Teenage superspy Alex Rider is plotting a return to the screen. But it will be the small screen this time. Deadline reports that Sony has boarded Eleventh Hour Films' 8-episode miniseries adaptation of Anthony Horowitz's second Alex Rider novel, Point Blanc. (In America it was published as Point Blank, effectively crushing Horowitz's titular pun... probably on the same insulting assumption that Americans can't pronounce French words that led to Casino Royale initially being published in paperback here as You Asked For It.) The first Rider novel, Stormbreaker, was adapted into the 2006 feature film Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker (review here), starring Alex Pettyfer, which fizzled at the U.S. box office after being terminally mishandled by The Weinstein Company. Eleventh Hour (Foyle's War) is Horowitz's wife's production company, and they've been trying to jumpstart new screen adventures for the hero of Horowitz's immensely popular YA spy series for a while now. Last year, ITV (home of wildly successful Horowitz-created dramas like Foyle's War and Midsummer Murders) had been in talks to produce an Alex Rider TV series, but they are no longer involved. According to the trade, Eleventh Hour developed the new project on spec, and Sony will fully fund and look for broadcast or platform partners. Guy Burt (The Bletchley Circle) will pen the adaptation. Horowitz, who adapted Stormbreaker himself for the 2006 film, will executive produce.
Anthony Horowitz is one of Britain's most prolific and successful writers, straddling multiple mediums and somehow always hitting a home run. He created the excellent wartime mystery drama Foyle's War (starring GoldenEye's Michael Kitchen), which frequently featured espionage plots before morphing into a full-fledged spy drama as WWII ended in its timeline and the Cold War dawned. In a stroke of genius, Horowitz had the bright idea to combine James Bond with Harry Potter to create a YA sensation in the Alex Rider series, often turning to Ian Fleming for inspiration. Stormbreaker was largely modeled on Fleming's Moonraker plot (a wise idea, since kids were unlikely to be familiar with that since the movie was so different), and Point Blanc was a loose reworking of On Her Majesty's Secret Service (another safe bet since it's the film kids would be least likely to have seen). This approach evidently caught the eye of Ian Fleming Publications, who not only sought to create their own YA series with Charlie Higson's Young Bond books, but also eventually hired Horowitz to pen two official, adult James Bond continuation novels, Trigger Mortis and Forever And a Day. (I hope there will be more!) Horowitz has also produced bestselling Sherlock Holmes continuation novels as well as original adult mystery novels like Magpie Murders and The Word is Murder.
I really hope this new television take on Alex Rider proves successful and leads to adaptations of all the books!
Connecticut-based publisher Easton Press, who specialize in high-end, leather-bound limited editions, has just announced a beautiful new signed edition of Anthony Horowitz's bestselling 2015 James Bond continuation novel Trigger Mortis. The Easton edition is the same dimensions as the first American edition, but bound in leather with 22kt gold accents and a hubbed spine. The pages, printed on acid-neutral paper, are sewn, and there's a ribbon bookmark sewn in as well. Easton are no strangers to James Bond. In 1990 the publisher produced a gorgeous illustrated, leather-bound edition of From Russia With Love as a one-off; later that decade they created slip-cased facsimiles of all the Ian Fleming UK firsts as "The James Bond First Edition Library," and in 2005 produced "The Complete James Bond Collector's Edition," a beautiful leather-bound set of all 14 Fleming novels. Both of those sets, long out of print, are now highly sought after collectors' items, selling for many times the publisher's original price.
It's unclear what the limitation is on Easton's Trigger Mortis, but the signed volume is available from the publisher's website for three monthly installments of $44 until the edition sells out. Unfortunately, signed books cannot be shipped to California because of a well-intentioned but idiotically executed law passed in 2015, which is sure to annoy a lot of fans.
Other notable Easton Press spy titles over the years include leather editions of John le Carré's A Perfect Spy (this is a really cool book, with a "secret code"-themed pattern on the cover), William F. Buckley, Jr.'s Saving the Queen, Robert Ludlum's The Parsifal Mosaic and James Grady's Six Days of the Condor. Last year they produced a beautiful set of le Carré's "Karla Trilogy," featuring a Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy signed by the author that also comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by (and this is neat) both le Carré (a pen name) and David Cornwell (his real name). This set is still available.
Ian Fleming Publications announced today that Alex Rider and Foyle's War creator Anthony Horowitz, who penned the well-received 2015 James Bond continuation novel Trigger Mortis, will write another 007 novel for publication in Spring of 2018. The project will also mark the return of Bond to the publisher most associated with the series, Jonathan Cape. Cape published all of Ian Fleming's original 007 novels, and more recently William Boyd's 2013 one-off continuation Bond novel Solo.
Like Trigger Mortis, Horowitz's next, still untitled Bond novel will again be a period piece set during the timeline of Fleming's original novels, and will once again, according to The Bookseller, "feature previously unpublished material by Fleming." (Trigger Mortis incorporated a racing sequence based on an unused Fleming outline for an episode of a never-made James Bond television series.) Horowitz will be the first continuation author to pen more than one novel since Raymond Benson ended his tenure as Bond's official chronicler in 2002. While Benson and John Gardner before him each wrote many entries in the series, Since 2008, the Fleming Estate has instead (until now) opted to hire big name authors on a single book basis for the main series of adult James Bond novels. (Spin-offs, however, like Young Bond and the wrongfully forgotten Moneypenny Diaries--both excellent series--saw the same authors pen multiple titles.) If you ask me, Horowitz is an excellent choice to take of the mantle of Bond's official chronicler! Trigger Mortis was excellent, as was his series of Bond-inspired teen spy novels featuring Alex Rider. And Foyle's War (starring Brosnan-era Bill Tanner Michael Kitchen) was simply one of the best TV dramas ever. I look forward to reading Horowitz's next James Bond novel, and hope it's only the next of many more to come!
Author and TV producer Anthony Horowitz (Foyle's War) gave a spoiler-filled interview with The Mail promoting his new James Bond novelTrigger Mortis, and in it he says that his popular teen spy character Alex Rider may soon return. Rider was very publicly retired in Horowitz's 2011 novelScorpia Rising, which was subtitled "The Final Mission" and billed as a definitive swan song for the boy agent. But now the author tells the tabloid he will return in a surprisingly political (and now historical) scenario. In the midst of discussing his disillusionment with Tony Blair and disgust with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Horowitz told the Mail, "I’m going to write a new novella – my 'Octopussy.' A five-chapter story set in Iraq. Nobody knows that, so you’ve got a scoop. It has Alex penetrating the mountains in northern Iraq to discover the weapons of mass destruction."
"There are some, then?" interviewer Cole Moreton probes.
"Not after Alex finishes with them. That’s why Tony Blair never found them!" replies Horowitz. Moreton treats this as the very scoop Horowitz promises (and, indeed, the timeline fits; Alex's literary adventures spanned from 2000-2011), though to me it sounds like dry humor, so I'm not sure whether to take that "scoop" at face value or not. A new Alex Rider story would certainly be welcome, however!
