The Power of Five
Encyclopedia
The Power of Five is a series of fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 and suspense novels, written by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 author Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Craig Horowitz is an English novelist and screenwriter. He has written many children's novels, including The Power of Five, Alex Rider and The Diamond Brothers series and has written over fifty books. He has also written extensively for television, adapting many of Agatha Christie's...

. Four installments have been published to date but another one is to be released. The author has stated on his official website that he is aiming for a 200,000 word book for the final novel and that it could "take years" to write. He also stated that he has been researching global warming for the last book in the Power of Five series. The series is published in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 by Walker Books Ltd and in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 by Scholastic Press
Scholastic Press
Scholastic is a global book publishing company known for publishing educational materials for schools, teachers, and parents, and selling and distributing them by mail order and via book clubs and book fairs. It also has the exclusive United States' publishing rights to the Harry Potter book...

. The novels deal heavily in the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...

 and examples of things such as human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...

 and blood ritual
Blood ritual
A blood ritual is any ritual that involves the intentional release of blood.A common blood ritual is the blood brother ritual, which started in ancient Europe and Asia. Two or more people, typically male, intermingle their blood in some way. This symbolically brings the participants together into...

s are major plot elements, such as in the first book, where the protagonist, Matthew Freeman
Matthew Freeman
Matthew J. Freeman is the main protagonist of Anthony Horowitz's The Power of Five novels, Raven's Gate, Evil Star and one of the protagonists in Necropolis, although not the main protagonist. He also briefly appeared in the third book of the series, Nightrise. He was born in London, England, to...

, is hunted by a Satanic cult who want to conduct a blood sacrifice on him to blast open a portal using a combination of nuclear physics and black magic, to unlock another dimension which is holding a group of ancient evil demons captive.

Plot overview

The series focuses on five children: Matt Freeman
Matthew Freeman
Matthew J. Freeman is the main protagonist of Anthony Horowitz's The Power of Five novels, Raven's Gate, Evil Star and one of the protagonists in Necropolis, although not the main protagonist. He also briefly appeared in the third book of the series, Nightrise. He was born in London, England, to...

, Pedro, Scott Tyler, Jamie Tyler, and Scarlett Adams, a group of fourteen-year-old children (all five children turn fifteen in Necropolis
Necropolis
A necropolis is a large cemetery or burial ground, usually including structural tombs. The word comes from the Greek νεκρόπολις - nekropolis, literally meaning "city of the dead"...

) who are destined to defeat mystical entities known only as "the Old Ones" who ruled for a long period of time ten thousand years ago. Matt is the unappointed leader. The Gatekeepers won in the past through allowing Sapling, the third Gatekeeper, to sacrifice himself, and upon Sapling's death, his future incarnation, Jamie Tyler, was sent into the past to reunite all the Gatekeepers and repair their strength to defeat the Old Ones. The Gatekeepers also won because the Old Ones do not understand Scarlett Adams' powers. In the present day the Gatekeepers have been reincarnated
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...

 as modern day teenagers because the Old Ones are about to escape the world they were sent to and rule over humanity a second time. The books focus on the modern day children trying to defeat the Old Ones again.

Matthew Freeman

Matt is the first of the Five and the leader of the Five, and is the main protagonist in the first two novels Raven's Gate and Evil Star. He did reappear in the third novel Nightrise but only very briefly when Scott and Jamie Tyler appeared in the Nazca Desert, the place where Matt and Pedro were staying in Professor Chamber's hacienda. Matt is not the main protagonist in book four as that is left to Scarlett Adams (who is the fifth of the Five) but he makes a bigger appearance than he did in Nightrise.

Matt's powers are telekinesis, as well as clairvoyance; his powers are stronger when he is with another of the five but it has also proven to be unstoppable with just extreme will. When he activates his power he can smell burnt toast, as this is what he could smell the day his parents died. This is first shown when he tries to steal from a warehouse in Ipswich and senses the security guard. He always blames himself for not warning his parents the accident which would occur for he knew his parents would not believe him. He regretted not doing damage to the car such as pouring paint over it or slashing a car tire to prevent them from going out in the car.

