Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz
Jul. 13th, 2006 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Working as a secret agent for Britain'smost exclusive agency, Alex Rider thinks he's seen it all. He's been shot at by international terrorists, stood face-to-face with pure evil, and saved the world - twice. All before his fifteenth birthday. But Alex is about to face something more dangerous than he can imagine: a man who's lost everything he cared for - his country, his son - a man who has a nuclear weapon, and will stop at nothing to get his world back. Unless Alex can stop him first ...
I thought that this was a vast improvement on both Stormbreaker and Point Blank and can now begin to see why teenagers are so into these books. Many of the problems that I had with those first two books have some lip service paid to them. As I've said before, one of the big issues has been the rent-a-Bond-villain feel to the previous two adversaries - this time General Sarov feels like a more fleshed out character in his own right. He still has elements of a bad pantomime villain (his plan to take over Russia by framing the current President and blowing up a dock full of nuclear submarines, thereby killing hundeds of thousands of people seems a little ... cartoonish) but he does at least have some credible motivation - the break up of the USSR, the death of his son at the hands of a sniper - you do believe that this is a man who has lost everything. It also gives him a credible reason for liking Alex and wanting him to become a kind of replacement and Horowitz in turn gives Alex a human reaction - there's a degree of compassion for the man but at the same time a recognition that he's totally freaking nuts and needs to be stopped. What didn't convince quite so well was Alex's reaction to the General committing suicide in front of him (if only because he's already seen at least two uber villains die in front of him and Horowitz doesn't quite put enough emotional pull in there for Alex to be so traumatised).
The way in which MI6 continues to blackmail Alex into working for them is beginning to wear a little thin. There was a neater set up here - Parker seeking to use Alex at Wimbledon to find out why there was a break-in at the tournament without anything being stolen was well handled, but the whole thing about the Triads all being out to hunt him down for hurting one of their own stretched my patience (the bit where they have one man waiting on a jetski on the offchance that Alex will want to surf a random giant wave had me rolling my eyes).
The scenes concerning the CIA agents - Carver and Troy again had a nice build-up, although I was irritated that they had the female agent, Troy, being the one who was concerned about Alex's safety. It seems that Horowitz is a bit of a one-trick pony when it comes to the older female characters - they all have maternal feelings if they're over 20. One thing that did annoy me though was the way in which Horowitz despatched of them. I actually liked the fact that he kills the two of them because it brings home the danger of the business - these are two professionals who Alex gets to know and they die - but I feel that Horowitz lost his bottle by killing them off-screen (we're basically told that they're dead, shown how it was done but we're never given any grisly details and Alex never sees the bodies) - for me, it would have been more interesting for Alex to have at least seen a bit of a torn limb and then come to the realisation of what happened.
Tell rather than show remains a big issue in the books, although I'm beginning to get more used to it. I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that Sabina Pleasure, despite being an obvious romance set-up, could at least demonstrate some ass-kicking powers of her own. One thing that I do give a big thumbs up to is Alan Blunt - he just gets colder and more self-serving with every book and I really like that because he doesn't even pretend to care about what Alex wants. I wish that Mrs Jones could have that same ruthless quality given to her because I'm beginning to find her a little too squeamish.
The Verdict:
More satisfying than the previous books, although I still have problems with some of the more cartoonish elements of the plot and the insistence on telling rather than showing. One thing that I have noticed is that the opening chapters tend to be very strong - dramatic, easy to visualise and usually quite chilling - it's a shame that the rest of the book doesn't quite live up to it, but if it continues to improve as it has done over the last three books, then I live in hope.
Working as a secret agent for Britain'smost exclusive agency, Alex Rider thinks he's seen it all. He's been shot at by international terrorists, stood face-to-face with pure evil, and saved the world - twice. All before his fifteenth birthday. But Alex is about to face something more dangerous than he can imagine: a man who's lost everything he cared for - his country, his son - a man who has a nuclear weapon, and will stop at nothing to get his world back. Unless Alex can stop him first ...
I thought that this was a vast improvement on both Stormbreaker and Point Blank and can now begin to see why teenagers are so into these books. Many of the problems that I had with those first two books have some lip service paid to them. As I've said before, one of the big issues has been the rent-a-Bond-villain feel to the previous two adversaries - this time General Sarov feels like a more fleshed out character in his own right. He still has elements of a bad pantomime villain (his plan to take over Russia by framing the current President and blowing up a dock full of nuclear submarines, thereby killing hundeds of thousands of people seems a little ... cartoonish) but he does at least have some credible motivation - the break up of the USSR, the death of his son at the hands of a sniper - you do believe that this is a man who has lost everything. It also gives him a credible reason for liking Alex and wanting him to become a kind of replacement and Horowitz in turn gives Alex a human reaction - there's a degree of compassion for the man but at the same time a recognition that he's totally freaking nuts and needs to be stopped. What didn't convince quite so well was Alex's reaction to the General committing suicide in front of him (if only because he's already seen at least two uber villains die in front of him and Horowitz doesn't quite put enough emotional pull in there for Alex to be so traumatised).
The way in which MI6 continues to blackmail Alex into working for them is beginning to wear a little thin. There was a neater set up here - Parker seeking to use Alex at Wimbledon to find out why there was a break-in at the tournament without anything being stolen was well handled, but the whole thing about the Triads all being out to hunt him down for hurting one of their own stretched my patience (the bit where they have one man waiting on a jetski on the offchance that Alex will want to surf a random giant wave had me rolling my eyes).
The scenes concerning the CIA agents - Carver and Troy again had a nice build-up, although I was irritated that they had the female agent, Troy, being the one who was concerned about Alex's safety. It seems that Horowitz is a bit of a one-trick pony when it comes to the older female characters - they all have maternal feelings if they're over 20. One thing that did annoy me though was the way in which Horowitz despatched of them. I actually liked the fact that he kills the two of them because it brings home the danger of the business - these are two professionals who Alex gets to know and they die - but I feel that Horowitz lost his bottle by killing them off-screen (we're basically told that they're dead, shown how it was done but we're never given any grisly details and Alex never sees the bodies) - for me, it would have been more interesting for Alex to have at least seen a bit of a torn limb and then come to the realisation of what happened.
Tell rather than show remains a big issue in the books, although I'm beginning to get more used to it. I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that Sabina Pleasure, despite being an obvious romance set-up, could at least demonstrate some ass-kicking powers of her own. One thing that I do give a big thumbs up to is Alan Blunt - he just gets colder and more self-serving with every book and I really like that because he doesn't even pretend to care about what Alex wants. I wish that Mrs Jones could have that same ruthless quality given to her because I'm beginning to find her a little too squeamish.
The Verdict:
More satisfying than the previous books, although I still have problems with some of the more cartoonish elements of the plot and the insistence on telling rather than showing. One thing that I have noticed is that the opening chapters tend to be very strong - dramatic, easy to visualise and usually quite chilling - it's a shame that the rest of the book doesn't quite live up to it, but if it continues to improve as it has done over the last three books, then I live in hope.