Horowitz also teases that the teen spy could return to film. There was a movie made of the first book, Stormbreaker, back in 2006 (review here), but it was unceremoniously dumped by its American distributor and consequently flopped at the U.S. box office, despite a cast that included Ewan McGregor, Damian Lewis, Alex Pettyfer, Bill Nighy and Stephen Fry. Owing to the novels' immense popularity, though (especially in the UK), the franchise would seem one ripe for rebooting a decade later. And apparently there's someone, at least, thinking along those very lines. All Horowitz will reveal is, "There is interest from producers about making another but it is way too early to be able to talk about a film without putting a curse on it." That would be great! In fact, I would rather see Alex Rider get another shot cinematically than make a comeback in print. Let's all cross our fingers.
The whole interview (in which Horowitz makes some controversial statements about Ian Fleming and Skyfall, among other Bondian topics), as well as an exciting excerpt from Trigger Mortis that accompanies it, is well worth reading—but perhaps not until after you've read Horowitz's Bond novel. As I noted above, it certainly appears to be shockingly full of spoilers for the novel, and I wish I hadn't read it prior to reading the book. So proceed at your own risk.
The Book Bond points out that Amazon has posted the cover artwork for the American edition of Anthony Horowitz's upcoming James Bond continuation novel, Trigger Mortis. As usual, it is different from its UK counterpart. While the British edition from Orion departed from traditional Bond covers with an interesting blueprint design, Harper's U.S. version trades on traditional Bondian imagery including a martini and the silhouette of a naked woman. The U.S. publisher's description of the 320-page novel also includes some details omitted from the UK press release:
Incorporating original, never-before-published material from 007 creator Ian Fleming, New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz returns literary legend James Bond to his 1950s heyday in this exhilarating and dashing thriller.
The world's most famous spy, James Bond, has just returned victorious from his showdown with Auric Goldfinger in Fort Knox. By his side is the glamorous and streetwise Pussy Galore, who played no small part in his success. As they settle down in London, the odds of Galore taming the debonair bachelor seem slim—but she herself is a creature not so easily caught.
Meanwhile, the struggle for superiority between the Soviet Union and the West is escalating. In an attempt to demonstrate Soviet strength, SMERSH plans to sabotage an international Grand Prix in the hot zone of West Germany. At the Nürburgring Racing Circuit, Bond must play a high-speed game of cat and mouse to stop them, but when he observes a secretive meeting between SMERSH's driver and a notorious Korean millionaire, it becomes clear that this is just the infamous organization's opening move.
An orphan of the Korean War, he has a personal reason for wanting to bring America to its knees. He's helping SMERSH decisively end the white-hot space race—but how? With the help of an American female agent, Bond uncovers a plan that leads first to Florida and then to New York City, where a heart-stopping face-off will determine the fate of the West.
This thriller has all the hallmarks of an original Ian Fleming adventure and features welcome familiar faces, including M and Miss Moneypenny. Horowitz delivers a smooth and seductive narrative of fast cars and beautiful women, ruthless villains and breathtaking plot that will leave readers hanging until the very end.
Trigger Mortis comes out in America and the UK on September 8.
Last year, Ian Fleming Publications announced Anthony Horowitz as the author of the next official James Bond continuation novel. Today, marking Ian Fleming's birthday (it's already May 28 in England), Horowitz and IFP announced the title. (Via The Book Bond.) This September, James Bond returns in Trigger Mortis. Hm. Okay.... Well, I'll admit, it's not the best Bond title ever. In fact, I think it's probably among the worst, along with John Gardner's Cold. It sounds kind of like one of those titles Ian Fleming ultimately rejected, like Mondays are Hell or The Infernal Machine for what became Moonraker. One certainly couldn't imagine Shirley Bassey belting out those words, which tends to be my own test of a Bond title.
Title aside, though, there are still a lot of reasons to be excited about this book! Foremost among them is Horowitz himself. Horowitz is an excellent choice for a Bond continuation author. For one thing, he created one of my favorite TV shows of all time, Foyle's War (starring Michael Kitchen, Bill Tanner to Pierce Brosnan's 007 in GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough). The meticulously researched period detective show turned period spy show clearly demonstrates that Horowitz has the chops for telling a Bond story set in 1957, which this is. For another thing, Horowitz has already penned two tremendously well received official Sherlock Holmes continuation novels, so he's no stranger to writing about other authors' characters. (In his prolific TV work, he's also written about Hercule Poirot and The Saint among many others.) And finally, Horowitz has demonstrated his clear love of and study of Ian Fleming in his hugely entertaining, bestselling Young Adult spy novels about Alex Rider. Many of the Alex Rider books are clever, direct reworkings of/homages to Fleming's Bond novels. The first one, Stormbreaker, sports a plot, structure and villain based on Fleming's Moonraker. The second one, Point Blanc, takes its queue from On Her Majesty's Secret Service. And so on. But with their teen protagonist, the books do not read like rip-offs at all, but staunchly original loving homages.
Another reason to be especially excited about Trigger Mortis is the time when it's set. IFP's post-Benson continuation novels have all been one-offs, and it's been up to each writer whether to write a period piece set in roughly the timeline of Fleming's novels, or to write a contemporary Bond novel, as previous continuation authors had always done. Both previous period novels about the adult James Bond, however (Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care and William Boyd's Solo) have taken place after all of Fleming's novels in the late Sixties. Trigger Mortis will be the first to be set in the 1950s, the period in which most of Fleming's novels were written and take place. In fact, we now know that it will be set in 1957, fitting snugly into the Fleming timeline two weeks after the events of Goldfinger. According to the press release, "Horowitz places Bond in the middle of the Soviet-American Space Race as the United States prepares for a critical rocket launch, and brings back the most famous Bond Girl of all: Pussy Galore! ... As well as Pussy Galore, the book features: brand new Bond Girl Jeopardy Lane; Jai Seung Sin, a sadistic, scheming Korean adversary hell-bent on vengeance; and breathless, globe-trotting adventure." Locations include London, New York, and Germany's Nürburgring racetrack.
"I was so glad that I was allowed to set the book two weeks after my favourite Bond novel, Goldfinger," Horowitz said in a statement, "and I'm delighted that Pussy Galore is back! It was great fun revisiting the most famous Bond Girl of all - although she is by no means the only dangerous lady in Trigger Mortis. I hope fans enjoy it. My aim was to make this the most authentic James Bond novel anyone could have written." While I'm excited for the late Fifties setting, the Goldfinger reference actually gives me another bit of hesitation. I'm a bit surprised to read that it's Horowitz's favorite Bond novel. It's unquestionably my least favorite Fleming novel, a story based far too much on coincidence (even for Fleming, who often relied on coincidence) in which Bond is mostly a passive player. Upon learning Bond's identity, Goldfinger's decision to not only spare his enemy's life but put him to work as his secretary (therefore privy to his entire plan to knock off Fort Knox!) beggars belief too much. And the book has a particularly mean-spirited tone, as if Fleming were in a bad mood when he wrote it. (According to Matthew Parker's excellent biography Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born, he probably was!) It seems either daring or poorly judged to bring back Pussy Galore, arguably the most problematic Bond Girl since Bond "converts" her from lesbianism, and to employ a Korean villain since Fleming's rather racist remarks about Koreans in that book are notoriously controversial. I actually don't think that Fleming was particularly racist, even for his time, and will defend most of his books against those charges, but Goldfinger is pretty indefensible. Furthermore, there's already been one recent continuation novel based on Goldfinger. Sebastian Faulks rather inexplicably chose to model the structure of Devil May Care on Goldfinger, which meant that it suffered from the same weaknesses of an over-reliance on coincidence and, worse, a passive hero. (Even moreso than in the Fleming book.) However, I'm not particularly worried about Horowitz falling into the same traps. For one thing, he's already based an Alex Rider book on Goldfinger (Eagle Strike, review here) and like the writers of the film, he managed to fix many of Fleming's narrative problems in doing so. For another, we have no reason from this press release to believe that Horowitz will be emulating Goldfinger in any way, only that his novel will directly follow the events of that book, and carry over its heroine. (Incidentally, this is not the first time a Fleming heroine has been brought back in a a continuation story. The comic "Light of My Death," published in four installments in Dark Horse Comics in the early Nineties, reintroduced From Russia With Love's Tatiana Romanova.)