Matt is described as being muscular but slim and very good looking. It describes Matt in the book as having the look of a male model or a footballer or a good mixture of the two. His past incarnation is also called Matt as he preferred the name better. Matt is fourteen years old, in Raven's Gate, Nightrise and Evil Star but is fifteen in Necropolis.

He was paired with Lohan when he went through the door in the Tai Shan Temple.

Matt can communicate with other four in a dream world. The dream world is on a beach in a sort of twilight
Twilight
Twilight is the time between dawn and sunrise or between sunset and dusk, during which sunlight scattering in the upper atmosphere illuminates the lower atmosphere, and the surface of the earth is neither completely lit nor completely dark. The sun itself is not directly visible because it is below...

.

Pedro

Pedro is the second of the Five and is first introduced in the second book, Evil Star. Pedro lived as a beggar in Lima, Peru, where he meets Matt Freeman while trying to steal his watch and assists in the search for the second gate, though his native tongue is Spanish and he cannot speak much English.

Pedro began life in a small village in the Canta province. When he was young the River Chillion burst its banks and Pedro's family was killed. A group of survivors travelled with Pedro to Lima. Pedro eventually ended up in the care of a man named Sebastian with many other children. He lived there performing tricks to people passing by and robbing rich tourists. However, he then met Matthew Freeman and travelled with him.

Pedro also bears a strong resemblance to Manco Capac, a god that the Incas worship. Pedro's power is healing. He can heal people by being around them. He only realized his power at the end of Evil Star when he helped Matt after he was injured by Chaos, the King of the Old Ones. He discovered that during the stay with his the man he was living with, Sebastian in Ciudad del Veneno, known as Poison Town in English, none of the people around him got sick due to his healing abilities, and when Matt slept at the house where Pedro lived he noticed his scars from a previous fight had vanished.

He is described as being extremely skinny with long dark brown hair and brown eyes. His past incarnation is named Inti. Pedro is fourteen years old in Evil Star and Nightrise, but is then fifteen in Necropolis. He tried to heal Scott after Susan Mortlake tortured him bad by trying to control him but could not as the scars of the wound were too deep. By the time of Necropolis, he had learned enough of the English language to be able to communicate with the other four gatekeepers.

He went through the doorway in the Tai Shan Temple by himself in Necropolis, though he had to go with Richard and Scarlett because of her bullet wound.

Pedro can communicate with the other four of the Five in the dream world.

Scott and Jamie Tyler

Jamie and Scott Tyler, twins, are two of the Five (Jamie being the third and Scott being the fourth), Native Americans, and are the main protagonists in the third book in the Power of Five series, Nightrise. At the beginning of the novel, Jamie and Scott are working in a dingy theatre in Reno, Nevada, USA, under the whim of their "Uncle Don" who is not really their uncle, but Jamie and Scott are forced to call him that. After a performance Scott is kidnapped and both physically and mentally tortured by the sinister Nightrise Corporation at a privately owned juvenile prison called Silent Creek, in the outskirts of Nevada. Jamie is rescued by his tribe of Native Americans and creates a plan to save Scott. Along the way he winds up dead and ends up in the past, ten thousand years before his time, and takes place place in the first battle against the Old Ones. Sapling, Jamie's former self, was killed by the Old Ones, hence he was 'replaced' by Jamie. At the end of the novel Jamie and Scott are united with Matt and Pedro.

Jamie and Scott's power is telepathy and they have the power to control other people and make them abide by the instructions given by one of them. this is shown when Scott (controlled by Nightrise) controls a Secret Service Agent Warren Cornfield to shoot Senator Trelawny. However Jamie changes his mind just in time and makes him shoot the one who tortured Scott, Susan Mortlake. As well as being able to read each other's thoughts automatically. Jamie has shown that he doesn't like using his powers. The twins are described as being very skinny (to the point of being malnourished) with long black hair and dark eyes. Scott's hair was cut after his imprisonment.

