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Post by cwm on Apr 30, 2011 12:50:22 GMT -5
There was a Radio 4 interview a while back where he said it was going to be his next project.
Of course, he's also got the new Sherlock Holmes book (although I gather that's not far off from completion given we have a release date) and the new Tintin movie...
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Post by Dante on Apr 30, 2011 14:31:20 GMT -5
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten he was doing the new Sherlock Holmes book; I'm rather looking forward to that. Partly as, believe it or not, I've never actually gotten around to reading any Sherlock; I'd rather like to, but it's a matter of finding the time amid the many other books I have to read. And I didn't know AH was involved with the Tintin movie? First Steven Moffat and now him. It had better be good.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 30, 2011 14:51:00 GMT -5
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten he was doing the new Sherlock Holmes book; I'm rather looking forward to that. Partly as, believe it or not, I've never actually gotten around to reading any Sherlock; I'd rather like to, but it's a matter of finding the time amid the many other books I have to read.. I suggest focusing on the short stories; they are generally thought to be better than the novels anyway, and they won't take up that much time.
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Post by cwm on May 1, 2011 3:10:17 GMT -5
He's down to do the screenplay of Prisoners of the Sun.
Allow me to off-topically recommend the Moffat/Gatiss TV version of Sherlock that aired last year if you get the chance.
Back on topic, thoughts on Snakehead: Never before had we waited so long for a new Alex Rider book than the gap between Ark Angel and Snakehead. Previously it’d been a gap of no more than one year (and at its lowest a mere nine months)… and then a two-and-a-half-year wait for this one.
Fortunately, it hits the ground running. A good opening chapter that picks up from Ark Angel and the reintroduction of Scorpia is a good idea as Horowitz essentially has a ready-made villain and motive. I might have liked it if he’d given Major Yu a few lines in the board meeting in Scorpia, but that’s a very pedantic quibble. The plot’s another nice science-y one that gives Horowitz a chance to show off the sheer amount of research that goes into the books. Ash is a good character and a good inclusion on the whole, although I do have problems with the fact that Jack would never mention him before now.
Alex’s escape from the hospital, the climax at the oil-rig – the usual stuff is here. Ash’s revelation falls a bit flat in some respects, and I know a few people have expressed disbelief. I think it’s foreshadowed reasonably well. Unlike Ark Angel, the points about how there’s a leak aren’t rammed home – when Anan Sukit speaks to Alex in languages he shouldn’t understand or only the gadgets Alex told Ash about go missing, that’s not made clear as something suspicious. In retrospect it should seem obvious that Ash is the plant all along, but I appreciate the effort not to make it as blatant as in the previous volume.
Unfortunately, the fact that Ash is pretty much never referred to again outside of one page in the next book sort of dilutes the impact in retrospect. But this is still a good book. It seems surprising that Horowitz considered this should be the final book, though – it just doesn’t feel right. It’s too much of a happy ending, given that Alex’s only real loss is a character introduced earlier in that book.
And Yu has a deliciously disgusting and creative fate. I get the feeling Horowitz enjoys writing this sort of thing. Much like Eagle Strike, this is a book with so much going on you end up racing through it very quickly – there’s a lot of adrenalin to this. It's basically action after action with a refusal to stop, and it blends all the elements that makes this series so popular perfectly. If I ranked the books this would be very close to the top.
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Post by Dante on May 1, 2011 3:58:38 GMT -5
He's down to do the screenplay of Prisoners of the Sun. Thanks. Hmm, it's strange that an American production of a Belgian icon is using British writers. No complaints, though; I know these guys know what they're doing. Too late; already saw it. I'm very much looking forward to the next series. I guess it's probably a good sign that Horowitz takes so long to do his writing; he does tend to have multiple projects going at once, and he does a heck of a lot of research, for which I'm not sure I'd have the patience. It does leave the audience starving rather, though, since we're pretty much accustomed to yearly releases for every other major series. I don't have much to add to your recap - I don't remember much of the plot of Snakehead at all, or even how I reacted to it. The Ash plotline had to do with how Alex's parents died, though? That's usually finale fodder, so I can definitely see how Horowitz might've viewed it as the last book in one stage if it was going to feature that. But without a more conclusive way of getting Alex out of the system, he would always be hearing requests for more books.
