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By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: November 2, 2010

Here’s the scoop on the most popular destinations on The Children’s Book Review site, the most coveted new releases, the bestsellers, and kids’ book events.

Fall Books for Kids: 2010

Interview with Lian Tanner, Author of The Keepers Trilogy

2010 Children’s Choice Book Awards Nominees

Where to Find Free eBooks for Children Online

20 Sites to Improve Your Child’s Literacy

THE NEW RELEASES

The most coveted books that release this month:

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth

by Jeff Kinney

(Ages 9-12)

Hero

by Mike Lupica

(Ages 9-12)

Pegasus

by Robin McKinley

(Young Adult)

Crocodile Tears (Alex Rider)

by Anthony Horowitz

(Ages 12 and up)

You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You: Very Short Fables to Read Together

by Mary Ann Hoberman

(Ages 4-8)

THE BEST SELLERS

The best selling children’s books this month:

PICTURE BOOKS

Llama Llama Holiday Drama

by Anna Dewdney

(Ages 0-5)

Note this blog entry contains spoilers about the final two Harry Potter books

It’s a truism that cinematic adaptations often pale besides their literary counterparts. An obvious counterexample is Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner but, off the top of my head, I can’t think of more. For those who’ve only seen the film, it’s well worth reading the Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to see just how different it is, but to explain some elements of the screen version you’d have to gloss over otherwise.

Read the book to discover why the Blade Runner owl is artificial

A wonderful thing about a book is that everyone’s idea of it is unique. The reader converts the printed word from the page into a world of their own imagination. How I see the Imperial Palace on Melania in my head, is different from any readers of the Johnny Mackintosh books. Perhaps that’s why film adaptations so often disappoint, as the Director is competing with thousands of movies that have already run within a reader’s head.

There’s no film I can remember that’s disappointed me more that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, directed by David Yates with a screenplay by Steve Kloves. As someone who loves the stories so deeply, it horrifies me that this pairing were also asked to make the double film of the final book. While I think the quality of film-making in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince isn’t terrible (though it is weak), what I can’t fathom were the drastic, totally unnecessary changes to the plot that were introduced, diverting from Rowling’s marvellous story architecture and characterization.

[spoiler alert]

Yates and Kloves think they know better than JK Rowling

With a long book, why introduce a mad scene where Bellatrix Lestrange destroys The Burrow? Where will they hold the wedding in the next film, or has that been scrapped too?

A more important example was the death of Dumbledore. In the book, Harry is powerless to act, hidden under the invisibility cloak with Dumbledore’s body-bind curse on him. He would do anything to fight to save his pseudo-grandfather figure, and knows all too well the Hogwarts Headmaster is dead when the curse lifts. If the film, Harry is hiding in the background, and chooses simply to watch and not act, perhaps due to some bizarre element of cowardice that Yates and Kloves wanted to introduce into Harry’s character. There are numerous other examples and a lot concerning Dumbledore’s relationship with Harry: in the books, our hero is kept in the dark and has o puzzle things out for himself; according to this film, Harry is Dumbledore’s confidant.

When I write the Johnny Mackintosh books, I confess I sometimes have a secret nod to possible future film adaptations. I know a fair amount about film theory and structure, and sometimes I’ll be particularly proud of a passage because I know how well it would translate onto the big screen. I see the same in Jo Rowling’s writing at times, where she’s gone a little out of her way to write a beautiful, cinematic scene for her directors, knowing how much it would enhance the film. Yates completely ignored this. There ar

Gadget Academy Competition

To celebrate 10 years of Alex Rider we’ve teamed up with the Young Times to set you a very special challenge.

Your help is needed to create a new gadget for Alex Rider’s 9th and last mission, Scorpia Rising. Alex Rider’s gadgets, supplied by MI6 operative Smithers, are one of the best-loved elements of Anthony Horowitz’s books and have helped him out of all sorts of scrapes. Now Walker Books and Young Times are offering readers the once-in-a-lifetime chance to design a gadget for Alex!

The winning gadget will feature in Anthony Horowitz’s 9th Alex Rider novel, out Spring 2011, and will be made into an illustration and featured in the Young Times. The winner will also receive a copy of the book and a print of their gadget design. There will be runners up prizes too of an e-reader loaded with the first three Alex Rider books and free Stormbreaker ebooks.

