Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
Had to reread it after watching Alex Rider S2 to see what all they changed from the source. Or perhaps used it as an excuse to come back to one of my fav series ever. You guess.
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
adventurous
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I have a feeling I enjoyed reading this book even more than the first time I read it. I vaguely recall not finding it quite as good as the other early Alex Rider books (probably because it was sandwiched in between the 2nd and 4th which used to be my favourites). But now I’m not sure I could rank them.
Moments to mention:
• As much as I really enjoy these stories, they do like to put the villain as the foreigner, don't they? It's always someone from another country doing evil things, portrayed as dangerous and insane. Stormbreaker's Herod Sayle was Lebanese, Point Blanc's Dr Grief and Mrs Stellenbosch were South African, and now Skeleton Key's General Sarov is Russian. (Yet the stories are also so colourful and of a thrilling simplicity that I can't help but love them.)
• Oh I do like Smithers. And his room which at first seemed disappointingly boring but then had a sofa which separated and a woman emerged from the ground sitting on an additional sofa seat, and the filing cabinet slid open to reveal a brightly lit lift. And all his marvellous little gadgety creations of course.
• Aw, poor Alex. I'm assuming, of course, that the boat blowing up wasn't a result of Alex setting the petrol alight, but a planned explosion by Conrad to kill the Salesman at Serov's orders. But in the meantime Turner and Troy will blame Alex for causing the deaths of those men, and he'll blame himself too.
• A receipt from Langley? Oh dear Turner, you all were doing so well and THAT'S the thing you slip up on? I hope the book you bought was worth it...
• I like how Alex keeps having this conflict/ tug of war of emotions/drives/wants, between wanting to get out of MI6 and live a normal life at school with his friends, and then not wanting to be left out of the action. It's as if he really sees the value he can add to a mission (he doesn't really trust those who are doing it) and cares deeply about the mission aim itself, so he simply can't forget about it. He always openly says he wants normality, but when push comes to shove he'll continue to involve himself. (The same thing happened when he argued to join Wolf in storming Point Blanc after saying he wanted no involvement at all, and also all the little things he gets up to himself at the beginning of each book.) He can't help but shove his nose into these things. It's as if he is, indeed, a natural spy. (The "I didn't ask to be here." "But still you came.” exchange between Alex and boat driver Garcia p186 perfectly sums this up.)
• The thing is, these stories are just perfect for a film or TV series. And I don't mean some rough adaptation - I mean scene to scene, how every detail is laid out. You can just see it. Like in the airport when you see them going through security then zoom out to activities of the bored looking guard and his decision not to quite raise the alarm yet. And here, Alex catching something dark flash above him out of the corner of his eye whilst scuba diving. You can just see it on the screen. I really can't believe they've struggled with making anything yet. I hope this series does well.
• Wait wait. Sarov runs 24 MILES every day before breakfast? That's almost a marathon. Every day. Before breakfast. Um. Is that even possible?
• I also love how the stories are so memorable and how you really feel you've been on this journey with Alex and understand his feelings and feel his memories. Sarov asks him if he rides and he replies he has, though the text says he hesitates because 'he didn't like horse-riding'. Just a one-off statement, but of course we're transported back to his experience riding with Fiona Friend through the tunnel in the last book. This story doesn't need to mention it, but we can be pretty sure Alex is remembering exactly the same thing. This same sort of reader/character recollection occurred when Alex was surfboarding and reflecting on its similarities to snowboarding - again we remember Alex not too long ago speeding down a deadly mountain side escaping pursuing machine gun fire.
--- (And, again, I can visualise how effortlessly this could be translated into a film - the polite conversation over breakfast, a sudden switch to a 2-second scene of explosive memory in dark saturated colour, then back to the pastel morning scene as Alex calmly replies, giving nothing away. It'd be amazing!)
• This is such an unusual storyline - to have the villain - this old, bizarrely fit, terrifying Russian with his eyes set on almost- world destruction - not want to kill Alex, but to adopt him, because he reminds him of his own lost teenage son. It's odd, perhaps not too believable, but also weirdly warming. He has a big soft spot, this general - a squidgy inner centre where he longs to be a father again.
