From Page to Screen: 'Scorpia' by Anthony Horowitz

It's amazing no-one thought of it before. A normal, fourteen year-old schoolboy is dragged into a world of spies and espionage when his uncle dies in a mysterious car accident. The boy I speak of is Alex Rider, the star of Anthony Horowitz's miniature James Bond tale that has now spanned over five books - Scorpia being the fifth and final installment. The twist in Alex's life comes when he discovers his uncle was in fact murdered - and not only that, but Alex's late relative was also a spy who worked for MI6. It's kids stuff, obviously, but I was very young when the first and best book of the series, Stormbreaker, was first realeased, so I've read ever since just to see where Alex goes next, because, as you'd guess, he's recruited by MI6 to 'replace' his uncle.


Alex's latest adventure takes him to Venice, among other places, and as usual, Howoritz shamelessly steals set-pieces from the Bond movies and ruins the better parts of the book with stupid and childish language - for example, an evil organization's leader would not say "basically, we just kick MI6's butt". But luckily, this is the final book of the series, so the plot is finally tied up and all the unanswered questions are no longer unanswered. Some of the final twists are pathetic, but you could never accuse them of not being surprising. Horowitz has crafted a fine children's tale that will translate well onto the big screen when the movie version of the original, Stormbreaker, is realeased in a few years - Horowitz has reportedly already completed the script and hopes casting will get underway soon.