Anthony Horowitz
From Chiki
Anthony Horowitz is the author of the vastly popular Alex Rider series and also the horror/adventure series Power Of Five, which will feature 6 or 7 books (so much for power of 5). He wrote several horror novels including Horowitz Horror and More Horrowitz Horror, a series of short horror stories, wrote and compiled by himself. He has sold millions of copies of his book and is Robert Muchamore's arch-rival after Malorie Blackman.
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History
Anthony Horowitz was born in Stanmore, Middlesex, England, (on April 5th 1956) into a thoroughly Jewish family. He has said that he was raised in "a Jewish enclave", Horowitz lived an very upper-class lifestyle. His father acted as a "fixer" for prime minister Harold Wilson. Facing bankruptcy, Horowitz's father removed his wealth from his Zürich bank accounts and hid it away under a false name. He then died and the family were never able to track down the missing money despite years of trying. As an unhappy and extremely overweight child, Horowitz enjoyed reading books from his father's library. At the age of eight, Horowitz was sent to the boarding school in Harrow, London. There, he kept entertained his fellow students by telling them the stories he had read. Horowitz described his time in the school as "a brutal experience", it seems that he was often whipped by his evil headmaster for not following rules and causing trouble and agruements. Horowitz adored his mother, who introduced him to the legends that are Frankenstein and Dracula. From the age of eight, Horowitz knew that he wanted to be a writer of novels and screenplays, realizing "the only time when I'm totally happy is when I'm writing".
Horowitz now lives in North London with his current wife Jill Green, whom he married in Hong Kong on April 15, 1988. Green produced Foyle's War, the series Horowitz wrote for ITV. They have two sons, Nicholas Mark (born 1989) and Cassian James (born 1991). He credits his family with much of his success in writing, as he says they help him with ideas and research.
Books
Anthony Horowitz writes about 90% of his books for kids normally writing them in series' which are either action/adventure or horror based plots. He has written four major series so far which are Alex Rider, Diamond Brothers, Power of Five and Pentagram. The most universally recognised of those is probably Alex Rider which is available in over 20 languages and is well known world over, it has sold over 6 million copies world wide (an estimate). Alex Rider is a teenage spy who was raised by his uncle (a member of MI6) when his parents were killed when a Scorpia financed friend of theirs placed a bomb on their plane and was unwittingly taught skills that would help a spy be good at their job and survive. It has since about the 5th book had a plummet in popularity when much more interesting series such as CHERUB have become popular, also the lack of willingness to change the plot a bit or end the series (many believe it has gone on too long) have also lead to it's extreme decline in popularity.
Horowitz continues to write novels and his new focus is his Power of Five novels which unfortunetly seem to have taken the nation by storm. They are about 5 'chosen' children who exist (without being conscientious of the fact) in two realities at once split 10,000 years apart from each other. Their sole perpose is to fight a set of gods who look like animals and have mighty powers called the Ancient Ones (very imaginative) and send them back into a place from which they cannot escape (sounds a lot like some awful rip of a D. Who episode) and seal them within with gates. The five won the war before (10,000 years ago) using a trick that meant that when one of them died the one from 10,000 years in the future replaced him. As the Ancient Ones did not know this they thought they had won and were lured into open battle. Now the battle has come again and they know of this secret.
Television
Horowitz began writing for television in the 1980s, contributing to the children's anthology series Dramarama, and also writing for the popular fantasy series Robin of Sherwood. His association with murder mysteries began with the adaptation of several Hercule Poirot stories for ITV's popular Agatha Christie's Poirot series during the 1990s.
Often his work has a comic edge, such as with the comic murder anthology Murder Most Horrid (BBC Two, 1991) and the comedy-drama The Last Englishman (1995), starring Jim Broadbent. From 1997, he wrote the majority of the episodes in the early series of Midsomer Murders. In 2001, he created a drama anthology series of his own for the BBC, Murder in Mind, an occasional series which deals with a different set of characters and a different murder every one-hour episode.
He is also less-favourably known for the creation of two short-lived and sometimes derided science-fiction shows, Crime Traveller (1997) for BBC One and The Vanishing Man (pilot 1996, series 1998) for ITV. The successful 2002 launch of the detective series Foyle's War, set during the Second World War, helped to restore his reputation as one of Britain's foremost writers of popular drama.
Horowitz is the writer of a feature film screenplay, The Gathering, which was released in 2002 and starred Christina Ricci. He wrote the screenplay for Alex Rider's first major motion picture, Stormbreaker and is working on the screenplay for the second: Point Blanc.
Sidenote
CHERUB fans do not often take very kindly to people who like Anthony Horowitz so do not mention him in a good way unless you wish to be hated by every single member of the CHERUB forums for the rest of your life, so watch out.
Some information has been discovered from wikipedia and the official websites for himself and his books.
--Fit Battion 01:23, 31 December 2008 (GMT)
