Stormbreaker (novel)
US cover
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| Author | Anthony Horowitz |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Alex Rider series |
| Genre | Adventure, spy, thriller |
| Publisher | Walker Books (UK) |
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Publication date
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| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 240 (first edition, paperback) |
| ISBN | (first edition, paperback) |
| OCLC | 44562574 |
| Followed by | Point Blanc |
Stormbreaker is an action-packed book which won the New York Times Bestselling young adult novel. It is written by British author Anthony Horowitz and the first novel in the Alex Rider series. The book was released in the United Kingdom on 4 September 2000 and had its United States release on May 21, 2001. Since its release, the book has sold more than nine million copies worldwide, been listed on the BBC's The Big Read, and in 2005 received a California Young Reader Medal.
A film adaptation, starring Alex Pettyfer as Alex Rider, was released in 2006.
The book begins with Alex Rider learning that his uncle and adopted parent, Ian Rider, has been killed in a car crash. Unknown to Alex and his housekeeper, Jack Starbright, Ian's job as a banker was actually a front for his role as an MI6 agent. Alex becomes suspicious upon being told that Ian had been not wearing his seat belt and discovering that Ian's office has been emptied out. He finds his uncle's car at a wrecking yard, and discovers that his uncle had been murdered. After a near escape from a car crusher, Alex is asked to visit Ian's former employers, a bank called "Royal & General." He breaks into Ian's office, discovering evidence of his uncle's double life before he is knocked out.
After waking up, Alex meets MI6 head Alan Blunt and his deputy, Tulip Jones. They reveal the truth about his uncle's job, and explain that they had sent Ian to investigate Herod Sayle, a wealthy Lebanese businessman who has developed a revolutionary new computer, the Stormbreaker. Sayle plans to give a free Stormbreaker to every secondary school in the United Kingdom, accompanied by a grand activation ceremony in the Science Museum, supposedly as a gesture of thanks for the country taking him in when he was a child. In his last communication with them, Ian had warned MI6 that the Stormbreakers could not be allowed to leave Sayle's manufacturing plant, but before he could explain, he was assassinated by Yassen Gregorovich, a professional killer supposedly working for Sayle, on the return to London.
Intending to use him to covertly investigate Sayle, MI6 recruits Alex by essentially blackmailing him; if he does not cooperate, Jack will be deported back to America, his house will be sold and he will leave his school and friends for an academy until he is of age. They put him through a grueling SAS training camp, before deploying him to Herod Sayle's base in Cornwall, using the alias of another boy, Felix Lester, who won a competition to visit the plant and be the first child to use a Stormbreaker. To aid him in his mission, Alex is given a grappling hook disguised as a yo-yo, acne cream capable of dissolving metal, and a Game Boy Color which functions as a transmitter, smoke screen and bug detector, by MI6 agent Smithers.
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