Let’s start there! 2007 was an amazing year with the publication of SNAKEHEAD which seems to have gone down really well. For some reason, even when I’m pleased with a book, I get hugely nervous just before publication and there seemed to be a lot riding on the 7th Alex Rider. Well, I’ve read the reviews and signed enough copies to know that people enjoyed it and that almost nobody guessed the twist at the end. I loved writing SNAKEHEAD. I’m always being asked which is my favourite Alex and although I’m never sure of the answer, I’d put this one right up there in the top three – with SCORPIA and SKELETON KEY.

The paperback of SNAKEHEAD comes out in April and I have to say that Walker Books have given it an amazingly slinky cover. They also persuaded me to write an extra chapter which, among other things, tells you what A.S.H. stands for. But just so I can’t be accused of ripping everyone off by making them buy a whole book just to see a single chapter, you’ll be able to download it free from Walker Books’ new website. Details are inside the book – just take a look at it in the store.

Anyway, at the end of the year I managed to sneak away for a three-week family holiday in Jamaica and Cuba. Came back with a tan and a liver complaint…all that rum! No drinking since them. I’m also on the alphabet diet, my own invention. You give up alcohol, biscuits, chocolate, desserts, eggs, fries and keep going until you’re only allowed to eat yoghurt and zucchini. By which time you’ve either lost weight or died. I’m not sure I recommend it.

2008 began with a tour of the USA which, to be honest, I had been rather dreading. I love meeting readers in America but fourteen cities in sixteen days, airport security systems where you almost have to strip down to your boxers just to get on the flight, late finishes and early starts, hotel after hotel…it can all get a bit exhausting and you can’t be sure that when you arrive to give your talk, anyone will actually show up.

Well, this tour was brilliant. It seems that Alex Rider has finally landed across the Atlantic. The books have been in the bestseller lists for forty-nine weeks in a row and SNAKEHEAD sold over 200,000 copies. I don’t mean to sound boastful but my publishers at Penguin are a cut-throat lot and if the sales ever dip, my next tour will be in some of the more remote parts of Alaska and they won’t supply a plane.

I started in New York and then went up to Philadelphia, back to New York, down to Miami, over to Cincinnati, then Chicago, Iowa City, Des Moines and Kansas City. Then we nipped up to Vancouver in Canada before returning to Seattle, San Francisco, La Jolla and Los Angeles. Apologies if I’ve missed anyone out.

I was amazed by the size of the audiences I was getting and by the vast range of questions. (As you may know, I never give long talks…I’m too scared of boring people. I prefer Q&A sessions and making stuff up as I go along). Some favourite sessions. The Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York was great…interviewed by John Shea who acted as Lex Luthor in the TV version of Superman. Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida was a real eye-opener. I thought people in Florida didn’t read – but this is one of the liveliest bookshops I’ve ever visited. I did an amazing event at the Tivoli Theatre which was a beautiful 1920’s building near Chicago. It was completely packed out and after I’d finished my session, they showed the movie of Stormbreaker. I loved hearing Alex Pettyfer being gunned down again (and surviving) while I was signing books outside. I got to talk in a temple for Rainy Day Books in Kansas City. And I’ve got to mention another bookstore, Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, CA. They’d gone to town with computer-disc entrance tickets and packed in a huge crowd. It was a great evening.

Six years ago, I remember going to a Barnes & Noble in a shopping mall somewhere and although ninety seats were set out, only two kids came. In the end, I didn’t give a talk. I just bought them each a coffee. But when I think how far I’ve come, it brings a lump to my throat…although that may be my wife’s cooking.

I didn’t come home after America. Instead, I got on a fifteen-hour flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong and that’s where we get to current work in progress.

I’m now about half-way through NECROPOLIS: CITY OF THE DEAD – and I’m hugely enjoying writing the new book, Volume Four in the series which is called THE GATEKEEPERS in the USA and THE POWER OF FIVE in England. If you haven’t read RAVEN’S GATE, EVIL STAR and NIGHTRISE, please do! I never use these occasional blogs to sell myself but I think this series is shaping up to be really special.

NECROPOLIS is very different to anything I’ve done so far. It’s in three parts. The first part is narrated by Scarlett. Yes…I’ve finally created a heroine! It’s also been a long time since I’ve written a book in the first person. The second part is narrated by Matt. The third part is told by me. A lot of the book is set in Hong Kong (obviously) but it also takes place in Peru, London and – believe it or not – the Ukraine. The basic set up is that the Old Ones find Scar, who is the fifth of the five, and use her as the bait in a trap to capture Matt.