• Ugh, what a dramatic end. Sarov looking broken, Alex telling him to shoot him, saying he'd rather be dead than have a father like him, then Sarov... shooting himself. Not necessarily out of failure or fear of capture, but out of rejected love. Twisted love, for sure, but it was something.
• Oh Mrs Jones, you really do care about Alex don't you. I wish I knew more about your own past (she mentioned children again). Meanwhile Blunt doesn’t seem to understand the emotional trauma of anything. ("I hope you're not getting a conscience [...] If you're really worried about Alex, bring him in and we'll have a little heart to heart." /Mrs Jones looked her boss straight in the eye. "He may have trouble finding yours" -p321 boom!)
• P323 Oh my gosh, this whole page. So Alex is a hero, yet he feels... awful. He wants to be left alone, he feels depressed, exhausted, as if he died in Murmansk and returned to London as a ghost. He no longer feels a part of life, no longer belongs in his own home. He can't talk to anyone about anything and predicts losing his friendships and relationships with anyone. He'd never have a father. He'd never have an ordinary life.
--- Oh Alex. This is why this is so much better than James Bond. Bond goes through all this stuff but doesn't seem to feel anything - he isn't affected by it, he doesn't care. But Alex is so human (not just human but a child), and it's almost painful to read how he's suffering so like this. I love the action and adventure and excitement... But part of me also just wants him to be granted a normal life, and maybe just get up to the odd bit of mischief.
Sentences to single out:
• ‘At once, the clouds rolled in - first red, then maybe, silver, green and black as if all the colours in the world were being sucked into a vast melting pot. A single frigate bird soared over the mangroves, its own colours lost in the chaos behind it.’ -p7 (part of the opening paragraph)
• ‘He sensed it before he saw it. It was as if the world had chosen that moment to come to an end and all nature was taking one final breath.’ -p75 (the approaching Cribber - the most powerful wave)
• ‘His face was the worst part of him. It was as if it had been taken to pieces and put back together again by a child with only a vague knowledge of the human form.’ -p118, description of Conrad.
• ‘Airports are the same all over the world, but the one at Murmansk had managed to achieve a new level of ugliness.’ -p292
• ‘He'd never thought that a machine could actually emanate evil, but these did. They were as dark and as cold as the water that lapped about them. They looked just like the bombs they had become.’ -p300 (Alex seeing the nuclear submarines)
I’m smashing through these. I’m like a bulldozer that can’t be stopped – let me demolish the next one!
Moments to mention:
Spoiler
• As much as I really enjoy these stories, they do like to put the villain as the foreigner, don't they? It's always someone from another country doing evil things, portrayed as dangerous and insane. Stormbreaker's Herod Sayle was Lebanese, Point Blanc's Dr Grief and Mrs Stellenbosch were South African, and now Skeleton Key's General Sarov is Russian. (Yet the stories are also so colourful and of a thrilling simplicity that I can't help but love them.)
• Oh I do like Smithers. And his room which at first seemed disappointingly boring but then had a sofa which separated and a woman emerged from the ground sitting on an additional sofa seat, and the filing cabinet slid open to reveal a brightly lit lift. And all his marvellous little gadgety creations of course.
• Aw, poor Alex. I'm assuming, of course, that the boat blowing up wasn't a result of Alex setting the petrol alight, but a planned explosion by Conrad to kill the Salesman at Serov's orders. But in the meantime Turner and Troy will blame Alex for causing the deaths of those men, and he'll blame himself too.
• A receipt from Langley? Oh dear Turner, you all were doing so well and THAT'S the thing you slip up on? I hope the book you bought was worth it...
• I like how Alex keeps having this conflict/ tug of war of emotions/drives/wants, between wanting to get out of MI6 and live a normal life at school with his friends, and then not wanting to be left out of the action. It's as if he really sees the value he can add to a mission (he doesn't really trust those who are doing it) and cares deeply about the mission aim itself, so he simply can't forget about it. He always openly says he wants normality, but when push comes to shove he'll continue to involve himself. (The same thing happened when he argued to join Wolf in storming Point Blanc after saying he wanted no involvement at all, and also all the little things he gets up to himself at the beginning of each book.) He can't help but shove his nose into these things. It's as if he is, indeed, a natural spy. (The "I didn't ask to be here." "But still you came.” exchange between Alex and boat driver Garcia p186 perfectly sums this up.)