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Post by cwm on May 1, 2011 4:38:49 GMT -5
Yes. The original plan was to have Snakehead the last book, then release the prequel about Yassen Gregorovich. However the Yassen book got a very lukewarm reception at school visits so Horowitz decided to shelve it and carry on with the regular books.
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Post by Dante on May 1, 2011 4:41:34 GMT -5
Aye, I'd heard that the concept for a Yassen book hadn't been proving too popular, which is a shame as Horowitz obviously really wants to write it. Given that, I think it's kind of a shame that Yassen's been dead for a while and the opportunity has sort of passed.
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Post by cwm on May 1, 2011 6:22:13 GMT -5
He does still plan to write it (along with "one other surprise a few years down the line"), he just shelved it.
On that note, Crocodile Tears since as I mentioned I wrote up both:
At the time, and up until recently, I dismissed this book as pretty pointless and formulaic, serving no purpose to the series as a whole other than replacing the slot originally intended for the Yassen Gregorovich novel when Horowitz got an unenthusiastic response about that. Having re-read it, I feel I should revise that opinion slightly. This is the first time Alex is actually, directly press-ganged into working for MI6 since Point Blanc – in-between he’s managed to embroil himself in trouble of his own accord (with perhaps a little push) or been working for another secret service. Then the Prime Minister gets involved. This more or less leads into the position Blunt finds himself in at the beginning of Scorpia Rising, so it’s important that this book happened in one sense.
Unfortunately it’s got a few problems with it. Desmond McCain seems to be a blend of several previous villains (Herod Sayle, Damian Cray, Nikolei Drevin and Winston Yu all came to mind as characters with traits strongly reminiscent of McCain – crazy victim of racism, secretly evil benevolent celebrity, criminal businessman, admiring Alex in some way) whilst not bringing anything new to the table and Horowitz doesn’t seem to try and give Rahim much character depth. There also seem to be fewer big action sequences, with only the Poison Dome standing out in memory – and even that not all that much. It all just falls a bit flat with me. The aforementioned fact that Alex is working for MI6 directly does make it all feel a bit closer to earlier entries… and I think the advertising was a bit misleading in describing this as Alex’s toughest adventure yet. The second chapter briefly reflects on past events like Ash and the truth about Alex’s parents seems to me a quick way of getting the old stuff out of the way before the new adventure. Given the previous helicopter crashes, falling platforms and jet turbines, McCain’s death seems very anti-climatic, too. It’s not dreadful, but not all that good, and generally a bit of a disappointing penultimate instalment. It’s not the useless inconvenience between the Snakehead and Scorpia Rising I once thought it was, but it is still likely to end up my least favourite Alex Rider book. There’s a bit more weight to it with Blunt’s last job in Scorpia Rising and how this book pretty much led to that, with his deciding to use Alex one last time having disastrous results…
Plus side – the gadgets. Smithers and his gadgets are always one of the best parts of each book, and having him disguise the contents of a pencil case as gadgets worked particularly well. Also, I like how the entire thing unravels as it turns out how McCain came to meet Alex twice.
Since this is the book which marked the complete overhaul of the series covers, I’ll just touch on that briefly. I like the new proper ‘Alex Rider’ logo, after a decade of the series having no official title. I think on the whole, though, it just looks a bit more juvenile than the previous design, and for ever-so-slightly younger people than the series’ target market. When the entire series was rereleased to match this new design a few months later and CT was rereleased in paperback, it looked much better, though. But the crocodile eye symbol is nowhere near as cool as the Scorpia or Ark Angel logos (and definitely loses something in the transition to paperback).
Strikes me I should probably do something about that Law exam coming up in five weeks now...
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Post by Dante on May 1, 2011 6:40:56 GMT -5
The logo is the Alex Rider silhouette thing, right? I don't think it's a great silhouette; it looks a bit too... baggy? It's not a dynamic pose because the arms aren't really revealed; they're hidden in the shadow of the torso. As for the covers in general... I keep on getting the feeling I'm not looking at the right covers, as Scorpia Rising looks really out-of-place with the rest. And I also think that SR looks kinda like a placeholder cover - it's nice, very stark, but it's maybe just a bit too simple (again, if the other redesigned covers are what I think they are).