Finally, the number one reason to be excited for Trigger Mortis is that unlike any other Bond continuation novel in history, this one will be in part based on an unused story idea by Ian Fleming himself! Per the press release: "Uniquely among latter-day Bond authors, Horowitz has included original Ian Fleming material: a treatment for 'Murder on Wheels,' an episode of a television series that was never made. Fleming’s text sees Bond in the high-octane world of motor racing and it is his never-used plot that kicks off the action of Trigger Mortis. Anthony Horowitz said: 'It was always my intention to go back to the true Bond, which is to say, the Bond that Fleming created and it was a fantastic bonus having some original, unseen material from the master to launch my story.'" Isn't it great to see that bit in the box at the bottom of the cover?! Heck, it's great just to see Fleming's name anywhere on the cover of a new Bond book. He hasn't been credited there since that insulting "Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming" attribution on Devil May Care. (I do miss the days of the Putnam John Gardners, which always blared, "Ian Fleming's Master Spy James Bond in _____ by John Gardner." That was a respectful way to do it.) And speaking of that cover, it's a nice one! It's a very different sort of design than we've ever seen before for a James Bond hardcover, but very much in keeping with other Horowitz books. I can't wait to get my hands on the actual book! Despite my misgivings about the title and the Goldfinger influence, I am very, very much looking forward to this novel.
Trigger Mortis comes out September 8. Pre-order the U.S. edition from Amazon, and the UK edition from Amazon UK.
Check out a short video "trailer" for the book below.
There's a reason why Craig Ferguson has become my favorite late night host in the last couple of years. (And why I'll be devastated when he goes off the air at the end of this year.) It's because he has impeccable taste. Not only is he a huge Doctor Who fan, but lately he's become a huge Foyle's War fan as well. See what I mean? Impeccable taste! Foyle's War is of course the excellent period mystery series created by Anthony Horowitz starring Michael Kitchen (Tanner in the Pierce Brosnan Bond films) as a detective solving cases in the seaside town of Hastings during WWII. Naturally, given the wartime setting, lots of his cases involve espionage. And in the latest series, set after the war in the early days of the Cold War, Foyle has gone to work for MI5 and the show has become a full-time spy show. You can watch Ferguson's entertaining musings about Foyle's War during his opening on 4/22 and 4/23; middle on 4/21 and 4/22 and 4/23; and ending segments on 4/18 and 4/21, as well as with guests like Eddie Izzard.
Anyway, the upshot of Ferguson's infatuation with DCI Foyle is that tonight Horowitz will appear as a guest on his show! (The Late Late Show airs at 12:35 Eastern/Pacific, so I'm sorry this notice comes a bit late for East Coasters.) Spy fans know Horowitz not only as the creator of Foyle's War, but also as the author of the hugely successful teen spy novels featuring Alex Rider. Hopefully Ferguson will ask him about those, too. (He's also written for Poirot.) And hopefully Horowitz will drop some hints on the future of Foyle's War! At any rate, it's a pretty rare occurrence to see the creator of a great British spy series interviewed on American TV, so it should be worth tuning in.
The entire series of Foyle's War can currently be streamed on Acorn TV.
When Paramount first released The Wild Wild West: The Complete Seriesback in 2008, many fans were upset because it included the two reunion movies Wild Wild West Revisited (1979) and More Wild Wild West (1980). The problem was that neither of those had been included with any of the individual season releases, and the disc they were on was never released on its own, so their inclusion on the pricey complete series was seen as a slap in the face to fans who had diligently bought each season as it was released. But now as part of their Cyber Monday Deals Week (yes, they made up a day and then they made that made-up day a week), Amazon is offering the all-inclusive box set for a truly affordable price. What originally retailed for $100 is now just $29.99 for this week only! For that money, it's worth finally making the upgrade for fans who bought all the seasons but always wanted the reunion movies as well. I'm sure you can make back thirty bucks by selling off your single-season sets and break even. And if you never bought any of the individual sets, this bargain is a no-brainer. The Wild Wild West is one of the best spy series of the Sixties, and The Wild Wild West: The Complete Seriesis an essential part of any spy library.
Speaking of essential parts of spy libraries, there's another must-have complete series set on sale today (and this one is today only at this price): Foyle's War: The Home Front Files Sets. The Homefront Files collects seasons 1-6 (that's all but this year's post-war seventh series) of Anthony (Alex Rider) Horowitz's espionage-heavy and completely fantastic WWII mystery series starring Pierce Brosnan's Bill Tanner, Michael Kitchen, and today the set which regularly retails for $150 is just $39.99! Buy it for yourself or give someone an awesome Christmas gift... or send a strong hint to someone who's buying you a Christmas gift. Foyle's War is great stuff.
With the series officially over, there may be no more Alex Rider novels coming, but the teen spy lives on in graphic novel adaptations from Walker Books. Writer Antony Johnston tweeted a link earlier today to an article on the publishing trade site The Bookseller with the official announcement. Johnston has previously adapted Anthony Horowitz's first four young adult Rider novels, Stormbreaker (which was actually based on the movie script rather than the book), Point Blank, Skeleton Key and Eagle Strike, and is now signed on to pen the next two, Scorpia and Ark Angel. While Johnston remains a constant, there is a change on the artistic front, with Emma Vieceli taking over from Kanako Damerum and Yuzuru Takasaki. Besides chronicling Horowitz's teen spy's adventures in the four-color format, Johnston should be well known to spy fans for his adult espionage graphic comics, including a run on Greg Rucka's Queen & Country Declassified, and the original graphic novel The Coldest City (review here), which was published earlier this year by Oni. Unfortunately, Alex Rider's new illustrated adventures are still some ways off. Scorpia is expected in 2014, with Ark Angel following in 2015.
When you run a media blog like this one, you're email in-box tends to fill up with press releases. If your site's as specific as mine, the vast majority of them are largely irrelevant and just amount to spam. But the upside to that is that once in a while you wake up to some truly great and unexpected news in your in-box... like yesterday morning. Yesterday, Acorn Media, ITV and Eleventh Hour Films announced that one of my very favorite TV series of the last decade, Foyle's War, would have another season. And, of particular note to readers of this site, while past seasons have always contained a definite element of espionage, the new season will transition into a full-on spy show!
