Alex Rider
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Alex Rider is a popular series of spy novels written by British author Anthony Horowitz.
Six novels have been published to date and the seventh Snakehead is planned for a release of November 2007. As of December 18, 2006 Anthony Horowitz has announced that there will be an eight novel but oddly enough, Alex won't be in it. The novels revolve around an orphan teenager, Alex Rider, being recruited by MI6 to be sent out on various missions. The first novel, Stormbreaker, was first released in the United Kingdom in 2000 and has been made into a major motion picture. The novels are published by Walker Books Ltd. in the UK and by Puffin in the United States.
The novels
Stormbreaker
Template:Spoiler They told Alex his uncle Ian Rider died in a car accident. Alex knows that's not true. His suspicions are confirmed when he goes to the junkyard and finds bullet holes in his uncle's car. Soon he discovers that the bank his uncle worked for, Royal and General, was really just a cover for MI6, Britain's most exclusive intelligence agency and that his uncle was an agent. Alex is recruited to finish his uncle's mission: Stormbreaker. Alex also discovers that his uncle has been indirectly training him to be a spy all his life.This makes him a fascinating asset: an unassuming fourteen-year-old with the skills of an agent. M16 blackmail Alex into helping them investigate a wealthy businessman named Herod Sayle whom Ian Rider was investigating before he was killed. What Alex got out of it was that he could keep his housekeeper, Jack Starbright who became his legal guardian, but her visa is expired. In exchange for spying for them, M16 would renew her visa.
Sayle is a millionaire who plans to release a new computer system called Stormbreaker and is giving every school in the United Kingdom numerous computers for free. To thank him, the British government is planning to give him citizenship. But MI6 is suspicious. Alex soon uncovers the real plot - Herod Sayle plans to kill every British schoolchild, loading each Stormbreaker computer with a lethal dose of smallpox, specifically modified as R-5. Using various disguised weapons that MI6 provided for him, Alex manages to stop his horrifying plan. Stormbreaker has been recently been made into a movie, with young British actor Alex Pettyfer starring as Alex Rider.
Sarah Bolger-Sabina Pleasure Jimmy Carr-John Crawford Robbie Coltrane-Prime Minister Alex Pettyfer-Alex Rider Stephen Fry-Smithers Damian Lewis-Yassen Gregorovich Ewan McGregor-Ian Rider Bill Nighy-Mr. Alan Blunt Sophie Okonedo-Mrs. Tulip Jones Missi Pyle-Nadia Vole Andy Serkis-Mr. Grin Alicia Silverstone-Jack Starbright Ashley Walters-Wolf Mickey Rourke-Darrius Sayle
Point Blank
Billionaire Michael J. Roscoe, head of an electronics company is mysteriously killed in an odd accident. Viktor Ivanov, a high-ranking Russian general, is also killed in a strange accident. Both sent their sons to Point Blanc. an elite academy for the sons of the rich who have problems with their parents. MI6 blackmails Alex Rider into investigating the incidents by becoming a student at Point Blanc. He shaves his head and becomes Alex Friend, "son" of Sir David Friend, a wealthy man who runs supermarkets.
Soon enough, Alex discovers the real plot. Dr. Hugo Grief, director of the school, has been working on the Gemini Project(in astrology, the Gemini sign is depicted as twins in the horoscope chart). In the 1980s, Grief was in South Africa during apartheid and cloned sixteen copies of himself. When the boys were at Point Blanc, he had a plastic surgeon surgically alter his clones to resemble the real boys. After a short while, the clone and the real boy are swapped and sent back home. As the fathers die and pass on their inheritance — assets controlling mines, supermarkets, and more — Grief will amass more power.
Alex escapes and returns with a Special Forces unit to liberate the school. As a last act of revenge, Alex rides a snowmobile off the ski ramp, slamming it into Grief's helicopter and killing him. When asked what happened to Grief, Alex replies: "It looks like I 'sleighed' him."
This book was renamed "Point Blank" when published in the United States.
Skeleton Key
In the third Alex Rider novel, Alex is invited by MI6 to be a ball boy at Wimbledon, to investigate a strange break-in in which nothing was stolen. On the assignment, he meets a ball girl named Sabina Pleasure and becomes good friends with her. She invites Alex on vacation with her family, and also shows romantic interest in him. Despite MI6's confidence, Alex discovers that the Big Circle, a Chinese Triad gang, is rigging the games by drugging the contestants. After an unsuccessful attempt on Alex's life, MI6 and the CIA tell him that he should go out on a vacation to Skeleton Key, an island off the coast of Cuba. They promise him two weeks in the sun and say he is only needed so two CIA agents Turner and Troy can successfully enter the country for a simple spying mission.
Soon after they arrive, Alex discovers some frightening truths. After finding a Geiger counter disguised as a Game Boy, he finds out that the CIA agents are looking for a nuclear bomb. An old Russian general living in Skeleton Key, Alexei Sarov, bought some weapons-grade uranium, and the CIA agents attempt to infiltrate his palace. Unfortunately, they are killed, and Alex is taken as a prisoner. There he finds out that Sarov wants to adopt him, since Alex resembles Sarov's late son, who died during the 1979 Afghanistan war. Shortly after Alex is captured, the Russian president arrives at Sarov's palace for an informal vacation.