To find out more about the competition visit The Times website or go straight to the Alex Rider Gadget Academy www.gadgetacademy.co.uk to submit your entry. Grab your copy of The Times today and you can also read an exclusive interview with Anthony Horowitz.

Good luck with your mission.

Anthony Horowitz’s Stormbreaker, the first novel about the teen superspy Alex Rider, appeared ten years ago; his eight actionpacked missions have since been translated into 28 languages. He reflects on the success of the series, and his other work, including TV’s Foyle’s War and A Handbag for NT Connections.

Tickets £3.50/£2.50
Running time: 45mins

This event is followed by a booksigning.

Related Event

• Artist: Anthony Horowitz
• Date: Wednesday, June 23rd 2010
• Time: 6:00pm
• City: Anthony Horowitz in London
• Venue: National Theatre
• Address: South Bank London SE1 9PX
• Venue phone: +44 (0)20 7 452 3000
• Country: UK
• Admission: £3.50/£2.50
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Box office: +44 (0)20 7 452 3000
• Buy tickets
• Notes: Anthony Horowitz’s Stormbreaker, the first novel about the teen superspy Alex Rider, appeared ten years ago; his eight actionpacked missions have since been translated into 28 languages. He reflects on the success of the series, and his other work, including TV’s Foyle’s War and A Handbag for NT Connections. Tickets £3.50/£2.50 Running time: 45mins This event is followed by a booksigning.
• 0 Comments on Anthony Horowitz at National Theatre on 23/06/10 as of 1/1/1900

Anthony introduces the latest Alex Rider adventure, Crocodile Tears in a short video which also includes a brief tour of his office – check out that cool secret doorway!

I promised Olivia – my whip-wielding assistant – that I would write a quick blog before next month gets underway and here it is. The clocks went back today and it feels that winter has finally drawn in. And there’s my old winter coat stretched out on the sofa in my office with my old dog stretched out on top of it. The sun is setting and it’s only 4.00pm! As usual, the year has gone past like an express train (not the most brilliant of comparisons but I’ve just stepped off the Eurostar from Paris so trains are very much in my mind). And why was I in Paris? Read on. Although actually, I’m not entirely sure myself.

I went to Paris for a reunion of secret agents who worked for the SOE, the Special Operations Executive in the second world war. I wrote about the SOE a few years ago in an episode of Foyle’s War and developed a huge admiration for them…they were incredibly resourceful and brave. Nowadays, the survivors are extremely old but still as sharp as knives…in their case the Fairbairn-Sykes double-edged commando knife with eight-inch blade that was developed for their use. I listened to a talk by a saboteur who must have been almost ninety but looked thirty years younger. I also met a lady whose job was to “seduce” SOE agents and see if she could get information out of them. If she succeeded, they were sent home. It was bizarre because I actually created such a character when I was writing Foyle…and here she was for real!

While I’m on the subject of TV, next month COLLISION is being shown on ITV, starting on a Monday and ending on a Friday. I’ve mentioned this programme before and here it is again but I’m really proud of it and hope it’ll do well. When you make TV programmes, so much can go wrong. You get the wrong director or the weather’s bad or you run out of money or whatever. But this time everything went perfectly and I honestly think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. You can expect to read quite a bit of it in the month ahead and there are going to be some big posters too. Let’s just hope it pours with rain so people stay in and watch.

And at more or less the same time (I don’t have the exact dates), I’m setting off on my CROCODILE TEARS tour which takes me to Edinburgh and Birmingham before I head back to London and finally – at the end of the month – Dublin. If you’ve ever been to one of my talks, you’ll know that usually I just walk onto the stage and answer questions for an hour. This time, we’re doing it rather differently. It’s going to be more of an interview with clips from STORMBREAKER, COLLISION and FOYLE’S WAR. The interviewer is a journalist/presenter called Paul Blezard who does a brilliant job. He could make a study of thirteenth century paint drying techniques sound interesting. There’ll still be time for questions from the audience – but it makes it all a bit more varied and, more to the point, less work for me.

I will, of course, be signing copies of CT – and the publishers have come up with a special stamp that’s unique to these events. And I can catch up with my family on the way. My son, Nick, is at university in Edinburgh and my mother-in-law lives in Birmingham so maybe they’ll come along and heckle.