The original incarnation of Foyle's War focused on the exploits of a Hastings police inspector in wartime England. The great Michael Kitchen (Bill Tanner to Pierce Brosnan's James Bond) played the sublimely understated Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle, whose unwavering integrity often put him at odds with his superiors, the military and the intelligence establishment. Unsurprisingly in a time of war and a country under siege, many of his cases involved enemy spies or saboteurs, and he frequently came into contact with members of various British wartime spy agencies. Now that the war is over and Foyle is retired as a police officer, it seems like those contacts will play a big role in the next stage of his career. According to the press release, "Series 8 will be set during the early period after World War II with Foyle focusing his attention on the world of espionage as he gathers secret intelligence in support of Britain’s security, defence and the Government’s foreign and economic policies. The stories will range from Foyle identifying highly placed atomic spies to a true story of government corruption. A world of transition where the values and certainties of the war have given way to austerity, exhaustion and doubts about the direction the new government is taking. In his new role as a Senior Intelligence Officer, Foyle discovers that the British establishment is rife with communist sympathizers and traitors. In this delicately balanced period in history, 1946-47, Foyle will use all his intelligence, guile and intuition to keep the country safe."
At one point, Foyle's return seemed up in the air due to legal issues surrounding the rights. Luckily, Acorn Media (who have distributed the DVDs of all the seasons in the United States) ended up acquiring permanent ownership of the series in November 2010, and made it a top priority to develop another season and get the original creative talent on board. That includes producer Jill Green and writer/creator Anthony Horowitz, well known to spy fans as the author of the Alex Rider novels. Horowitz will pen the first and third of the season's three feature-length episodes. (David Kane, who wrote the 2010 episode "Killing Time," will pen the second episode.) “I have returned to Foyle’s War because there are still some amazing stories I want to tell,” Horowitz said. “The war may be over but Foyle’s career goes on.” Espionage is clearly a long-time interest for Horowitz. Besides creating the Bond-inspired Alex Rider series, he pitted Foyle against SMERSH in one of the Series 7 stories set in 1945, “The Russian House.”
In addition to Michael Kitchen, original series co-star Honeysuckle Weeks is slated to return to the drama playing as Samantha Stewart, Foyle's one-time driver. According to the press release, “Post-war, Samantha is now married and relishing domesticity. Her character also enters a fresh era as she delights in a surprising new working role.” Not mentioned is the third series star, Anthony Howell, who portrayed Foyle's second-in-command in Hastings, Sgt. Paul Milner. Milner had moved on in a logical career direction that made it difficult to shoehorn him into the last season's plots, so it seems unlikely that he'll be back for these new episodes... though it would be nice if Horowitz can at least work in a cameo for him!
The new season is slated to go into production this fall to air in 2013. While all previous editions of Foyle's War have been seen in America on PBS, the U.S. broadcaster for the new episodes has yet to be announced.
Apr 12, 2011
Anthony Horowitz To Pen Tintin Sequel
/Film reports that Alex Rider and Foyle's War creator Anthony Horowitz will pen the second movie in Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson's projected Tintin trilogy. The film will be based on Hergé’s classic graphic novel Prisoners of the Sun, an Incan adventure. I guess that puts to rest the previous rumors that Jackson would choose one of the more spyish Tintin adventures, like King Ottokar's Sceptre or The Calculus Affair, for the film he's supposed to direct to follow up Spielberg's first entry. So spy fans lose a spy story but gain a spy writer on the sequel. "I’m writing a feature film even as we speak. I’ve been hired to write Tintin," he told BBC Radio 5 according to the website. "The Secret of the Unicorn is being directed by Steven Spielberg and was written originally by Steven Moffat, of course the writer of Doctor Who in this country. He did a couple of drafts, then it was taken over by Edgar Wright." Joe Cornish also contributed to the final script. "They’ve got [that] coming out at Christmas and if that film is a success and works and gets an audience, I’m writing the sequel to it, Prisoners of the Sun, which Peter Jackson is going to direct." Of course with Jackson tied up on The Hobbit for the next few years, that puts the sequel a long way off.
Horowitz is certainly keeping busy following the end of his lucrative Young Adult spy series earlier this month. Besides Tintin, he's already been announced as the first ever officially sanctioned Sherlock Holmes continuation novelist, with a book due this fall. Personally, what I'd like to see from him more than anything is another season of Foyle's War, though there's a sticky rights situation making that difficult.
Mar 22, 2011
Alex Rider's Final Mission
The clock runs out today for teen spy Alex Rider. Anthony Horowitz's bestselling series comes to an end with today's publication of Scorpia Rising, the last Rider novel. In a rare occurence, the American edition from Philomel actually precedes the British edition from Walker, which isn't due out until March 31. (But the Brits get the superior cover art, so it all evens out in the end!) Will Alex survive his last mission? Legions of fans (well, American ones, anyway) will soon know the answer. But whether he does or not, Horowitz told NPR in an interview last August that "there is no way forward. The book is without any question the end of a very long journey that I have been taking." Scorpia Rising may well be the end of the road for Alex Rider, but certainly not for Horowitz. The Foyle's War creator was recently tapped to pen the first ever officially licensed Sherlock Holmes continuation novel, which is due out this fall. It's a move designed to further perpetuate the copyright holders' claim on the character, but despite their motivations, I have no doubt that Horowitz will deliver a fantastic and faithful adventure for the master detective.
Scorpia Rising, a $17.99 hardcover, is currently available at 40% off from Amazon.
Here's the second Anthony Horowitz news item of the day. I'm a little behind on this, but the cover artwork for the final Alex Rider novel, Scorpia Rising, popped up last month on the official Alex Rider website and on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. As usual, the British artwork (left) is better (though I don't think it's final), and the American one (right) is too busy. Writer Anthony Horowitz swears up and down that Scorpia Rising really is the end of his hugely popular Young Adult teen spy series–and a very definitive end at that. Spy fans can discover exactly what he means by that this March. Scorpia Rising comes out in hardcover in the United States from Philomel on March 22, and (surprisingly) a week later in the UK when Walker Books releases the paperback original on March 31. Previously, these books have debuted first in Britain. It's also curious that this one's back to being a paperback original in the UK, like the early books, since the last one, Crocodile Tears (review here), came out in hardcover. Here's the intriguing UK description for Scorpia Rising:
This gripping final mission brings together Alex Rider's old enemies to frame the teenage superspy in an unstoppable plot of revenge, from which he can never return. Pursued from Europe to North Africa and Cairo's city of the dead - this is the twistiest and most deadly plot of any Alex Rider mission yet, and will reveal Smithers' ultimate gadget and see the shock death of a major character.
The American description is less revealing:
Scorpia has dogged Alex Rider for most of his life. They killed his parents, they did their best to con Alex into turning traitor, and they just keep coming back with more power. Now the world's most dangerous terrorist organization is playing with fire in the world's most combustible land: the Middle East. No one knows Scorpia like Alex. And no one knows how best to get to Alex like Scorpia. Until now.
The chases have never been more intense, the fights more treacherous, or the risks so perilous to mankind. And this time, Alex won't get away.
