43 pages • 1 hour read
Anthony HorowitzStormbreaker
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 16-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary: “Twelve O’clock”
As the plane reaches London, Alex jumps out with a parachute. Mr. Grin flies the plane toward him, so Alex takes out the Game Boy and sets off a smoke bomb he left on board. Blinded, Mr. Grin crashes the plane. Meanwhile, Sayle is unveiling the Stormbreaker at the Science Museum. He finishes his speech, saying the country will never forget this day. He tells the prime minister to click the mouse to turn on the Stormbreakers. Alex reaches the museum, crashing into the glass roof. As the prime minister is about to click the mouse, Alex fires his gun, hitting the computer mouse, the prime minister’s hand, and Sayle. As the guards lead the prime minister away, Alex puts his hands up and prepares for the guards to shoot him. However, Mrs. Jones saw Alex and tells them not to shoot. In the chaos, the wounded Sayle disappears.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Yassen”
The next day, Blunt and Mrs. Jones congratulate Alex. They inform him that they kept the press from publishing anything about the previous day, and they cut off the video recordings to hide that Alex fired the shots. They also explain that the government recalled the Stormbreakers. Mrs. Jones then says they will look for Sayle and Yassen, the latter of whom works for Sayle’s sponsors rather than Sayle himself. When Alex asks about his future, Blunt says he will continue attending school and living in his uncle’s house with Jack, whose visa Blunt will renew. Blunt and Mrs. Jones tell him that his talent and youth make him a valuable agent. Alex is glad he saved countless children but feels used by Blunt and Mrs. Jones.
Exhausted, he takes a cab, only to find that the driver is Sayle in disguise. He drives Alex to a skyscraper and leads him to the 29th floor at gunpoint. There, a helicopter awaits Sayle on a helipad. Sayle says he will leave England and return to execute his plan without Alex’s interference. He prepares to shoot Alex but is fatally shot before he can. Alex sees that Sayle’s killer is Yassen, who killed Sayle because he became an “embarrassment” to his superiors (233). Alex tells Yassen that Ian was his uncle and that he will kill Yassen someday. Yassen tells Alex that others have tried and failed before and that he should return to a normal life. He leaves in the helicopter. Alex stands on the helipad alone.
Chapters 16-17 Analysis
Chapter 16 is the climax of the novel, in which Alex has seconds to stop the prime minister from accidentally killing innocent children and endangering the stability of the country. Alex takes extreme, desperate means to stop him. The novel cuts back and forth between Alex searching for the Science Museum while parachuting and Sayle making his speech. Alex has a near-impossible window of time to stop him, and Mr. Grin’s attempt to fly into Alex further raises the tension. The Interplay of Technology and Espionage is highlighted by how useful Smithers’s gadgets are. Alex stops Sayle’s plan with only second remaining. The teenage protagonist stopping the antagonist in the last seconds is a common trope in action/adventure fiction for young adults. This trope encourages the reader to anticipate how the protagonist will stop the antagonist before it is too late.
The interplay of technology and espionage is also important in the complex nature of Sayle’s electronics. Blunt reveals to Alex in Chapter 17 that when he shot the mouse, he made the other Stormbreakers harmless because “he programmed them so that the smallpox virus could only be released by the Prime Minister at the Science Museum” (225). This reflects Sayle’s “fanatical” nature, short-sightedness, and belief that his plan could not be averted.
The Moral Complexity of Espionage becomes an important subject again in Chapter 17. Blunt informs Alex that he intends to recruit him for another assignment. Although Alex is exasperated, Blunt and Mrs. Jones say that MI6 values his youth and talent. Alex is happy that he saved thousands of innocent lives, but he feels like Blunt and Mrs. Jones are using him and like he has no true agency. He explains that unlike James Bond and other spies who chose to serve their country, “he’d never been given a choice” (228). He says, “Nowadays, spies weren’t employed. They were used” (228). The word choice highlights the lack of autonomy that Alex feels. This feeling of being used increases as the series progresses and strains his relationships with Blunt and Mrs. Jones. At the end of the novel, Yassen tells Alex, “Go back to school. Go back to your life. And the next time they ask you, say no. Killing is for grown-ups and you’re still a child” (234). This statement humanizes Yassen and shows that he has some code of morality. It highlights the ambiguity about which side of the spy game is in the right and foreshadows Alex’s encounter with Yassen later in the series.
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