Then I’m off to America, which I mentioned in my July blog. The cities have now been chosen and include Boston, Detroit, St Louis, Raleigh, Atlanta and Washington DC. So many flights! I’ve begun to worry about my carbon footprint which may surprise you but I’ve been researching global warming for my next book – the last in the Power of Five series – and the facts do seem to be rather alarming…which is probably the understatement of the millennium. I’ve also joined something called 10:10 which is a rather smart campaign by The Guardian to get everyone to cut their emissions by 10% in the year 2010. Normally I don’t join campaigns. God help me if I become a do-gooder in my old age (actually, He likes do-gooders so He probably will). But it seemed hard to refuse this one. Apart from anything else, I’ve noticed the water getting closer and closer to my little house in Orford. I used to live beside the sea. Now I seem to live in it…at least some of the time.

And here’s something else that I’ve joined. I’ve become a judge for Divine Chocolate who are running a poetry competition. You have to write a poem (which can be rude, funny, sad, serious, whatever) called “If I owned a chocolate company” and the winners will receive large quantities of chocolate, book tokens and a recording of the poem by me. Since I have a stammer and a lisp, this may not be the best part of it, but I’d say otherwise it’s definitely worth a go. It was my friend, Anne Fine, who introduced me to the competition and I have to say I do absolutely love the chocolate and I suppose I ought to mention (doing good again) that it’s a Fair Trade product and so worth supporting. You can find more details on their website:

http://www.divinechocolate.com/news/showNews.news77.aspx

I recently judged a short story competition too. The quality of the writing was very high but I have to say that a lot of the entries were rather depressing. Subjects included suicide, self-hatred, cancer, autism and disability…and those were some of the more cheerful ones. I met the winners at a reception at 10 Downing Street and that was rather depressing too. G. Brown looked worn out and miserable. Not surprising, I suppose, given the bashing he gets in the press. Anyway, if you want my advice, if you do write poems, you’ll find something cheerful to say. But then how could owning a chocolate factory not be fun?

Finally, while I’m away, I’m going to be tweeting again. I joined Twitter last year and twittered or tweeted every day for a while but then I got fed up with it. I thought it was getting a bit naff what with people like Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry even twittering when they tied up their shoelaces. But my American publisher insists that it’s worthwhile and my son Cass is currently on the road in Australia and he may pick up some of my messages so as from today, I’ll be sharing my own trivia with the world once again. If you’re interested, you can follow me on tour.

The next time I write a blog, it’ll be Christmas. In fact, in half the shops in my area, it already is. Sometimes, I’m tempted to throw bricks…

Happy Halloween!

Anthony Horowitz

25th October 2009

This is a picture, my son, Nick, took when I was in Kenya, researching Crocodile Tears. And it's not a long-distance lens! He managed to snap them moments before they attempted to snap him.

Take a look at this evocative article written by Sally for Canada’s The Globe and Mail.

She brings alive the joy of summer-reading and discusses Moomin-creator Tove Jansson’s modern classic, The Summer Book.

Sally also poses the question, “What are you reading this summer?” - has this been a time for reducing those piles of must-read books in your household? And if, instead, you are emerging from winter-time, has there been some opportunity to escape into a good book?

In our family, Little Brother has been as voracious a reader as ever; and it has been a relief to find Older Brother with his nose in a book at every opportunity too. Discovering Anthony Horowitz’ Alex Rider series, as well as various graphic/cartoon books has definitely helped here…

by Anthony Horowitz Puffin Books 1994 Really? 1994? Apparently so, though this obvious reprinting is going to benefit from the Alex Rider series in terms of getting marketing and name recognition, there is a side of Horowitz I hadn't expected and rather liked – his inner Roald Dahl.Joe Warden and his family are on the run. Desperately they rush to the airport and take the first flight they can

Hours Read: 8
Books Read: 3.5
Pages Read: 879

Stormbreaker (An Alex Rider Novel) Anthony Horowitz

After his uncle, his only living relative, is killed under suspicious circumstances, Alex Rider discovers that he was really a spy for M-16, and killed shortly before stopping something big. M-16 decides to press Alex into service to finish the job. Alex doesn't want to, but is blackmailed into it.

He is sent undercover to a computer facility building the new Stormbreaker, a revolutionary new laptop that is going to be given to every schoolchild in England. Alex knows something's not right about the scene. He also knows that Herod Sayle, the owner and mastermind, and his band of cronies (straight from any spy movie, although Mr. Grin might be a little more Joker-esque) are probably onto him as well.