Horowitz himself revealed far more about the book in his interview with NPR last year. Read all about that here. If you pre-order now, you can save 50% on the British version of Scorpia Rising (making it a dirt-cheap £3.49) and nearly as much on the American one.
The Game's Afoot Again: Alex Rider Writer Lands Sherlock Holmes Gig
Reuters reports that Alex Rider and Foyle's War creator Anthony Horowitz has been tapped by the Arthur Conan Doyle estate to pen a new, officially endorsed Sherlock Holmes continuation novel. The news story claims that "this is the first time the estate has given official approval for a story since [ACD's] last novel was published in 1915," but that doesn't sound right to me. Surely Adrian Conan Doyle's Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (written with John Dickson Carr) were approved by... him? I always thought that Caleb Carr one, The Italian Secretary, was official, but I guess not. Anyway, this new book is, and it will be published by Orion in September. Despite the fact that Horowitz is probably best known as a novelist for his Young Adult series, this is an adult novel and not associated with Andrew Lane's current Young Sherlock Holmes series another officially sanctioned project that seeks to capitalize on the success of Charlie Higson's Young Bond novels. Recall that on television, Horowitz has displayed extraordinary talent with grown-up detective tales, writing for the terrific Poirot series based on Agatha Christie's famous mysteries and also creating the even more terrific Foyle's War, starring Pierce Brosnan's Bill Tanner, the great Michael Kitchen. In my opinion, the creator of Chritopher Foyle is more than qualified to chronicle the greatest detective of all time! "I fell in love with the Sherlock Holmes stories when I was 16 and I've read them many times since," Horowitz told Reuters. "I simply couldn't resist this opportunity to write a brand new adventure for this iconic figure and my aim is to produce a first rate mystery for a modern audience while remaining absolutely true to the spirit of the original." He doesn't reveal any details about the plot, but in his other work Horowitz has again and again displayed his affinity for espionage stories. (I'd say at least half the Foyle's have some element of intrigue in them, and Alex Rider is obviously inspired by James Bond.) So I wouldn't be surprised if that turns up in his Holmes novel as well. Like Mark Gatiss on television's Sherlock, I doubt that Horowitz will be able to resist including Holmes's elder brother with a secretive government job, Mycroft. And where there's Mycroft (at least in the world of pastiches, and often in Doyle's original stories), there's usually espionage afoot.
Horowitz's final Alex Rider adventure, Scorpia Rising, is due out on March 22, 2011.
Aug 4, 2010
Anthony Horowitz Reveals Final Alex Rider Novel, Scropia Rising
I was surprised to hear Anthony Horowitz pop up on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" today, discussing the next and final Alex Rider novel, Scorpia Rising. Things don't sound so good for poor, beleaguered teen spy Alex Rider!
Horowitz noted that his books have gotten much darker and more challenging since Stormbreaker and Point Blanc, and he makes Scorpia Rising, which he declares definitively is "the very last one in the series," sound like the darkest of all.
"I can tell you without any doubt at all," he says to host Michelle Norris, "that there is no way forward. The book is without any question the end of a very long journey that I have been taking. I have to tell you that I, that it makes me very sad to think that I wrote the last words, a few nights ago in fact, and, uh, sat there looking at it and thought, 'Goodness, have you really done this?' That makes nine in the series and then that is it, and it makes me sad, but I really believe this: it's best to quit while you're ahead. Don't go on writing formulaic books simply to make money for your publishers and yourself.... I like to think that each book in its own way has been as good as or better than the one before, and I'm happy to quit on a high note with a body of work which I will look on it and feel is about as perfect as it could have been, and not write that one book that sort of spoils it."
The whole tone of the conversation, and the definitiveness that he emphasizes so strongly, makes it seem like poor Alex might not survive the book. But when pressed for more details about the denoument, Horowitz did offer that "it ends with hope. A children's author has one duty in life, I believe, and that is always to write with hope. If you're young and you have, you know, everything in front of you, it is not the job of somebody like me to come along and say, 'actually life is awful and, you know, get used to it.' It is a dark book and is in many ways a sad book, but I think it ends with hope." Listen to the whole conversation on NPR's website, where you can also read Horowitz's tribute to Ian Fleming's Goldfinger, which he picks as his favorite thriller. (It struck me as an odd choice. It's actually one of my least favorite Fleming novels.)
The author revealed even more details about Scorpia Rising on his blog, including locations ranging from London to Paris to Gibralter to Egypt, a surprisingly real-world grounded villain named Kalid Aziz Al-Kazim who has worked for both Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and even the overall structure of the book. (Alex doesn't make an entrance until Chapter 7, conjuring shades of Ian Fleming's From Russia With Love.) He actually reveals a surprising amount of plot details (including that at least one major character dies), so fans should be sure to head to his site and read the full post. (Oh, yes, and he's also hidden the entire first chapter somewhere on his site, in case you needed even more incentive!)
The final Alex Rider novel isn't actually due out until 2011.
Read my review of the most recent Rider book, Crocodile Tears, here.
Dec 22, 2009
Judging A Book By Its Cover: Anthony Horowitz's Stormbreaker Limited Edition
While Charlie Higson's Young Bond novels are highly collectible thanks to the obvious, built-in audience of James Bond collectors, Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider books have sparked less of a collector's market. That's certainly not to say that they aren't collectable, just that they inspire less of a mania than a nearly six-decade-old franchise like 007. Like the Young Bond books, the early books in the Alex Rider series were first published only in paperback in their country of origin, and pristine copies of these first editions are rare and fetch a decent amount on Ebay. As with any series, the first book, Stormbreaker, is the most sought after, and the most collectible editions (judging by the exorbitant prices on Bookfinder.com) seem to be the American hardcover first edition (which was the only hardcover first, and had a small print run) and a slipcased, limited edition hardcover put out in 2005 by Walker Books in the UK. While the first four Young Bonds have all been published in similar slipcased editions, to date Stormbreaker is (sadly) the only Alex Rider novel to receive this deluxe treatment. There's very little information about this edition available on the web, so it seems like a good candidate for my occasional series, "Judging a Book By its Cover," in which I do exactly what the age-old adage cautions against and evaluate books based on their physical characteristics alone.
Starting on the outside, the slipcase itself is kind of ugly. It's a flimsier cardboard than the Young Bond limited edition slipcases, and the lime green text across the front declaring ">> LIMITED EDITION >> STORMBREAKER << LIMITED EDITION" in a digital font (designed to look like the readout on a computer screen) isn't pretty. The silver embossed Stormbreaker logo, however, with a lightning bolt through a globe, is cool. The red bottom of the case is marred by a giant barcode, the original £20 price mark, and the assertion that "This special limited edition has been signed and numbered by the author." Personally, I prefer it when barcodes and prices for limited editions come on a removable sticker outside the shrinkwrap rather than printed on the slipcase. This edition was originally sold with an ugly cardboard band that wrapped around the book further emphasizing the fact that it was a limited edition. While the collector in me couldn't reconcile throwing it away, I did remove the band for reasons or aesthetics and convenience of accessability.
