Alex Rider

For the title character of the series, see Alex Rider (character).

Alex Rider

File:Names of all the books in the Alex Rider series.
Stormbreaker Point Blanc Skeleton Key Eagle Strike Scorpia Ark Angel Snakehead Crocodile Tears Scorpia Rising
Author	Anthony Horowitz
Country	United Kingdom
Genre	Spy fiction, thriller
Publisher	Walker Books (UK) Puffin (US,CAN) Philomel (US)
Published	2000-2011
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback) Nintendo DS GameBoy Advance DVD

Alex Rider is a series of spy novels by British author Anthony Horowitz about a 14-15 year old spy named Alex Rider. The series is aimed primarily at young adults. Nine novels have been published to date, as well as three graphic novels, three short stories and a supplementary book. The first novel, Stormbreaker, was first released in the United Kingdom in 2000 and was adapted into a motion picture in 2006. A video game was released in 2006, based on the film. The novels are published by Walker Books in the United Kingdom. They were first published by Puffin in the United States, but have also been published more recently by Philomel, also an imprint of Penguin Books. The graphic novels are published by Walker in the United Kingdom, and by Philomel in the United States.

Novels

Stormbreaker

Main article: Stormbreaker (novel)

Alex, the main character, is recruited by the British secret service after discovering his uncle's assasination.

Point Blank

Main article: Point Blanc

Point Blanc ( originally Point Blank in North America) was published in 2001. Alex investigates Dr Hugo Grief, a South African scientist who runs Point Blanc, an academy in the French Alps. Dr Grief is replacing the sons of rich, influential people with clones of himself, which have been modified to look like the boys themselves, through plastic surgery, so that he himself will be in these positions of power. It's a matter of life and death for Alex, who must escape from the academy and find a way down the very snowy slope, without getting himself killed.

Skeleton Key

Main article: Skeleton Key (novel)

Skeleton Key was published in 2002. After foiling a Triad plot to fix the 2001 Wimbledon tennis tournament, Alex is in grave danger of assassination. Forced to leave the country, MI6 sends him on a mission to Cuba with two CIA agents (one of which believes that he is useless), where he is the only one of the three to survive. He encounters a former Soviet general, Alexei Sarov, with plans for a nuclear holocaust, starting at the Russian nuclear submarine base in Murmansk, and world domination.

Eagle Strike

Main article: Eagle Strike

Eagle Strike was published in 2003. Damian Cray, a world-famous pop star, hopes to destroy the world's drug-making countries by hijacking the United States' nuclear arsenal. Suspicious of him, Alex takes Cray on without the help of the skeptical MI6. Cray releases a state-of-the-art games console called the 'Gameslayer'. Its first game, 'Feathered Serpent', is much more than it seems. Alex finds the Sloterdijk factory near Amsterdam in Holland and makes an important discovery. He battles the real-life reconstruction of 'Feathered Serpent' at the factory, before being captured by Cray himself. At the end of the novel, whilst refusing to shoot and kill Alex, Yassen Gregorovich is murdered by Cray. However, Cray meets a gruesome end.

Scorpia

Main article: Scorpia (novel)

Scorpia was published in 2004. Following the advice of the assassin Yassen Gregorovich, Alex tries to find the criminal organization "Scorpia" to find out the truth about his father. Little does Alex know, he is soon whisked into Scorpia where he discovers his dark side. Alex meets one of the leaders of Scorpia, Julia Rothman, who is in charge of a terrible weapon that would instantly kill thousands of innocent London schoolchildren in a matter of seconds. He tries to destroy this weapon high above London, and is shot by a Scorpia sniper outside the MI6 headquarters at the end of the novel, which leads to the beginning of the next book in the series, Ark Angel.

Ark Angel

Main article: Ark Angel

Ark Angel, published in 2005, follows Alex's second mission for the C.I.A. He investigates Nikolei Drevin who builds a hotel in outer space called "Ark Angel". Drevin secretly tries to destroy Washington D.C., the capital of the U.S.A and targets the Pentagon, hoping to destroy files on him that the U.S. have acquired. Alex Rider has to fight for his life in this great Alex Rider novel.

Snakehead

Main article: Snakehead (novel)

Snakehead was published in 2008. Taking place immediately after Ark Angel, the novel sees Alex recruited by ASIS, Australia's secret service, to infiltrate a Snakehead organisation by posing as an Afghan refugee. Alex meets his godfather, Ash (Anthony Sean Howell), and confronts the organization Scorpia for the second time.

Crocodile Tears

Main article: Crocodile Tears (novel)

Crocodile Tears was published in 2010. While taking a vacation with Sabina Pleasure in Scotland, Alex is rudely interrupted by an assassination attempt that nearly kills Sabina's father. The culprit is soon revealed to be corrupted rescue agency called "First Aid". Alex must now embark on a mission to stop their next money-making scheme, involving a terrible man-made drug epidemic.

Scorpia Rising

Main article: Scorpia Rising

Scorpia Rising, the ninth and final novel, was published on 21 March 2011. In the book, Scorpia is hired to return the Elgin marbles to Greece. Their plan includes the laying of a false trail to Cairo, killing Alex, and blackmailing London into returning the Marbles. MI6 falls for the trap and Alex is sent to Cairo, where, unbeknown to Alex, Scorpia is pulling the strings.

Future

Originally, Yassen was to follow Snakehead as the eighth book, and would be the final Alex Rider novel. However, Horowitz rethought this idea, following negative responses during school visits. Crocodile Tears was instead released as the eighth book, in November 2009. According to the acknowledgements at the end of Scorpia Rising, Horowitz still plans to release Yassen.

Franchise

Novels

1. Stormbreaker (4 September 2000)
2. Point Blanc (3 September 2001) (entitled Point Blank in the United States)
3. Skeleton Key (8 July 2002)
4. Eagle Strike (7 April 2003)
5. Scorpia (1 April 2004)
6. Ark Angel (1 April 2005)
7. Snakehead (31 October 2007)
8. Crocodile Tears (12 November 2009)
9. Scorpia Rising (21 March in Australia/22 March 2011 in the US/31 March in the UK)

Supplementary books

• Alex Rider: The Gadgets (17 October 2005)
• Alex Rider: The Mission Files (6 October 2008)

Short stories

• Alex Rider: Secret Weapon (9 February 2003)
• Alex Rider: Christmas at Gunpoint (1 January 2007)
• Alex Rider: Incident in Nice (9 November 2009)
• Alex Underground
• Resistance to Interrogation, an extra chapter in Stormbreaker

Films

• Stormbreaker (21 July 2006) (retitled Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker in the United States)

Video games

• Alex Rider: Stormbreaker (25 September 2006)

Reception

So far, the series has had 12 million sales worldwide. The third novel, Skeleton Key, was awarded the Red House Children's Book Award.

Influence

In the years following the release of Stormbreaker, many other book series by British authors aimed at young readers and featuring teenage spies as their main characters have been published, notably A. J. Butcher's Spy High, Joe Craig's Jimmy Coates, Charlie Higson's Young Bond, Robert Muchamore's CHERUB & Henderson's Boys, Sam Hutton's Special Agents, Andy McNab & Robert Rigby's Boy Soldier and Chris Ryan's Alpha Force & Code Red. While it is unknown how much Anthony Horowitz's books have influenced the writing and publishing of these books, one can safely speculate that the success of the Alex Rider books contributed to some extent to the commissioning and/or acceptance of some/all of these book series by publishing houses.

External links

• Official website of the books
• Archive of Official website of the film by Internet Archive
• Official Penguin website of the books