I do really enjoy the teen-spy-novel genre. I tend to enjoy the ones staring girls more (I'm a sucker for a romantic subplot) but this one was very, very good and if you like teen spies, check it out. (Although, you probably have. This is like, the first/biggest/main teen spy series, and I don't know why I haven't read it before now.)

Here's a really striking quotation-- something that I think a lot of teen spy heroes feel (all in trouble with the law, though many tricked into breaking the law so there's something to hold over them) and with no families, etc (exception being Gallagher Girls and The Squad):

In the end, the big difference between him and James Bond wasn't a question of age. It was a question of loyalty. In the old days, spies had done what they'd done because they loved their country, because they believed in what they were doing. But he'd never been given a chance. Nowadays, spies weren't employed. They were used.

Anthony in Scotland

I haven’t put a blog on the site for a while and as usual I’m sorry – but as usual I’ve got an excuse. Alex Rider 8 – or CROCODILE TEARS as it now officially and definitely called.

I was actually really happy with the title when I thought it up because it fits the book exactly, it hasn’t been used by anyone else (as far as I know) and it somehow fitted in really well with the other seven books. The problem started when a guy at Walker Books (no names…but he’s tall and smooth-looking and he’s a published author himself, his initials are MS and I’m going to do for him in my next book) complained that he thought the title was “soft”. He wanted something like “death” or “bullet” or “hell” in the title and he was worried that boys would be put off a book that had “tears” on the front cover.

He also said that nobody knew what “crocodile tears” meant. Is this true? Curiously, my American publisher had never heard of the phrase either but then he thinks Tooting Common is the name of an Egyptian pharaoh. Anyway, here is the first page of CROCODILE TEARS as it will appear in its entirety:

crocodile tears: fake or hypocritical tears. From the belief that crocodiles will pretend to cry in order to attract their victims…and will then cry for real as they devour them.

So that’s sorted that out.

The book does have crocodiles in it, by the way. Part of it takes place in Kenya which is where I happened to be last Christmas. I spent five very happy days in Larsen’s Camp in the Samburu National Reserve and you’ll find a version of it in the new book. I also saw loads of crocodiles out there – in fact I’m going to paste another photo that I took myself into this blog to show you just how close I got. I should warn you (I’m trying not to give too much away) that Alex gets a lot closer.

Crocodile Tears?

Not bad – eh? Whenever I look at this picture, I find myself thinking about my sons.

Anyway, now to explain the heading of this blog. I’ve just got back from an amazing five-day visit to Scotland. The first part of it was organised by the Scottish Book Trust and I found myself talking to around 10,000 Scottish kids live on the net. I was interviewed a couple of times – by The Scotsman (the main paper in Scotland for all those south of the border) and by a radio show called The Book Cafe. All good publicity for Necropolis which came out in paperback last week.

Then I went up Arthur’s Seat with my wife, which was fun. I had dinner with my son, Nick (he’s studying Chinese at Edinburgh University).

But the best part of the trip was the train journey from Edinburgh to Aberdeen – which was so beautiful (passing through the Cairngorm National Park) that I didn’t do any work as I’d planned but just gazed out of the window. I then killed a day in Inverness before meeting a brilliant man called Kenny Dempster who’s a civil engineer with Scottish and Southern energy and who drove me up to the Monar Dam which is what you can really see behind me in the photograph.

CROCODILE TEARS ends with a huge climax at a dam in Kenya and I needed to examine one at close quarters – and I couldn’t get any closer than this. Kenny showed he how the whole thing worked and I have to say that as I clambered around it the whole last chapter of the book came tumbling into my head. That’s why I so love visiting the places I write about. Somehow the truth is always more exciting than anything I could make up…or perhaps I should say that the truth underpins the fantasy and makes it more believable. Anyway, I wish I could describe Glen Strathfarrar in the book because it was also awesome and beautiful with red deer everywhere and snow still visible on the mountain peaks, even in May.

I wish I could also describe the slice of lemon cake that I had at the cafe just outside Beauly on the way back as that was pretty nice too. But we don’t do lemon cake in Alex Rider books. And the dam, as I have explained, is in Kenya.