Inside the slipcase is a different story. The book itself is very handsome indeed, with black boards and black endpapers. There is no dust jacket. The embossed silver logo appears again on the front cover and on the spine. It and the letters in the author's name are presented in a subtler "digital" font that can really only be discerened by close scrutiny. It works much better than the text on the slipcase. The size of the book, the texture of the boards, the gilt embossment and the letters in Horowitz's name on the spine distinctly remind me of the Jonathan Cape Ian Fleming first editions. The lettering isn't the same, mind you; it just reminds me of that. And that's a good thing. It's a nice looking book. Unfortunately, it's bound with glue (the prevalent British preference of the moment, also afflicting the Young Bond limited editions) rather than sewn, but oh well. That's hardly detremental.
The copyright page reads "First published 2000 by Walker Books Ltd," then adds "This special limited edition published 2005." The signature page is the first one after the endpaper, coming before the title page or copyright information. The edition is limited to 750, and signed by Anthony Horowitz in blue ink.
The book fits snugly into the slipcase, but not so snug that it becomes a challenge to remove it, an annoying factor affecting some of the Young Bond limited editions.
All in all, the Stormbreaker Limited Edition is a very handsome volume packed in a slightly less handsome slipcase. A crucial cornerstone of the series, it's certainly worth seeking out for Alex Rider and spy fiction collectors. And as Alex Rider is one of the most influential spy series currently being published, it will only appreciate in value. I wish there were more Alex Rider limited editions.
Skeleton Key, the third book in the Alex Rider teen spy series, left me a bit cold. In fact, after tearing through the first two books, Skeleton Key slowed me down so considerably that it put a halt to my initial Alex Rider kick. I’ll discuss my issues with that book another time, though. When I finally resumed the series, more than a year later, I found the next book, Eagle Strike, to be a real return to form. In fact, it was (and still remains) the most enjoyable Alex Rider book I’d read yet.
Once again, author Anthony Horowitz turns to Ian Fleming for inspiration, but this time he refrains from retelling a single story wholesale as he did with Moonraker in Stormbreaker and OHMSS in Point Blanc. This time he happily borrows piecemeal from Goldfinger, Doctor No and other sources, cobbling sequences together (along with plenty of wholly original ones) to suit his own story, a strategy that works very well for Alex Rider. And, as in the first two books, the sequences that are lifted from Fleming are reworked and updated appropriately (and skillfully) for a modern Young Adult audience.
Eagle Strike begins with Alex on a well deserved and much needed holiday in the South of France. He’s tagging along with the family of his friend Sabina Pleasure, first introduced in the early chapters of Skeleton Key. Sabina’s father, Edward Pleasure, is a journalist who’s rented a cottage in order to do some work on a big article he’s writing. While he works, Sabina and Alex spend most of their time at the beach or exploring the coastline. On one such outing, however, Alex spots an old enemy: professional assassin-for-hire Yassen Gregorovich. It was Yassen who killed his uncle, spy Ian Rider, and Yassen who aided Herod Sayle, the first evil mastermind Alex faced. Alex is certain he’s up to no good, so he follows him. It’s a great representative sequence from the series, because it combines so well all the best ingredients of good, escapist spy fiction: the right setting, the right characters, exciting tradecraft and excellent suspense. Alex weaves through the tony Mediterranean seaside town following his quarry, then ducks into an upscale café. But Yassen comes into the same café to take a phone call in private! Alex hides, and overhears some crucial bits to get the plot moving. And, of course, Yassen suddenly seems to sense his presence. The suspense ratchets up.
Desperate to leave his spy life behind him, Alex ultimately (and with some difficulty) decides to turn his back on Yassen. It’s not his job to find out what he’s up to. This, of course, backfires terribly. The cottage where the Pleasures are staying blows up, and Edward is badly injured. The authorities say it was a gas main, but Alex knows the truth. It was Yassen. It had to be. And if Alex had acted on his instincts sooner, he could have prevented this tragedy. He blames himself, and he goes after Yassen on his own. He sneaks onto his yacht, determined to assassinate the assassin. Of course, when the moment comes, he can’t pull the trigger. Alex isn’t cold-blooded. This gets him caught. Somehow, though, Yassen is reluctant to kill Alex, even though he’s never shown any hesitation about killing before. Instead, he engineers a death trap the teen is unlikely to escape... but Yassen seems to know he will. The unlikely deathtrap involves dressing Alex up as a matador and unleashing him, with no training or experience, into the ring during a major bullfight. It’s ludicrous and improbable... and perfect. Not only does it (probably inadvertently) recall the great sequence in Fathom in which Raquel Welch finds herself in similar, but it’s just a great spy deathtrap.
From the whole excellent opening in the South of France, the plot proceeds apace with other Riders and, of course, with Bond. All the boxes are checked. Alex has his briefing with MI6, though this time they don’t believe him. He’s on his own, forced to go rogue. He meets the villain, rock star/philanthropist/entrepreneur Damien Cray, at a very fancy private party, and engages with him in a game of skill. Cray, true to his kind, cheats. The game of skill, however, is not baccarat, but a new video game for a new game system being launched by Cray’s company. True, James Bond has played video games as well, in Never Say Never Again and John Gardner’s Role of Honor, but whereas for Bond it’s cool because it’s out of place, for a teenager like Alex, it’s cool because it’s entirely appropriate! Perfect, in fact. Horowitz describes the action in the fictional game with the same skill that Ian Fleming wrote about card games. Personally, I hate sitting around watching other people play video games, but I was entertained reading Horowitz’s description.
The video game pays off later in the book, in a sequence that nods (rather vigorously) to Fleming’s Doctor No. Cray has a pain maze, just like the good doctor, and it’s accessed in the exact same manner. As soon as Alex realized that he could escape from his prison cell through a small passage, I knew what was coming. This has its plusses and minuses. On the downside, there are many moments in Alex Rider books in which readers familiar with Fleming know exactly what comes next. But speaking for myself, that makes me smile. I settle in and turn the page, eager to see what unique twist Horowitz adds to a situation with which I am already familiar. Once again, this practice does raise the concern that these books might be spoiling Fleming for young readers, but going in the other direction, I enjoy the references.
After facing the same initial obstacles that Bond endured, Alex doesn’t find himself sharing a tank with a giant squid (pity); instead he finds himself trapped inside a real life version of the very video game he played earlier. Apparently Cray developed his game’s unique "pain synthesis" by, er, synthesizing actual people’s pain. The game and the obstacle course have an Aztec theme, which is a rather strange parallel to Charlie Higson’s Young Bond novel Hurricane Gold (published four years later), in which Young Bond endures similar torment with a Mayan twist. Higson was also referencing Doctor No, but it’s an odd coincidence that both Young Adult writers should introduce the same peculiar South American Indian element that doesn't come from Fleming!
