Eye on: Anthony Horowitz YA fiction - reviewing the Gatekeepers series
I guess I've finished (?) my latest re-delve into Anthony Horowitz media after finally getting my hands on some of the Power of 5/Gatekeepers books a whole year after first trying to get them after reading The Dark is Rising & feeling he lifted a lot of content from there from vague memory. That was my starting point - and we only ballooned out from there through his bibliography, at least in terms of this series and its adaptations.
So to start with a positive, I've just finished season 1 of the (also Horowitz) Alex Rider tv show and; this one's good, solid. Would recommend, will watch the rest.
Unfortunately, The Gatekeepers series was pretty mixed on re-read. More below the cut:
So, these books are a rewrite of an earlier series aimed at a younger audience written beginning in the 80s (which naturally I read too on internet archive, cmon fixation) and - it really shows at times - whole passages, paragraphs and scenarios are lifted verbatim
Interestingly though in lifting the age they're aimed at, Horowitz completely misses the mark and makes these too gruesome and gory for young adult readers. Part of why I re-read these now was because I first read them 15-ish years ago when I had a fever & assumed I was misremembering some of the worst stuff. Nope! The first book dodges describing someone falling on their own blade and dying in detail; but is happy to describe a woman burning to death by falling in a vat of sulphuric acid in detail, and another woman dying in nuclear fire, as well as noting that children died as part of a Satanic ritual that they willingly participated in - but it's ok as long as our protagonist didn't witness their deaths! 🙃 There's also a few descriptions of adults being savaged by animals and what their bodies look like after.
Boy these books are colonialist. White people are treated as the default a lot and there's some nasty sidenotes on non-white characters as being "obviously not British" etc.
As for lifting from Cooper, he literally lifts the group The Old Ones and retrofits that to being the ancestral enemy rather than the heroes. He lifts the idea of five heroic children, one girl, and the leader, Matt, is pretty close namewise to Cooper's Will. While there's no direct Merriman wizard guide figure from the start, there's the same sense of prophecy and foretelling the inevitable with a dream Librarian introduced midway through the series
Also like Cooper, boy these kids aren't good at using their powers - and they never really become a plot axel as opposed to a device to drive forward the plots. Four out of the five children never develop their powers offensively and five out of five don't actually utilise them in their climax fight with the Old Ones' leader. Come on?! This leads to ridiculous scenarios such as the telekinetic not using that power at all against a horde of zombies, while the telepath uselessly tries to use his power, and their Normal friends take the brunt of the defensive effort with bats, bows and arrows. If that's your plot you need a reason why your powered people aren't able to access their abilities in the moment...
Characterization isn't great. Matt is mostly well-drawn, and his (brotherly) relationship with Richard is, though a little awkward in places, mostly on solid foundation. Matt's relationship with Pedro is ok. Pedro is treated a little like the 'magical foreigner' stereotype in the first book he appears in, and never really gets above being a supporting character, even after he miraculously learns English in a matter of months. This is actually done slightly better in the original version of the books where although he incongrously speaks English from the off, despite being a homeless Peruvian orphan who does not attend school (there's a convoluted explanation about an American ex-stepfather), his plot relevance isn't entirely passive as he has an interest in fighting with weapons, and also develops his power to be able to buff Matt's abilities, instead of it being simply passive aura healing in a radius area of effect. Jamie, Scott and Scarlett are a mixed bag. They each have moments, but are mostly written passively and as reacting. They don't necessarily read as being the same age as Matt, in terms of their strategic capability - he reads as older. While the children do all interact, a lot of it is curiously skipped past. If these are our protagonists growing together, maybe describing the four months four of the five spent together as "they had spent four months together, recovering" as a oneliner isn't the best use of wordcount?! On the plus side, villains are well-drawn, even if Horowitz falls into physical ugliness or deformity characterising evilness once tol often. The less said about supporting hero characters the better; multiple die on page, even people the heroes have lived with for months, and nobody seems to have any moment of mourning.
Going back to race, four out of our five protagonists are people of color. You wouldn't know it from how the story is told, outside of physical descriptions. Race isn't really a theme, outside of some of Pedro's chapters and to add descriptive flavor and, to an extent, some justification for Scarlett to be in Hong Kong - although her ethnicity is variously established as anything between Chinese to generic Asian to Indonesian. I'd be curious to know what research Horowitz did in prep for putting this together because most of the time, all of these characters read as white, complete with a slightly dismissive attitude towards Pedro as some kind of not-quite equal. Scarlett also has some very odd takes on race for a woman of color raised in diverse London - upon visiting HK she thinks all Asians look the same; and then mentally scolds herself for being racist, and also thinks a Black man 'obviously' stands out as not belonging there! It definitely has the sense that these characters might have been Race Lifted from an original draft
There's a weird recurring negative attitude towards adoption. Several of the child characters are adopted - I assume for a mythology reason that wasn't really delved into - but none of them have any kind of positive association with their adoptive parents, and the mood of "but they aren't real parents, so why could there be any kind of connection?" recurs a lot, which is weird when in at least two cases, they are the only parents or guardians the character ever knew.
The villains' motivation is pretty thin on the ground. Chaos for chaos' sake mostly, while the demons' allies consistently keep their faith in them in expectation of reward, even though everyone else they know who held the same faith was later maimed or tortured or killed the first time they slipped up, or even just because the demon decided it wanted to be cruel that day. Then again... maybe that's not so far from how some world leaders now are behaving...
All in all, there's seeds of a good story here. The horror atmosphere is well done in all of the books, even if it sometimes veers too deep for the intended age range. Five books for five children including a ten year timeskip and with the final book being triple the length feels a little messy. There's a little too much reliance on prophecy and predestination for my taste and this also takes some stakes away. A different story structure would build suspense better even without changing plot points. Two of the children being biological siblings with identical powers feels a little lazy and upends the structure somewhat.
A third rewrite probably sounds excessive, but I could see a great result coming out. As they are though, it really shows that for some people to get published, seeds of greatness are enough. Which is in a way, uplifting, if you're thinking of becoming a writer. A good frame story & good action scenes might be enough!