Progress on the book? My computer is telling me 69,455 words – and I reckon it’s going to be finished at around 90,000…so I’m nearly there. I’ve been really worried about this adventure. After all, it’s the eighth in the series and I was beginning to wonder if I could invent any more chases, gadgets, fights, whatever. But I say for sure that this book has more action than any of the others. It’s probably the most violent (until my publishers get their hands on it). And it has the single most frightening chapter I’ve ever written. As a matter of fact, I finished that today.

Other news…

I’m off to Hay-on-Wye tomorrow for the book festival, which is always fun. When it rains, the entire festival turns into a huge bog. Writers have been known to get sucked in, never to be seen again. We also start shooting the third, and possibly the last episode of Foyle’s War tomorrow. TV drama is getting more and more difficult as nobody has enough money to make it any more…but if this is the end of the series, at least we’re finishing on a high.

And then I have a load of trips. China, Greece, America…all for different reasons. I’ll explain more when I come back.

In the meantime, have you noticed my page on TWITTER? I really enjoy twittering as it’s so short and easy and I can do it wherever I happen to be, using my iPhone. I try to make it amusing. Anyway, do take a look at my page or whatever it is you call it, if you want to stay up to date.

Enjoy the good weather. Good luck to all of you doing GCSEs or A-levels. I hope you’re doing more revision than my son, Cass.

May 2009

A little bit later than expected but we have a winner for last month’s competition “Where’s Anthony?”. The correct answer was of course, the pyramids in Egypt.

The first correct answer came from Sophie in Essex, UK. Congratulations Sophie, your prize is on it’s way!

Anthony was in Egypt on a research trip for the next Power of Five book. Keep watching this space for a new blog from Anthony coming very soon!

Anthony Horowitz, Egypt, 2009

I have just got back from a very interesting and world famous location which will appear in the fifth book of the Power of Five series. I had this photograph taken. But where am I? The first correct answer posted on this site will win a signed typescript of BAD DREAM, a poem I have written for a collection of horror stories coming out later this year. I’ll post the full picture and a blog about recent events/developments in a couple of weeks.

All the best,

Anthony

Where is Anthony?

NOTE: Please be very specific with your answer. You can enter the competition by adding your answer in a comment reply to this post. Remember, all comments are not automatically published, we do moderate them first. Please ensure that you use a valid email address so that we can contact you for your address details should you win the prize. If we cannot contact you by email the prize will go to the next correct entry.

THE COMPETITON IS NOW CLOSED. WE WILL ANNOUNCE THE WINNER HERE SHORTLY. THANK YOU.

Anthony will be in Waterstones, Piccadilly, London signing copies of ‘Necropolis’ the 4th book in his thrilling Power of Five series.

Link to Waterstones Events page

Please make sure to contact the venue before travelling.
Waterstone’s

203-206 Piccadilly,

London W1J 9LE

Tel: 0207 851 2400

NECROPOLIS, NEW YORK AND A QUESTION: SHOULD I SUE DARREN SHAN?

So here’s the latest news from the world of Anthony Horowitz…or Antoine Horwitzer as it seems I should now call myself. We’ll get to that in a moment.

But with Halloween just a week away, I’m about to hit the road as we launch NECROPOLIS, the fourth book in my Power of Five series. As you may know from my earlier blogs, this wasn’t an easy book to write…in fact I had to tear it up completely and start again. Yes, this is the book with my first heroine instead of a hero – Scarlett Adams – but that wasn’t the problem. The story takes place in Peru, London and Hong Kong as well as the mysterious dream world. All five of the main characters are present (that is – Matt, Pedro, Scott and Jamie as well as Scarlett). It was really difficult weaving all the action together what with explosions, chases, betrayals, fireworks, monsters, major criminal organisations, the sword ladder and all the rest of it.

That said though, I really do think it works and the first reviews have been great. If you haven’t read the first three books in the series – RAVEN’S GATE, EVIL STAR and NIGHTRISE – this one does stand more or less on its own as everything is explained in the first chapter. But for those of you who have read all the ALEX books and are waiting for the next one…do give this series a try. Strange to think that there’s only one more title and it will all be over.

Since I mention ALEX RIDER, you may have noticed that my publishers have produced a sort of Christmas special, THE MISSION FILES which will fit neatly into your stocking…if, that is, your stocking is large and rectangular. It’s quite a hefty book, full of envelopes, posters, code books and further information about some of the characters in Alex’s world. I also threw in a story that I originally wrote for a newspaper, CHRISTMAS AT GUNPOINT. It’s an early incident in Alex’s life before he became a spy and I’m glad that it’s now in book form.