The other primary Fleming scene that Horowitz utilizes in Eagle Strike is Bond’s reconnaissance of and subsequent break-in to Goldfinger’s Geneva complex. Alex’s actions at Cray’s Dutch factory compound, where he makes his game system, very much mirror those scenes. Instead of a gadget-laden Aston Martin, Alex has a gadget-laden bicycle at his disposal, courtesy of the corpulent Smithers, his very own Q. (Unsurprisingly, the gadgets on Alex’s bike more closely echo the movie’s DB5 with ejector seat–natch!–than the book’s DBIII with its rather less spectacular dimming, color-changing taillights.) His break-in and escape are both exciting, as is that real-life video game that comes in between. But the best is yet to come in a terrific chase scene (reminiscent of Bond and Tracy’s escape in the film version of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) in which Alex’s bike is pursued by Porsches and motorcycles. This is yet another scene that epitomizes the appeal of the Alex Rider novels. Isn’t a gadget-laden bike what every schoolboy dreams of? I know I did. I can’t remember how many times I pretended my bike had Bond-like gadgets (or tried to create some with varying success) and fantasized about using it to elude thugs. And Alex does exactly that. It’s the same escapist appeal as James Bond, but on young reader’s exact level. What they dream, Alex does. Hence the unlimited appeal of the series.
The only real drawback to Eagle Strike is the villain, Cray. The idea of a rock star villain is a great one, but Horowitz doesn’t really take advantage of it. Cray’s biography will thoroughly amuse music fans, who will recognize chunks borrowed from the lives of David Bowie, Bono, Bob Geldof, a dash of Mick Jagger and even the band Slade. But that’s all in the past. We never get to see Cray being–or behaving like–an actual rock star. Instead, he’s focused on charities and his Richard Bransonesqe role as an entrepreneur. It seems like a wasted opportunity to have had a lot of fun with a maniacal rock star. That said, the focus on the charity side of some of those stars is well done. The idea of a philanthropist gone too far, from wanting to make a difference in the world to wanting to reshape the world in his own image, is a good one. Bono or Geldof gone utterly bonkers.
Sabina is roped back into the plot when Cray eventually kidnaps her as a means of getting at Alex. Once again, that’s ideal childhood escapism. Because ultimately there would be no point for a kid in accomplishing all the things that Alex does if you couldn’t tell people about it. When he first tries to prove to Sabina that he’s a spy by taking her to the bank that MI6 uses as a cover, things go badly. SIS keeps their cover intact, and Sabina doesn’t believe him. So even though it’s bad news that she gets kidnapped, it will come as a relief to young readers that she finally has to believe him. The "I told you so" moment is crucial to any child’s wish fulfillment.
Things build to a very exciting conclusion that not only hits all the right notes for the action-packed finale to an exciting spy novel, but also manages to reveal personal secrets about Alex’s past–and a possible path to his future. Revelations involving his father (no, it's not Yassen, though he plays a role here) not only trade on Harry Potter beats–not to mention a rich, much older, mythic tradition–but also lend that final little bit of requisite childhood wish fulfilment: your parents are (or were) really much more exciting than you thought. Eagle Strike works superbly as both a spy novel sure to appeal to any fan of the genre and a masterful piece of Young Adult escapism, a full-bodied addition to a revived and thriving market. In other words, it’s a publisher’s dream: something bound to appeal in equal measure to fans of Harry Potter and James Bond.
If you’re interested enough to invest in the whole series, by all means begin at the beginning with Stormbreaker. But if you think you only want to try one Alex Rider novel, Eagle Strike is the one to try. And it won’t be the only one. You’ll be hooked.
Dec 12, 2009
New Alex Rider Short Story Available Online
Bish's Beat points the way to a new, exclusive Alex Rider short story by Anthony Horowitz! "Incident in Nice" is available at the TimesOnline website here. It was published a few weeks ago to promote the newest novel, Crocodile Tears, which I reviewed here. This is the third Alex Rider short story. Horowitz produced two previous stories, both of which are also available online, one via The Daily Mail and the other on Horowitz’s official website (though you have to register to access it). The former is a Christmas story that serves as a prequel to the entire Alex Rider series; the latter takes place between Alex’s third and fourth adventures. All of these stories serve as good primers for potential readers to get a taste of Alex Rider without digging into an entire book (although the books are lightning fast reads). While the combined length of all three stories so far is far too brief to warrant a collection, let's hope that Horowitz eventually produces enough short stories to fill out such a volume. It would be great to have them all in book form.
Anthony Horowitz’s latest Alex Rider novel, Crocodile Tears, is another solid entry in the phenomenal teenage spy saga. It’s not first-rate Rider like Point Blanc or Eagle Strike, but it’s a good deal more enjoyable than some of the series’ weaker entries. Alex Rider, for the uninitiated, is a fourteen-year-old schoolboy pressed into service for MI6 thanks to the unique skill set secretly taught to him by his late uncle, who was a spy. "Pressed into service" is the key phrase here, rather than "recruited." Alex Rider is not an eager volunteer, setting him apart from most of the fictional teenage spies who have gone before him. In the tradition of Harry Palmer and David Callan, he very much belongs to the "reluctant spy" school of literature. Alex had no idea that his uncle was a secret agent, or that their mountain-climbing trips, scuba expeditions or jet-ski holidays were his way of preparing Alex to follow in his footsteps. He only discovered that after his uncle’s death, when Alan Blunt and Mrs. Jones, the enigmatic spymasters of MI6's Special Operations Division, manipulated him into doing some of their dirty work. A child operative offered them a lot of advantages. Alex could get into certain places that adults couldn’t... and draw less suspicion. All that Alex wants is a normal teenage life: school and sports and friends and Playstation. But no matter how many times he tries to leave it behind, he keeps getting roped into missions by MI6.
Unlike his fellow reluctant agents Palmer and Callan, however, Alex Rider tends to find himself on missions of Bondian proportions, getting into scrapes that only daring stunts and improbable physics could get him out of. (In this entry, Alex plunges to the bottom of an icy Scottish Loch in an SUV, tangles with crocodiles and blows up a giant dam–while he's standing on it–to catalog just a few of his many amazing feats.) In fact, the first two Alex Rider novels had plots borrowed wholesale from Ian Fleming. Stormbreaker was a loose retelling of Fleming’s Moonraker (very different from the Roger Moore film version, and therefore unlikely to be known by Young Adult readers), and Point Blanc (Point Blank in America, where the art of the pun is under-appreciated) rather brilliantly drew on On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Even the flaws in Horowitz’s books can be traced to Fleming. Crocodile Tears, like Goldfinger, relies far too much on coincidence. (Numerous instances of it, no less.) I’m of two minds about all of this. On the one hand, Horowitz shows good taste in his literary influences, and he very creatively reworks the stories for children. On the other, though, I hate to think that the Alex Rider books might spoil Fleming for young readers. Like many of my generation and even more of the few that came before it, I suspect, I was already reading the real thing at the 12-15 year-old "Young Adult" age that Horowitz’s novels are geared toward, under the covers in bed with a flashlight. Will readers of this generation discover Moonraker one day and lose interest because they’ve seen it all before? I hope not. I prefer to think things will go the other way, and Alex Rider will provide a good stepping stone from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to 007. In any case, Horowitz abandoned the practice of directly basing his story structures on those of Fleming after the second book, instead opting to borrow certain elements here and there for subsequent volumes. Overall, I like that approach better.
