Showdown

Über

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.