Customer Reviews: Read 36 more reviews...
 Top-notch Audio! September 29, 2008
These audiobooks are brilliant. The voices and narration are wonderfully rich and varied, the stories are incredible and yet still credible enough to work. The pictures painted in the reader's imagination through the vocabulary used by the author are amazing - the reader can almost smell the smells, touch the textures and really *see* the colours within the scenes, and the narrator brings the books to life wonderfully. I now have all 7 of the Alex Rider books on CD, and would recommend any of them to anyone. They are suitable for teen readers, but also perfectly enjoyable for adults - I listen to them in the car on my commute to and from work, and it provides a very welcome distraction from the concerns of work!
If you want to travel the world in the company of a very personable young man, and have some incredible adventures on the way, then I would highly recommend the Alex Rider series.
Alex rider September 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Alex Rider is back on another mission even though he swore he was finished with the spy business. Right after literally dropping out of the sky, he is picked up and sent to the Australian Secret Service, who wants to enlist his help. At first he refuses, but when he finds out he could be working with his godfather, he realizes he wants to find more out about his dead parents.
The mission is to infiltrate a dangerous snakehead, or gang, in Indonesia to find out how they smuggle people into Australia. They are disguised as Afghan refugees. Things go wrong almost from the start. Because what Alex doesn't know is that the head of the organization, Major Yu, also a member of Scorpia, already knows that the young Afghan refugee named Abdul is actually Alex. And Yu's just biding his time until he can end Alex's life.
Through the mission, Alex meets unexpected allies, more enemies, and discovers a horrible secret about his godfather Ash. I thought that Snakehead was the most exciting out of all the Alex Rider books yet. It was jam packed with action throughout the entire novel. Alex is constantly using his ingenuity to get out of sticky situations, and there are so many unexpected turns that make the story even more suspenseful and thrilling to read. My only complaint is that sometimes the story crosses over the line between credible and incredible, but other than that, this series is amazing.
I highly recommend this book to all action and adventure story fans. It might seem like more of a guy book on the surface, but girls will get into this series too. If you have read and like this book, then I also recommend the Gallagher Girl series by Ally Carter.
SENSATIONAL September 1, 2008
The name of this review speaks for itself. I got Stormbreaker for my birthday and delayed reading it but when I did I loved it. Best book i'd read in ages. So what do you know I ordered the rest of the series of Amazon as including this book they were as I said SENSATIONAL!!
 A great book not as good as the first July 10, 2008
I am a fan, but this was not as good as the first book. Its abit like Cody Banks.
However it is still a great read, I am an adult and I enjoy these fast pace books. All the Alex Rider, Cody Banks, Young James Bond and Jason Steed books have been fast and great reading.
I dont know why they call them Young Adult, they are great for all ages.
My top 5 would have to be
1) Fledgling Jason Steed.
2) Blood Fever, Young James Bond.
3) Alex Rider, Strombreaker.
4) Agent Cody Banks.
6) Double or Die, Young James Bond.
another descriptive and fast paced Rider novel July 6, 2008
Alex Rider returns for another action packed adventure where he drops down on Australian land and is recruited by the ASIS to go undercover in a snakehead, which will ultimately bring him back to an old deadly enemy.
In the 7th instalment of the acclaimed series, Horowitz again uses a brilliant depth and accurate view of the world through researching all of the elements to be used in his novel, which has to be admired, and through this, do readers get a great description of what is happening and a very descriptive approach to the novel.
This research conforms brilliantly to what Horowitz has chosen Rider to do this time, in exploring boats, Australia, science, bombs plus other meaningful and wonderful things that are all well developed and executed by one of the best children's fiction writers of recent years.
Though not as intriguing as the first couple of novels, Snakehead packs a deadly bite into the Alex Rider story with a very dramatic twist on Alex's personal life, by including Alex's godfather, who is an intriguing character to read about from start to finish.
Again Alex is put in a do or die situation at many points and a high authority blackmails him in a way to get him to do a job. Horowitz again writes with a sense of purpose, and an inevitability that is gripping and is almost impossible to put the book down when a major event is happening.
The book conforms to the genre brilliantly, with chases, fights, helicopters and guns etc, the typical conventions of the action genre. And as usual, here is a question of the realistic outcomes of situations but even so are deadly exciting and edge of your seat reading with a great central lead.
This is perhaps a more emotional book than the others with Alex growing up and higher stakes than usual and the other Rider books have more intensity but regardless it is an action packed adventure and the stakes are once again, raised to a great extreme with Horowitz's pin point accuracy.
8/10
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