Tuesday, December 20, 2011

The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (often shortened to The Alchemyst) is the first novel in the six book fantasy fiction series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.[1] It is written by Irish author, Michael Scott, and was published in May 2007. The Alchemyst has been printed in 20 languages and is available in 37 countries.[2] The film rights to the series have been sold to Lorenzo di Bonaventura.

The book's title, The Alchemyst, refers to the historical character of Nicholas Flamel, a French scrivener and manuscript-seller. Flamel developed a posthumous reputation for being an alchemist and for his search for the philospher's stone.

"The Alchemyst is Nicholas Flamel."
— Michael Scott As posted on the series' official Fan Forum.[3]

Sophie and Josh Newman are 15 year-old twins who are working at their summer jobs in San Francisco when a mysterious man, John Dee, comes into Josh's workplace for a book, the Codex – or Book of Abraham the Mage. Sophie and Josh witness Nick and Perry, the book store's owners, using magic. They discover that Nick is not an ordinary bookseller, but is the medieval alchemist, Nicholas Flamel, being kept alive by making the elixir of life (a secret from the Codex) for him and his wife, Perry (Perenelle). Dee also uses magic and takes the Codex by force while Josh is holding it – resulting in two pages being left behind. Both Flamels need the Codex to make the elixir of life, or they will age rapidly and die within a month. Also, if they do not retrieve the Codex, Dee will summon the Dark Elders to destroy the world and return to an age in which humans are but slaves and food.

Flamel quickly takes them to a hideout to enlist the aid of Scathach, a powerful Next Generation Elder. There they are forced to run, threatened by rats sent by Dee, which are thwarted by Flamel and Scathach. Chased again almost immediately by tens of thousands of birds, Flamel then leads the twins and Scathach to secure the aid of Hekate, an Elder, who can awaken the twins' magical potential. Dee discovers this, and enlists the aid of Bastet and the Morrigan. The trio mount a massive assault on Hekate's shadowrealm, to destroy Yggdrasill – the world tree – that is the heart of Hekate's power.

While Yggdrasill is attacked, Hekate awakens Sophie's magic abilities, but does not have time to awaken Josh, as the tree has been set on fire by Dee. While she rushes to defend her home, Scathach, the Flamels, and the twins attempt to escape the shadowrealm. While escaping, they encounter Dee, and witness the power of the ancient Ice Elemental sword, Excalibur. They see Dee transform a wereboar into pure ice, then shatter the statue. Scathach remarks that she thought that Excalibur had been lost when Artorius died.

The twins, Scathach, and Flamels escape the shadowrealm, shortly before the destruction of Hekate, Yggdrasill, and the entire shadowrealm. As they escape, Dee uses Excalibur to freeze the tree, and Hekate, whose life and power is linked to it, transforms to ice as well. As this occurs, Dee is informed that the Flamels and Scathach have escaped with the twins. In his rage, he shatters Yggdrasill, which crushes Hekate into dust, killing her. The Flamels, Scathach, and the twins travel to Scathach's grandmother, the Witch of Endor (also called "The Mistress of Air"), who teaches Sophie her magical secrets quickly by giving the girl all the witch's memories and the power to know how to use air magic.

While they are there, Dee has found out that a prophecy in the Codex speaks of Sophie and Josh. He tempts Josh to join him, while using necromancy to raise thousands of corpses to assault the Elders, the Flamels and Sophie. Josh almost agrees, but at the last moment he realises he will lose Sophie if he agrees. Dee brings all the dead in a near by cemetary alive and they start to attack them, josh hits Dee with a Hummer distracting Dee long enough to escape with Scathach, Sophie and Nicholas Flamel by using a leygate (a teleportation device where two or more lines of energy, ley lines, cross the world). However, Perenelle is captured by Dee as the rest escape to Paris, where the book ends.

The Alchemyst was released as part of a special edition boxed 3 book set called The First Codex in the US on 28 September 2010.

The Alchemyst is also available as an unabridged audiobook. It was released by the Listening Library on 22 May 2007 and narrated by Denis O'Hare. The audiobook ISBN numbers are: ISBN 0-7393-5032-3 (UK), ISBN 978-0-7393-5032-4 (US).[4]

* Irish Book of the Year – 2008 [5]
* Kentucky Bluegrass Book Award [6]
* Rhode Island Teen Book Award – 2008 (Winner)[7]
* Bisto Book of the Year Award – 2008 [8]
* CBI Shadowing Award – 2008[9]
* Maine Student Book Award – ranked 10th[10]
* Nevada Young Readers Award[11]
* NCSLMA YA Book Award – 2010[12]

The first related online game to be launched was The Codex Master.[13] The object is to guess a secret code composed of a sequence of coloured orbs by inputting various sequences and using logic. When a sequence is entered, indicators show when the player has the right colour and also when a colour is in the right or wrong position to enable them to apply logic and guess the correct sequence.

Film rights for the book were originally sold to New Line Cinema and Mark Burnett Productions.[14] The film is currently in pre-production. This was reported at IMDb. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the writer hired to pen the script was Eric Bress, who has written scripts for the television show, Kyle XY. It was reported that the producer would be Mark Burnett and that he bought the rights to the book in an auction months before it was published.[14]

In November 2009 it was announced in Variety Magazine[15] that Lorenzo di Bonaventura had bought the film rights to the series. Michael Scott and Barry Krost will be the executive producers. The script writer has yet to be announced.

"Well, I have been promising news of the Flamel movie. Here's the press release. The movie was set up with New Line, but New Line were absorbed by Warner and the rights reverted to me. There has been tremendous interest in the series and eventually, it went to Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who is the man responsible for bringing Harry Potter to Warner when he was there. He genuinely loves this series. The next step now is to attach a writer - I will not write it, I have 3 more books to do!"
—Michael Scott, Posted by him, on the Flamel's Secret Fan Forum. "Link to his full post". http://flamelssecret.9.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=29&st=90.

In April 2009 American publisher Random House offered free copies of the book online as a PDF, but this offer was only valid for one month and has since expired.

The series continues in the sequel The Magician: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel which was released in the UK on 5 June 2008 and on 24 June 2008 in the US. The third book The Sorceress: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel was released on 26 May 2009 in the US and on 25 June 2009 in the UK The Necromancer: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel followed with its US release on 25 May 2010. Most recently, the fifth book, The Warlock: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel was released on 24 May 2011.[16] The final book in the series,The Enchantress: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, is scheduled for release in mid-2012.

In published order:

* The Alchemyst
* The Magician
* The Sorceress
* The Necromancer
* The Warlock
* The Enchantress (Will be released 22 May, 2012)

No comments:

Post a Comment