So far, it’s easily the scariest and darkest book I’ve ever written. It’s also the violent although my two editors at Walker Books – both violent women themselves – will probably bully me into making cuts. We’ll see. I had a fantastic time in Hong Kong, tracking down the locations (I also took the jet foil to Macau, which is a small island about an hour away and which features in the story) and picking up the atmosphere. I loved the city although it’s a consumer nightmare. You’ve never seen so many Armani suits and Rolex Watches. I wouldn’t have thought there were enough people with enough money in the world to buy all the stuff you see in the windows.

I expect to deliver the manuscript to Walker in about three months. Expect publication in April next year.

But before that, Walker are bringing out a new collection of horror stories, my third. I wrote these off and on last year in quiet moments before SNAKEHEAD came out – and I think they’re fun. One of the stories is called THE MAN WHO KILLED DARREN SHAN. That will teach him to write rude things about my books! (Incidentally, I hear a rumour that there’s a character based on me in his next one. Are there any spies in the Shan camp who can let me know if this is true?)

“Spies!? Where? Darren Who? I’ll have them all shot immediately!” – Xero

One other small bit of news before I stop and go to bed (I’m writing this in Orford, Suffolk. The dog and I did a four-hour walk today so we’re both worn out. He’s snoring so loudly that the whole house is vibrating). You may have read that I was writing a television drama – Raffik – for the Fox Network in America. Well, not any more! I was forced to go on strike by the Writers Guild of America and so the *~#$£+&% sacked me. Can you believe it? At least they’d paid me, but that’s not the point. I thought it was a good show and now we’ll never know. Oh well, at least that gives me more time to get on with the next Alex. I’m leaving for Russia later this year…

But I’ll write about that next time. This has stretched to three pages so I hope Control will leave me alone for a while.

I hope you all have a great year…or what’s left of it.

Anthony Horowitz

Orford

13th February 2008 (Cass’s birthday)

Technorati Tags: alex rider, anthony horowitz, Power of Five, Stormbreaker

Snakehead has been released. If you didn’t know that – then crawl out from whatever rock you’ve been living under and get a hold of the latest promotional swag from Walker Books at AlexRider.com

There is a downloadable Fan Pack including Bebo skin, MSN icons and wallpaper.

If that wasn’t enough there’s also a code cracking competition with prizes including a Nintendo Wii Console plus £200-worth of games, a signed copy of Snakehead and an exclusive limited edition Alex Rider t-shirt, postcard and poster.

Go now!!!!

Questions included: Is it true you sold parts of your body for medical research?

You can find out all about it on the chat transcript …

Click here

Or how Alex Rider bites back in his next adventure, Snakehead?

Maybe you’re keen to uncover details of the next Diamond Brothers’ case?

Log on to www.powerof5.co.uk/chat

at 14:00 GMT on Tuesday 31 July armed with your questions and Anthony will answer the best ones.
With Snakehead, Alex Rider’s eagerly-awaited seventh mission, out on Wednesday 31 October we’re sure you’ll have masses to ask.

Get your friends to join in too – just send them this address.

We’ll be in touch nearer the time with a reminder. See you on 31 July!

• Michael Morpurgo – 2005
• Alexander McCall Smith – 2004
• Sarah Waters – 2003
• Philip Pullman – 2001, 2002
• J K Rowling – 1999, 2000
• Louis de Bernieres – 1998
• Kate Atkinson – 1997
• Pat Barker – 1996
• Alan Bennett – 1995

Congratulations Anthony!

In this podcast, host Elizabeth Foxwell talks to Anthony about Alex Rider, Stormbreaker the movie, and Foyle’s War.

Click here to listen (MP3 File. 26.2 MB)

*Please note the sound quality is not very good in some parts of this broadcast.

And a nice mention here for the site on The Guardian Books Blog from Niraj Kapur

The Book Show – Arts World Channel on SKY -21st December 2006

More information can be found at: http://www.artsworld.com/thebookshow/Default.aspx

BBC 4 – 28th December 2006

A documentary about adventure stories of boys in history. It focuses heavily on Anthony’s work.

Desert Island Discs – BBC Radio 4 – 31 December 2006 & 5 January 2007

Anthony chooses the 10 pieces of music he couldn’t live with out and that one special item…but what could it be???

