Alex Rider #1: Stormbreaker

 

Stormbreaker

Alex Rider Series

Anthony Horowitz

 

    

"When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news.

Alex Rider was woken by the first chime."

 

Alex Rider lives in Chelsea, England with his uncle and housekeeper, Jack. When his uncle, Ian Rider dies in suspicious circumstances, Alex is determined to investigate. His investigations lead him to the Royal & General Bank in central London, which turns out to be a cover for MI6. Alex is forcibly recruited into spy work, and sent on an intensive SAS training to prepare for the mission his uncle died doing.

 

Stormbreaker is the first in a completed series of 9 Alex Rider books, written by the English mastermind of teenage fiction, Anthony Horowitz.

 

Stormbreaker is a well written, superbly paced book, with amazing action sequences and excellent characters. This book is very much a slightly fantastical book, to suspend your disbelief a little makes this book a whole lot better. The plot is nicely rounded off at the end of the story, but also leaving it open for the continuation books to follow.

 

It introduces the main characters nicely, explaining some background, and character features, as well as making them people you can easily relate to in someway. The storyline is excellent with a nice balance of good and bad characters. However the story seems to still have no major cliffhanger type moments, do-or-die moments like other books have.

 

Compared to another teenage spy novel series like that of CHREUB(also by a British author set in England) it does not have the same appeal as for most of the time, it is just one good guy surrounded by lots of bad guys. However compared to many other teenage novels, this well written piece of fiction sets up some questions that get answered only when you get to the 8th and 9th books. Overall, it's a brilliant piece of fiction and I recommend it, but not as much as the best teenage spy novel series CHERUB.

 

Bottom line, I like it. I enjoy it. I recommend it. But I believe there are better books out there. The plot and characters are amazing, the way it is set out...not so much.

Until next time,

Atra du evarinya ono varda,
(May the stars watch over you)

Samantha.