And again, on the subject of Alex, I’ve finally started work on the eighth novel although I don’t think it’ll be out for quite a while. After much thought, I’ve decided to leave YASSEN (the book I was planning) to the very end of the series. This follows a whole series of school visits where people have been a bit half-hearted about the idea…and I do try to listen to what my readers say! So instead, I’m going to write a full-blooded Alex adventure which begins straight after SNAKEHEAD with Alex on a skiing holiday with Sabina, then moves to England and finally to Africa with a plot that includes GM crops, international aid and…well, I’m probably giving away too much already. Annoyingly, a school in East Croydon (I won’t mention its name) threw out the title which was going to be ENDURANCE POINT. But if anyone reading this likes the title, please let me know. I was quite fond of it…and titles are the hardest thing to think up.

Next week I’m touring York, Leeds and Manchester and looking forward to heading north. I was at university at York but don’t ask what I got up to there as it’s all lost, fortunately, in the haze of time. All I can remember now is that it had the world’s biggest duck pond and you could be expelled – or sent down or whatever – if you killed and/or cooked a duck. Not that they were particularly tasty. I was once told off by the Archbishop of York for climbing half-way up the Minster (it was in scaffolding at the time) but I hope they’ve forgotten and forgiven this by now.

Immediately after that, I’m off to New York where a play of mine, MINDGAME, is opening. I hope no parents will bring their children, thinking it will be the theatrical equivalent of an Alex Rider book as it’s full of bad language and insanely violent. One of the characters actually gets killed twice. The play stars Keith Carradine who was great as the detective in DEXTER 2 (one of my favourite TV programmes). It’s being directed by a man called Ken Russell who was the UK’s most famous film director when I was in my teens…I absolutely loved his films. He’s now about seventy, very eccentric (you may have spotted him on Celebrity Big Brother for a short time) and I have absolutely no idea how the play will do. It opens the day after the American elections…so fingers crossed.

And finally to Darren Shan. I don’t know how many of you have been reading his DEMONATA series. I must say I’ve been enjoying it. But Volume 8, WOLF ISLAND, has just come out and I notice that there is a character in it called Antoine Horwitzer. Any ideas who that could be? In the story, he’s a sort of mad scientist type and at first (page 64) he seems pleasant enough. Shan describes him as: “a tall, handsome, tanned man…his hair looks like a film star’s, thick and carefully waxed into shape.” But it soon becomes clear that he’s untrustworthy and arrogant and by the time you get to page 194…well, I won’t spoil the ending but it looks unlikely that Antoine will be appearing in Volume 9.

Anyway, my lawyers have studied the book and the bad news for Darren Shan is that they agree it’s definitely defamatory…which is to say that I could win millions from him in court. The good news is that I’ve decided not to sue. If there’s one piece of advice that everyone should stick to in their life it’s AVOID LAWYERS. This is good advice even for lawyers. However, I will be having my revenge. Next year, I have a third collection of horror stories coming out. The title (at the moment) is: AAAGH: TEN UNUSUAL WAYS TO DIE and one of the stories is called THE MAN WHO KILLED DARREN SHAN. I have started re-writing it. Out go all the compliments about CIRQUE DU FREAK and THE DEMONATA. And instead…

Next Halloween, Darren. Wait and see.

Anthony Horowitz

28 October 2008

Technorati Tags: alex rider, Power of Five

Crime Traveller by Anthony Horowitz on DVD

Crime Traveller

Win a copy of Crime Traveller!

The nice people at Revelation Films have given us three copies of the Crime Traveller DVD box set to give away. Written by Anthony Horowitz and broadcast on BBC television in 1997, Crime Traveller is a sci-fi crime series that is “sure to entertain” .

To win a copy of Crime Traveller just tell us who directed the series and email your answer making sure to put Crime Traveller as the message subject with your full name and postal address to [email protected]

Closing date for entries is Friday August 15 at 14.00 GMT. Only one entry per address is allowed. Competition is open to all countries. The DVD is Region Free and will play on any DVD player worldwide. Three correct entries will be selected at random and the prize will be sent by post.

More about Crime Traveller

Meet the most unconventional investigative team of all time, in the BBC mystery adventure series, Crime Traveller.

