| In the book Point Blank, by Anthony Horowitz, a 14 year old secret agent named Alex Rider who works for London's M-16 is sent on a very dangerous undercover mission. Alex is sent in the role of a student to a finishing school called “Point Blanc� in the French Alps -- a place that only accepts the sons of very rich and powerful people. His mission is to investigate whether two murders of very rich men who both sent their sons to the finishing school are related. What neither Alex nor the reader knows is that that Dr. Grief (the person running the school) has an ingenious plan to take over the world using the kids at the school.
The entire book is an unfolding of the mystery of what is going on at the school, as Alex makes discovery after discovery, and also is in danger because Dr. Grief and his assistant become aware of what he is up to. When Alex first gets to the school things seem pretty normal except the other kids all seemed to be acting the same and perfectly behaved, like they were brainwashed or something. Alex is told that the third and fourth floors are completely off limits and he knows that something up there is happening. When he gets up to the third floor he sees that is an exact replica of the first floor, including the kids' rooms, and there is evidence that someone is living in each room, doing every single thing that each kid does. In fact, there are televisions in the upper rooms with spying views of the same room downstairs. When Alex is about to leave the school, having seen enough, Dr. Grief catches him and plans to kill him the next morning. Expecting Alex to die Dr. Grief reveals his plan to Alex. 14 years ago Dr. Grief had cloned himself 16 times, the number of kids at the school. After waiting for them to grow to be 14, he opened the school and found the 16 kids who were now the students. He had a plastic surgeon change all his clones in order to look exactly like each one of the kids, and had them copy the kids' actions on the replica third floor. Finally he planned to have each clone of him take their place in the kids' powerful families, and grow into the most powerful people in the world | ||
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Plot & Themes Tone of book - suspenseful (sophisticated fear) FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - science fiction story Spying & Investigations Yes What is main char. doing? - spying/espionage in enemy territorry Story involving clones/duplicates? - bad clones/duplicates Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book Clones Yes Descript. of chases or violence - 30 % planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 40 % Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 10 % Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 20 % Main Character Identity: - Male Profession/status: Age: - a teen Main Adversary Identity: - Male Age: - 20's-30's Profession/status: Eccentric: Yes How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - an above average amount How sensitive is this character? Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor Intelligence - Genius (really!) Setting Terrain Takes place on Earth? Yes Writing Style Accounts of torture and death? - moderately detailed references to deaths scientific jargon? (SF only) - a moderate amount of scientific explanation How much dialogue? - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog |
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