in fact, that I’ve actually written another short novel recently.

But that’s enough from me. Now, on with the show…