The only direct Fleming element to pop up in Crocodile Tears is a modern-day version of Dr. Shatterhand’s Garden of Death from You Only Live Twice. (Again, it’s an element not present in the film, and consequently unlikely to be recognized as a reference by young readers.) Alex’s adventures fending off deadly plants and animals in the "Poison Dome," as it’s called here, in fact, make for one of the more harrowing chapters in the novel. Besides that, some elements from the films Goldeneye (action on a dam), Licence To Kill (method of villain’s death) and even The Living Daylights (bad guys’ method of smuggling our hero out of the country after kidnapping him) do pop up. The connections are tenuous enough that they would be easy to chalk up to coincidence were it not for the author’s obvious and admitted previous debts to James Bond. Film references are in some ways more appropriate, for although the Alex Rider adventures are quite different in tone from most of the Bond films, they always feature the huge, over-the-top action setpieces for which the films are famous.
While he openly acknowledges the influence of Fleming’s novels on his work, the inevitable comparisons to Charlie Higson’s hugely successful series of "Young Bond" novels seems to irk Horowitz a bit. As the author is quick to point out when the comparison is made, the two characters are quite different in that Higson’s young James Bond is not a spy. He is merely a teenager (who will one day become a spy) with a knack for getting into trouble–of the adventurous variety. Furthermore, the Young Bond novels, adhering roughly to Fleming’s timeline for his character, take place in the 1930s, a world far removed from the gadget-heavy one of Alex Rider, which is full of enough kid-friendly brand-name references (Playstation, Assassin’s Creed, Condor bikes and, in this instance, even a Simpsons pencil case!) to please Fleming himself (the ultimate brand name dropper and as such proud purveyor of snobbery). Although Horowitz and Higson (who both share backgrounds in the British television industry) are clearly friendly competitors (they even did a joint interview recently with the Times), Horowitz isn’t above working in a little good-natured jab at Young Bond in the opening chapters of Crocodile Tears:
Alex Rider took one last glance in the mirror, then stopped and looked a second time. It was strange, but he wondered if he recognized the boy who was looking back. There were the thin lips, the slightly chiseled nose and chin, the light brown hair hanging in two strands over the very dark brown eyes. He raised a hand and, obediently, his reflection did the same. But there was something different about this other Alex Rider. It wasn’t quite him.
Of course, the clothes he was wearing didn’t help. In a few minutes, he would be leaving for a New Year’s Eve party being held at a castle on the banks of Loch Arkaig in the Highlands of Scotland–and the invitation had been clear. Dress: black tie. Reluctantly, Alex had gone out and rented the entire outfit . . . dinner jacket, black trousers, and a white shirt with a wing collar that was too tight and squeezed his neck. The one thing he had refused to do was put on the polished leather shoes that the shopkeeper had insisted would make the outfit complete. Black sneakers would have to do. What did it all make him look like? he wondered as he straightened the bow tie for the tenth time. A young James Bond. He hated the comparison, but he couldn’t avoid it.
No, he couldn’t. Not when his own adventures owe so much to the famous superspy! That very description in the mirror, in fact, appears to be based on Fleming’s own description of Bond, simply plugging in slight differences: hair hanging in two strands instead of a "comma," thin lips but no "cruel mouth," etc. I know, I know; a face is a face and there are only so many variations an author can use in describing it, but I would bet money that Horowitz had Fleming in mind when he wrote that description. And that’s the brilliance of the concept. Take a Bondian adventure, pull out James Bond himself and plug in a fourteen-year-old boy. That’s pretty much what I was doing myself as I read the novels as a kid. It’s what all kids do. Escapism at its best. Horowitz’s successful formula has spawned many imitators since it debuted, from the popular CHERUB series to Fledgling to Young Bond himself. (Young Bond, of course, quite amazingly manages to be much more than a mere imitator of the character who was already imitating Old Bond, which is quite an accomplishment on Higson’s part.)
The one aspect that these teen spy series don’t borrow from Ian Fleming, however, is the sex. No, of course I’m not advocating that these teenage characters should be having sex in books for children, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be thinking about it, at least on a teenage level. I’ve seen Higson make the argument that teenage boy readers aren’t interested in any sort of love story, and so he doesn’t include them. I think he gets that mandate from his publishers, and Horowitz or his publishers seem to believe the same thing. But you know what? I can remember being in middle school, and that’s simply not true! Young boys think about girls all the time, and I think all of these series would benefit from the addition of a chaste romance or two. Alex has something of a girlfriend in Sabina Pleasure (whose name, of course, is another nod to Fleming), but she’s only ever presented as a friend, save for a brief kiss as she and Alex part company at the airport. The prevailing school of thought, however, is that boy readers are much more interested in action (and I’m not saying they’re not!), and there’s certainly plenty of that to be found.
While any hints of romance may be carefully pussyfooted around, Horowitz (like Higson) isn’t afraid to face violence head on. Of the three sins that Fleming was accused of peddling in the Fifties (sex, snobbery and sadism), Horowitz eschews the first but gladly latches onto the latter two. Alex definitely doesn’t glide through his adventures unharmed by the dangerous scrapes he gets into. On the contrary, he gets as battered and bruised as Fleming’s 007 always ends up. Even having been shot in the chest before, Alex probably has the worst time of it yet in Crocodile Tears. Besides his encounter with deadly flora and fauna in the Poison Dome, he’s put through anguishing torture, drugged, shot at, banged about and burned. His encounters with villains are often deadly. While Alex has yet to shoot one at point blank range or anything like that, there can be no denying that he is usually responsible for their deaths. (Granted, they are always trying to kill him at the time, but it’s still a far cry from Spy Kids or Cody Banks.) And he’s no stranger to death; other people in the books are killed around him all the time–often quite brutally. Furthermore, Horowitz is not callous or irresponsible in his treatment of violence in these books. Everything that happens to Alex, and everything he witnesses, takes a toll on him. At the end of Crocodile Tears, Alex's MI6 controllers are worried about his mental state. His guardian is worried about how much of this he can take–not physically (which is clearly a lot, even if he does wind up in the hospital), but psychologically. While it may be brutal, the violence is no worse than anything kids are exposed to in video games. The consequences, however, cannot be handled properly in that medium; but they can–and are–in these novels.
At their heart, though, despite the seriousness of the themes and tone, the Alex Rider books are, like Fleming’s novels, pure escapism. And for that, they’re great, for children and adults alike. I enjoy these and the Young Bond novels as much as any adult spy fiction currently on the market. If there’s a tweenage boy in your life who likes action movies and video games but can’t be bothered to read, Alex Rider is probably the ideal thing to get him hooked. But even if you don’t have a kid to give them too, I still highly recommend checking out Horowitz’s series of Alex Rider novels. Fans of Bondian spy fiction are likely to enjoy them. Although the books flow best read in order, there is no reason that one couldn't pick up Crocodile Tears and plunge right in. If you have the choice, though, I would recommend starting either at the beginning, with Stormbreaker, or with the best, Point Blanc or Eagle Strike. Wherever you start, you're likely to become hooked, so chances are you'll end up at Crocodile Tears sooner or later anyway.
Though I post here under the name Tanner, my real name is Matthew Bradford, and I'm a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. I'm coauthor of the graphic novel Night and Fog and I co-wrote and co-produced the 2014 horror feature Dead Within.
another officially sanctioned project that seeks to capitalize on the success of Charlie Higson's 
, to be a real return to form. In fact, it was (and still remains) the most enjoyable Alex Rider book I’d read yet. 