Written by award-winning author Anthony Horowitz, creator of the brilliant Alex Rider adventures, Foyle’s War, Rosemary and Thyme and Midsomer Murders, Crime Traveller stars Michael French (Eastenders, Holby City) and Red Dwarf’s Chloe Annett (Casualty, Doctors) as sleuths Jeff Slade and Holly Turner.

Detective duos come and go, working on intuition, clues and good luck, but Slade and his beautiful colleague Holly are armed with something very special in the ongoing fight against crime – their very own time machine. Invented by Holly’s father, Professor Frederick Turner, the time machine may be a bizarre mixture of D.I.Y. technology, but it works, just, sending the charming, maverick detective Slade on a dangerous rollercoaster ride through both the present and the past. Intriguing complex puzzles are solved with the aid of their unreliable collection of nuts and bolts and flashing lights, but they must always obey the rules of quantum physics, or risk being lost forever…

Aided by a superb cast that includes Waking The Dead’s Sue Johnston, and directed by Brain Farnham (Rosemary and Thyme, Poirot, Heartbeat, Bergerac) Crime Traveller is a stylish, fast-paced drama that was shown on prime time BBC television during the late 1990’s, gathering a strong and loyal cult following hooked on the mysteries of time travel and crime fighting, and paving the way for dramas such as the BBC’s acclaimed series, Life On Mars.

This DVD Box Set includes an exclusive interview with writer and creator Anthony Horowitz, the man behind the newest big screen hero; Alex Rider.

DVD Special Features

Cast and Crew Biographies, Episode Synopsis, Exclusive Anthony Horowitz Interview and Original Production Trailer.

Click below to view an excerpt of Anthony’s interview from the extras of Crime Traveller:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Anthony Horowitz is on his Snakehead tour here in the USA and Canada this month. Author Sue Corbett (Free Baseball, 12 Again) has a nice profile of Horowitz in the Miami Herald. I'd never heard this part of Horowitz's story before:

The family's fortunes then shifted dramatically when his father, threatened with bankruptcy over some business dealings, deposited all of his money in Swiss bank accounts under a false name, and died without leaving instructions on how to retrieve it. Horowitz's mother searched unsuccessfully for years.

Oh, good.

Author, Anthony Horowitz has announced that Alex Pettyfer will NOT be in the next Alex Rider movie because he is too old now. The character, Alex Rider, is 14 years old and will be for the rest of the books. I think Horowitz said Alex will turn 15 at the end of the series.

I never understood why Stormbreaker was shown in such a limited release in the U.S. When I fnally saw the movie on DVD, I liked it. The only thing that didn't quite jell for me was Alex himself. Pettyfer's restrained and rather elegant Alex Rider did not fit my image of the character.

Horowitz showed us the first preview of Stormbreaker during his talk at TLA two years ago. As the trailer opened, we saw a shot of a classroom with a teacher calling Alex Rider's name. As the camera passed by the faces of the students I recall thinking "Oh there's Alex!" only to see the camera continue and finally land on Pettyfer. "That's not Alex!" I thought.

Now, I realize that in the annals of cinematic history, this probably does not rank up there with the casting of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind did but I booktalked these books today and heard the cheers of the kids who have read them and saw the keen interest of those who have not yet. Kids get excited at the idea of a movie so, to me, this is important.

So, Anthony, I want you to know that I will be happy to help you review the screen tests.
I will know Alex when I see him.

Because it's finally nice and cold and I'm actually wearing a sweater today, today's song is Ten Degrees and Getting Colder performed by Nanci Griffith.

Now this, in my view, is something worth getting excited about (certainly more than the publication of the last HP book - yes, I know, I'm hopeless - but the boy with glasses has been pushed out of my affections by the lanky Time Lord with glasses, what can I say ?)

From the Anthony Horowitz website:

Do you want to know what's in store for the five Gatekeepers following Nightrise?
Or how Alex Rider bites back in his next adventure, Snakehead?
Well, now's your chance to find out...

Anthony Horowitz will be hosting a live web chat from 14:00 - 15:00 (BST) on Tuesday 31 July 2007.

With Snakehead, Alex Rider's eagerly-awaited seventh mission, out on Wednesday 31 October we're sure you'll have masses of questions to ask Anthony.

All you have to do is log on to the link below at 14:00 GMT on Tuesday 31 July armed with your questions: Power of Five Chat.