SCORPIA RISING - Chapter 1: Stolen Gods

It's finally here! The final book of the terrifyingly suspenseful Alex Rider series. I'm going to have to savour this moment, because soon I will know all! Not that there seem to be that many secrets in this series, unlike Harry Potter, but I will bet my broomstick that there will be some twists on the way!

Let's talk about the title shall we? So we know that Alex pretty much decimated Scorpia in books 5 and 7 (Scorpia and Snakehead), making them look like idiots to be beated by a fourteen-year-old. The thing we've learnt about them in the past is that they NEVER fail. And to have failed twice in one year is humiliating enough even without the knowledge that their downfall was caused by a boy. Soooo I'm guessing that the title is saying that this novel is about their redeeming act: something that they do now is suppoesed to re-boot their reputation and see them shoot back up to being the 'Master of Crime' type thing. Which if course is definitely NOT good.

Chapter one, Stolen Gods, is not from Alex's point of view. I suppose I should have been expecting this as most of the books start with someone different, but I was so eager to find out what's happening there that I was a bit disappointed. At first. Because then Horowitz reminded me why I like his writing and his books so much.

It opens on Zeljan Kurst (how do you say that btw? Is it Zel-yan??), the new chief exec. of Scorpia *booooohiss*. He's getting off a plane and doesn't know that he's being watched. At first, before they mentioned the whole Scorpia thing, I thought he'd be another murder victim, as we've had in so many of these books, who ges killed by the bad guy and we don't find out the significance till later. But no, definitely not. We are told that he is being followed by MI6, that they could have killed him straight away in the airport but "it had been decided, at the very highest level, to follow him and see where he went". So that means Mr Blunt. Does this mean is job's secure? Or is this event possibly overlapping the last book and the Dam disaster hasn't happened yet? Interesting.

His taxi pulls up outside the British Museum (a pretty awesome museum in my opinion) and the MI6 operatives following him get worried because it's going to be difficult to find him inside and they can't confront him in such a public place because there's no knowing what he might do. As they call for reinforcements we follow him through the museum. He walks past all the artifacts in the museum, the statues of Greek gods, the Turkish temple, the lions and exotic animals, and I was thinking that it doesn't seem very British does it? They call it the British Museum and yet it's filled with things from other countries. I've been there various times and seen the Egyptian Mummies and pieces from the Greek Parthenon and Roman statues and all this stuff, and so little is from Britain. I guess it dates back to the Victorian era when there was a surge in colonialisation and the British ventured to so many different countries and took souveniers back which they never returned. It does seem quite selfish.

That leads on very nicely to the man Kurst is going to meet. He's a man called Yannis Ariston Xenopolos, and he's very ill. He's waiting in the room containing the Elgin Marbles. I googled these and it said on the British Museum's website that they're relics taken by Lord Elgin between 1801-5 from the Parthenon in Athens. They were then bought by the government and presented to the British Museum. I'll get back to that later. So Kurst and Xenopolos greet each other, and it's evident that the latter is slowly dying. He's in a wheelchair and has an oxygen mask and I predict that he'll die by the end of the book (don't laugh if I'm wrong!!)

He remarks to Kurst the beauty and magnitude of these works of art, lamenting Greece's loss. He tells how they were stolen from Greece, how the country begged to have them back but were refused every time. It was evident that he wanted Scorpia to return the Marbles to their rightful country, adn to be honest I agreed with him. What right to we have to keep them? They're not ours, never have been and belong in Greece, so why have they been in our country for over two hundred years? Don't get me wrong, it's wondeful to have them here but surely if Greece want them they should get them right? For once I'm actually agreeing with who I'm assuming is the villain (well, one of). Unfortunately Kurst points out that if Scorpia steal them and give them to Greece, Britain will likely demand them back and suggests blackmail, to which Xenopolos replies, "You can kill half the population of this loathsome country if it will achieve what I want".

Too far Xeno, too far.

May have lost a lot of sympathy for him there.

Xenopolos then reveals that he knows of Scorpia's humiliations recently (though not about Alex) and wasn't prepared to pay more than £10 million. But Kurst says how they have re-grouped, taken on new people and are "stronger than ever". Greeeeat. They agree on more and part. This is where things start to go wrong for MI6.

On Kurst's way out he is confronted with a young, inexperienced MI6 agent who gives the game away and ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. A load of people who were mentioned in passing earlier in the chapter turn out to be Scorpia people in disguise. I suppose I should have guessed - Scorpia never do anything by halves and we know from earlier books that they're masters of camouflage and disguise. As more and more Scorpia/MI6 people work out what's happening they begin to shoot at each other, terrorising the public and allowing Kurst to escape. As he jumped into his taxi unscathed my heart sank. It seemed a dead cert from the beginning of this chapter that by the end he would be, well, dead, and I didn't expect MI6 to fluff it.

That's something I've been noticing very gradually throughout the series. At first, and for a while they ran tightly, efficiently and left without a trace. But more and more MI6 have slipped up, betrayed themselves and got things wrong. It started in Eagle Strike when Alex was onto Damien Cray but Blunt refused to listen. Then because of the way they'd treated him he tried to join Scorpia, nearly resulting in the death of Mrs Jones. In Snakehead someone who they thought was on their side ended up betraying them, and in the last book they barely managed to stop a famine that shouldn't even have nearly happened. Most importantly though is the fact that they're relying more and more on the instincts and luck of Alex Rider, a teenager, who should have nothing to do with them. As Blunt said at the end of Scorpia, "there's something seriously wrong with the security of a country if they have to rely on a teenage boy". What the Prime Minister said about getting rid of Mr Blunt, although I had my reservations, I now see may actually not be the worst thing that could happen. Obviously I don't know if anyone can fill his shoes, but he does seem to be losing his touch. At the beginning he was so cold, like a corpse, and now he's made grave mistakes. The only thing I can think of that's changed is his 'fondness' (or whatever you can call it) for Alex. You don't think that could be the factor that has caused all this could it? (Rhetorical question, don't say if you know!)