Also, can you remind me what Desmond McCain's motives were? All I remember was that he was an evil charity boss, and not much more than that.
Actually, I've just remembered something else. Isn't there a point in the first half of the series, probably at the end of one, where it's suggested that Alex would never see Sabina again?
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Post by cwm on May 1, 2011 6:56:50 GMT -5
The covers featured the boy-with-torch (as it's known) logo from the beginning. The rebranding added the words 'ALEX RIDER' at the top and on the spine. McCain's motives were that he was going to orchestrate a national disaster, then keep as much of the money as he could. It's stated at the end of Eagle Strike that Alex knows he'll never see Sabina again. At the end of Snakehead this is revised to 'he thought' he'd never see her again. EDIT: Cover evolution of Stormbreaker for comparison: > > > Left to right: Original 2000 cover > 2004 redesign to bring it more in line with the later pattern established by books 2-4 > 2005 redesign to bring books 1-4 in line with the pattern established by books 5-6 > 2010 total rebranding Point Blanc also had as many covers in a similar progression. Skeleton Key and Eagle Strike had three - imagine the above 'timeline' with the first removed and you're there. Scorpia, which kicked off the use of 'emblems' on the cover, is a curious case. The original cover had a small scorpion and a big 'SCORPIA' title. At some point before Snakehead it was reprinted to invert this, with a larger scorpion and smaller title. All the rest went from their original covers to the rebranding (barring the republication of Snakehead from hardback into the first edition paperback). God, that was a nerdy post. Oh yes, and my trailing of Amazon for different editions has thrown up the curious fact that Scorpia Rising WAS available in hardback - but only the US edition. Bizarre.
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Post by Dante on May 1, 2011 7:22:24 GMT -5
The covers featured the boy-with-torch (as it's known) logo from the beginning. The rebranding added the words 'ALEX RIDER' at the top and on the spine. In retrospect, I thought that was the case. It's just that my bookcases are so packed that it is genuinely very difficult to extricate or even see most of the books. I should have a clear-out. Or another bookcase. Anyway, Alex Rider is pretty much the best series title they were going to get. I don't think The Chronicles Of or The Adventures Of or anything like that would've helped. Oh, just money? That's kind of disappointing, honestly. That's the motive of just a normal real-world sort of villain. Or indeed a lot of people. Gotta have that happy ending. It might have been a bit short-sighted of Horowitz to write that line in the first place; makes you wonder what sort of an ending he originally had in sight. It certainly looks like the Scorpia Rising cover doesn't fit with the style of the other new ones, then. Unless maybe they're going for yet another rebranding, but you'd know better about that than I. And I admire you for its attention to detail. Somebody has to record these things. After all, somebody made them.
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Post by cwm on May 1, 2011 7:31:10 GMT -5
Can't imagine there'll be another rebranding for a few years yet - twentieth anniversary, anyone? I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure the spine design for Scorpia Rising is more or less consistent with the other books - the only difference being that of the placing of the 'emblem' for that book. So only somebody really obsessive would care about it not fitting in with the style. Oddly, I'd assumed the final novel's cover breaking a trend was something that happened a fair bit, but can't think of any examples off the top of my head. I notice the US edition of Scorpia Rising does fit in with the other books in the series. Another oddity with the US editions is that their new versions of 1-7 are more or less identical to the UK ones except with a different logo, and then the last two are completely different:
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Post by cwm on Jun 1, 2017 10:26:52 GMT -5
So, so much for "the final chapter". Six years on and Alex is back.
I *liked* Never Say Die, but there is a fairly huge problem with it... which I won't spoil for anyone who's not read it yet. It'll become apparent what it is when you read it.
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Post by Dante on Jun 2, 2017 10:39:03 GMT -5
I think I found out literally yesterday that there was a new book on the way, so I've no idea when I'm going to get my hands on it and read it, I'm afraid. I will ask a quick question, though: Does the ending leave another opening for yet more books further down the line at all, or does it try to wrap the series up yet again?
I don't think we ever discussed Russian Roulette in this thread, did we? I remember enjoying it and appreciating the fact that a book about the backstory of a secondary villain was a relatively bold choice of premise.
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Post by Teleram on Jun 2, 2017 20:24:22 GMT -5
Alex Rider is just about the last series I would've expected Dante to be a fan of
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