Sarov soon reveals his plans: depose the president, set off the bomb in a nuclear submarine shipyard in Murmansk, spread chaos throughout the world, and reunite the USSR. Alex is taken by plane to the submarine yard with Sarov and his men. On the way there, Alex activates a stun grenade and attempts to escape. However, an arrogant security guard named George Prescott stops him from calling the police. Conrad, Sarov's right-hand man, kills Prescott and they continue to Murmansk.
When Prescott grabbed the phone, he didn't hang it up. Although the police believed Alex's talk was a hoax, they alerted MI6 when they heard Conrad kill Prescott. MI6 subsequently alerted the Russian authorities, and the Russians pull together an army to take the submarine yard and prevent the bomb from going off. While the soldiers are fighting Sarov's men, Alex throws the keycard away, rendering the nuclear bomb useless. Sarov, who sees Alex throw the card away, approaches him with the pistol. After Alex says he would rather die than to have a father like Sarov, Sarov can take no more and shoots himself. Alex is badly shaken up by the incident, but at the end of the novel, Sabina invites him on a holiday to France.
Eagle Strike
Alex's adventure starts when he sees Russian contract killer Yassen Gregorovich while vacationing in France. However, Yassen Gregorovich; working for villain Damian Cray — has been sent to blow up the house Sabina Pleasure's family is renting. Alex believes he was the target. However, the real target was Edward Pleasure,Sabina's father. Though her father was injured by the explosion he was not killed. Having seen Yassen Gregorovich earlier that day he figures out that it was him that did this. So he goes to a motorboat that he knows is Yassen's. He knocks one of Yassen's hitmen. He then enters the boat where he finds a gun and points it at Yassen. He is unable to pull the trigger and the accomplice that Alex Rider knocked out became concious and was able to capture Ato outwit the bull injure one of the accomplice. He escapes and luckily enough Yassen has already left in his motorboat. While in the boat he also found a letter with a telephone number on it. He dials the number and hears Damian Cray on the other end. He hangs up. Although MI6 refuses to support his evidence, Alex is now back into the spying game, although alone with a gift sent by Smithers, and he begins investigating Damian Cray. Some initial research yields that he is a multi-billionaire pop star that has spent thousands of dollars on his new video game console, the Gameslayer.
Alex goes to Paris to meet a photographer who worked with Edward Pleasure, and then to Amsterdam where the base of Cray Software Technologies is. Cray puts Alex into a life-size version of his first Gameslayer game, which is how he recorded his so-called 'pain synthesis'. Alex escapes and returns to London with a USB drive, a vital piece of equipment for Cray's plan Eagle Strike, where he finds that Sabina Pleasure has been kidnapped and will be released for the ransom of the drive. Alex attempts to gain the release of Sabina in exchange for the chip, but Cray outmanuvers him and keeps both Sabina and Alex close by.
Cray creates a decoy with a burning Boeing 747 about to crash land that is "full" of harmful nerve gas. During the confusion that arises, Cray, Yassen, Henryk (Cray's Dutch pilot), Sabina and Alex (the missiles at the world. (In real life, this would be impossible as the President can only order strikes- the US military must carry them out. The military do have the activation codes, and it would be highly improbable, although possible, that they have the codes on an USB drive.)
Once on board, Cray orders Yassen to kill Alex and Sabina. Yassen refuses, so Cray kills him. Cray then shoots Alex, so Sabina attacks Cray, who overpowers her and prepares to kill her. Alex gets up (he was wearing the bulletproof jersey Smithers gave him) and pushes Cray out the window, where the villain is sucked into one of the engines, forcing Air Force One to crash land. Henryk, the pilot, is so nervous that he crashes the plane and breaks his neck.
Before he dies, Yassen reveals to Alex that his father was a killer like himself, as well as a friend, and Alex needs to go to Venice and find Scorpia to find his destiny. "Go to Venice, find Scorpia, find your destiny," are his final words, as spoken to Alex.
Scorpia
This novel is about Scorpia, a terrorism force that strikes like a scorpion - always dangerous and deadly. Meanwhile, Alex Rider, acting on Yassen's advice, goes to Venice with his friend Tom. He meets up with Scorpia, where they reveal that MI6 assassinated his father. He decides to join Scorpia, following in his father's footsteps, and his first job is to kill Mrs. Jones. This attempt is thwarted; however, Scorpia has another threat, a weapon which they dub Invisible Sword, which are microshells injected into thousands of English schoolchildren that contain cyanide. The nanoshells could be broken with tetra hertz wave dish, which would release the poison. Alex and the British government piece together the details and send Alex, once again, to stop the plan from execution. At the end,when all of Scorpia's plans are ruined they send an assassin to kill Alex. Alex gets shot but not killed.
Ark Angel
The book revolves around a mysterious terrorist force called Force Three. They are an eco-terrorism group, killing all those who stand in their way. It is soon revealed that Force Three was merely invented by a rich Russian named Nikolai Drevin. He is also helping finance the construction of Ark Angel, a project to build a hotel in space. However, Alex Rider soon discovers that Ark Angel is actually a carefully planned plot to destroy Washington, D.C., and must move quickly to stop it from happening by going into space.
Characters
- Alex Rider
- Full list of Alex Rider characters
- Alan Blunt
- Mrs. Jones
- Jack Starbright
- Yassen Gregorovich
- Smithers
- Sabina Pleasure
- John Rider