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs.shtml

There are less than 7 days remaining to bid on this unique item.

Click here for details.

Xero

Anthony Horowitz Shop

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Thanks.

Xero

Id say Im home except weve just sold it. Goodbye Crouch End! From now on I’m going to be living in Clerkenwell which is a really old part of London Fagin (Oliver Twist) lived close by and when I wrote Ravens Gate, I put the HQ of the Nexus in the same street. Trains rumble past every few minutes and ghosts hang around the corners. I have a new study which I’ve built on the top floor and while I work I’ll be able to look at St Pauls and the Old Bailey. There’s not much green around although I have got my own lawn on the roofeven if it is made of plastic.

Not sure how I’m going to exercise the dog but I\m experimenting with a treadmill and a hanging bone.

Anyway, the world tour had its high points and its low points.

I started in Bangkok where I was researching Alex 7. I found some great locations in the Chinese area where Alex has to live, pretending to be an Afghan refugee and also on the river. Expect filthy water, mouldering buildings, vicious Thai criminals and lots of rats! I also saw some stomach-churning food on sale in the streets. Most of it actually seemed to be made from churned-up animal stomachs. Maybe Alex will have to face up to a bowl of entrail soup. Well see.

Then I went to Perth and visited Swanbourne which just happens to be the headquarters of the Australian SAS. Also very useful for the book although sadly they wouldnt let me in. Well I’ll have my revenge when I portray the whole lot of them as a bunch of cissies.

I did a couple of school visits before heading off for New Zealand, then back to Melbourne and Sydney, probably my two favourite cities in the world. Alex walks round Sydney Harbour in Chapter Four and I made loads of notes in the sunshine, watching the ferries pull in and out, occasionally smashing into the jetty in a cheerful, Australian sort of way. I also did the famous bridge walk while I was there. Amazing views particularly as night fell and a storm closed in. It was like watching the end of the world.

I got back home in September but I was only there a few days before I had to head off to Canada and the Toronto Film Festival for some early screenings of Stormbreaker. The film went down really well although I felt a bit weird being there. Actors and directors go to film festivals but the truth is that nobody is terribly interested in writers and as far as I could tell I was the only writer there.

By now I was travelling with Alex Pettyfer and his mother (who will soon find herself in one of my books you wait and see). It was the beginning of a four-week Odyssey and very odd it was too. We went to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Saint Louis (home of the worlds biggest arch so big it looked faintly ridiculous although I have to admit its very impressive too), Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC and New York.

The best thing about the tour? Seeing so many different cities, standing on the grassy knoll where President Kennedy was assassinated, staying in some pretty classy hotels (my bedroom in Washington was so enormous I actually managed to get lost in itno kidding), the weather, art galleries, the International Spy Museum in Washington, seeing Little Miss Sunshine at the cinema, writing the first episode of my new BBC TV series in the evenings, cheap T-shirts and definitely getting back to the UK.

The worst thing? Well, almost everything else, really. Being asked two thousand times where I got the idea for Alex Rider from. All that travel! Airports and security systems. Suitcases and passports. Packing and unpacking. Doing TV interviews at 11.00am in the morning and knowing that nobody was really watching apart from bored housewives and kids missing school.

Was it all worth while? Well, the film opened in America last week but on a very limited number of screens. I dont really understand why. Its still possible that Stormbreaker will do well in the USA just as, if you strike a match in a rain forest, theres always a chance youll start a fire. But I cant say Im very optimistic. Which is a shame because we screened the film loads of times in the USA and all the audiences I spoke to seemed very enthusiastic.

Anyway, its all behind me now. Im back, working on Chapter 5 of Snakehead and look out for a brand new Alex Rider short story in the Daily Mail close to Christmas. Its called Christmas at Gunpoint and takes place on a ski resort (Gunpoint, Colorado) the year before Ian Rider died, before Alex became a spy.

I’ve also finished really finished – Nightrise and I still think its one of my best books with a lot of things in it that are going to surprise you. Well, they surprised me. That comes out next April. Only two more books and the series is complete. The next one is set in Hong Kong and Ill be heading that way early next year.

Finally, there’s the new design of this website. I hope you like it as much as I do. My thanks to Xero in Cork, Ireland who put it all together and, of course, HHQ who run it and occasionally beat me around to get me to write a couple of pages like this. I do drop in from time to time for what its worth and try to answer your postseven from fonoS who is clearly a prat. (The clue is in his name)

All the best,

Anthony Horowitz