• The thing is, these stories are just perfect for a film or TV series. And I don't mean some rough adaptation - I mean scene to scene, how every detail is laid out. You can just see it. Like in the airport when you see them going through security then zoom out to activities of the bored looking guard and his decision not to quite raise the alarm yet. And here, Alex catching something dark flash above him out of the corner of his eye whilst scuba diving. You can just see it on the screen. I really can't believe they've struggled with making anything yet. I hope this series does well.
• Wait wait. Sarov runs 24 MILES every day before breakfast? That's almost a marathon. Every day. Before breakfast. Um. Is that even possible?
• I also love how the stories are so memorable and how you really feel you've been on this journey with Alex and understand his feelings and feel his memories. Sarov asks him if he rides and he replies he has, though the text says he hesitates because 'he didn't like horse-riding'. Just a one-off statement, but of course we're transported back to his experience riding with Fiona Friend through the tunnel in the last book. This story doesn't need to mention it, but we can be pretty sure Alex is remembering exactly the same thing. This same sort of reader/character recollection occurred when Alex was surfboarding and reflecting on its similarities to snowboarding - again we remember Alex not too long ago speeding down a deadly mountain side escaping pursuing machine gun fire.
--- (And, again, I can visualise how effortlessly this could be translated into a film - the polite conversation over breakfast, a sudden switch to a 2-second scene of explosive memory in dark saturated colour, then back to the pastel morning scene as Alex calmly replies, giving nothing away. It'd be amazing!)
• This is such an unusual storyline - to have the villain - this old, bizarrely fit, terrifying Russian with his eyes set on almost- world destruction - not want to kill Alex, but to adopt him, because he reminds him of his own lost teenage son. It's odd, perhaps not too believable, but also weirdly warming. He has a big soft spot, this general - a squidgy inner centre where he longs to be a father again.
• Ugh, what a dramatic end. Sarov looking broken, Alex telling him to shoot him, saying he'd rather be dead than have a father like him, then Sarov... shooting himself. Not necessarily out of failure or fear of capture, but out of rejected love. Twisted love, for sure, but it was something.
• Oh Mrs Jones, you really do care about Alex don't you. I wish I knew more about your own past (she mentioned children again). Meanwhile Blunt doesn’t seem to understand the emotional trauma of anything. ("I hope you're not getting a conscience [...] If you're really worried about Alex, bring him in and we'll have a little heart to heart." /Mrs Jones looked her boss straight in the eye. "He may have trouble finding yours" -p321 boom!)
• P323 Oh my gosh, this whole page. So Alex is a hero, yet he feels... awful. He wants to be left alone, he feels depressed, exhausted, as if he died in Murmansk and returned to London as a ghost. He no longer feels a part of life, no longer belongs in his own home. He can't talk to anyone about anything and predicts losing his friendships and relationships with anyone. He'd never have a father. He'd never have an ordinary life.
--- Oh Alex. This is why this is so much better than James Bond. Bond goes through all this stuff but doesn't seem to feel anything - he isn't affected by it, he doesn't care. But Alex is so human (not just human but a child), and it's almost painful to read how he's suffering so like this. I love the action and adventure and excitement... But part of me also just wants him to be granted a normal life, and maybe just get up to the odd bit of mischief.
Sentences to single out:
Spoiler
• ‘At once, the clouds rolled in - first red, then maybe, silver, green and black as if all the colours in the world were being sucked into a vast melting pot. A single frigate bird soared over the mangroves, its own colours lost in the chaos behind it.’ -p7 (part of the opening paragraph)
• ‘He sensed it before he saw it. It was as if the world had chosen that moment to come to an end and all nature was taking one final breath.’ -p75 (the approaching Cribber - the most powerful wave)
• ‘His face was the worst part of him. It was as if it had been taken to pieces and put back together again by a child with only a vague knowledge of the human form.’ -p118, description of Conrad.
• ‘Airports are the same all over the world, but the one at Murmansk had managed to achieve a new level of ugliness.’ -p292
• ‘He'd never thought that a machine could actually emanate evil, but these did. They were as dark and as cold as the water that lapped about them. They looked just like the bombs they had become.’ -p300 (Alex seeing the nuclear submarines)
I’m smashing through these. I’m like a bulldozer that can’t be stopped – let me demolish the next one!
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No