Their past incarnations are Sapling (Jamie) and Flint (Scott). Matt had stated that Scott's past incarnation name, Flint. In Washoe history Flint was evil and had killed his brother. He was angry when Matt split him and Jamie apart in Necropolis, because the twins had never been so far apart. Matt stated that he thought Scott could not be trusted yet. Jamie and Scott are both fourteen years old in Nightrise, but are fifteen in Necropolis. In Necropolis, it shows that Jamie is now more in charge of the two, as Scott is very withdrawn and quiet. Scott also shuts down when in stress. The reason was that he was thoroughly programmed while held captive by the Nightrise agents in Nevada, USA. Nightrise said that it was possible to turn Scott against his friends.

The twins went through the doorway together in the Tai Shan Temple in Hong Kong.

They can communicate with each other and the other members of the Five in a dream world.

Scarlett Adams

Scarlett is the fifth of the Five and is the main protagonist in the fourth book Necropolis. She had a friend called Aidan. She appears to be Eurasian, or completely Asian, but adopted by Europeans. She lived in Dulwich. She was adopted, but her new parents divorced. They were Vanessa, who ran a holiday company that put together packages in China and Far East, and Paul Adams, who specialized in international business law. Her mother was described as tall, blonde and elegant while her father was described as having the looks of a lawyer with greying hair, a round face and glasses. She bears a strong resemblance, and is described by some, as Lin Mo, the Chinese goddess of the sea. Scarlett's father Paul works for the Nightrise Corporation, at the end of Nightrise she leaves on a flight to Hong Kong.

Scarlett's power is controlling the weather. Scarlett's power was at first thought to be predicting the weather but was proven that she could also control it when she summoned a typhoon to escape after she was captured. This is also noted in Nightrise as Scar summons a rainstorm to mask Inti's arrival at the first battle against the old ones. Scarlett was described as being small, slim, and looking partly asian. She also had long black hair, strange hazel-green eyes and had the soft brown skin of a girl born in China, or another part of Central Asia.

While her parents are out working, Scarlett is taken care of by a woman, Mrs Christina Murdoch. She is short, dark-haired and seemed to have no sense of humour at all. Scarlett and Mrs Murdoch had agreed silently that they were never going to be friends although they got on well enough.

Scarlett is known to act before she thinks, like when she pushed a teacher (who couldn't swim) fully clothed into the school's swimming pool. Scarlett is shown as brave throughout Necropolis.

Her past incarnation, who appeared before Scarlett in Nightrise, is known as Scar.

At the end of Necropolis, Scarlett is shot by a Nightrise agent. She is then paired with Richard Cole when they go through the door. What happened next and if Scarlett recovers or survives is unknown. All will be revealed in the last book.

She can communicate with the others when she's asleep in a strange dreamworld.

Raven's Gate

As punishment for a crime he commit, fourteen-year-old Matt Freeman was given a choice: Go to jail or live with an old woman named Jayne Deverill in a remote village named Lesser Malling in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

. He should have chosen jail. A strange and sinister plan is coming together in Lesser Malling, with Matt in the center of it all. If he tries to get out of the village, he ends up in the same place as where he started. People who try to help him disappear or die. Matt starts to think something is wrong with Miss Deverill and tries to investigate. It all ties to an evil place named Raven's Gate-a place whose destiny is horrifyingly intertwined with Matt's own. An ancient evil, a legion of monsters known as the Old Ones, are about to be unleashed... and Matt and his friend Richard are the only ones who can stop it. Richard is a journalist who Matt told about all the witches at Ravens Gate. Although Richard did not believe him at first, he later saves Matt from drowning. The residents of Lesser Malling, who are soon revealed to be witches who are attempting to release the Old Ones at Lesser Malling, try to bring back the old ones by sacrificing Matt. Matt uses his power to stop the man stabbing him, but the man still gets a bit of Matt's blood on his knife. The gate is opened, but Matt closes it again before the Old Ones can get out.

Ravens gate and the power of 5 series are well written however they could be interpreted as portraying a weak anti-Christianity theme that may be offending to people who follow Christianity or other religions.

Evil Star

After his experiences at Raven's Gate, Matt thinks his days of battling evil are over. But he is pulled into another horrifying adventure when he discovers a second gate exists. Matt and his guardian Richard Cole travel to Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 and, assisted by a secret organization known as the Nexus, follow a series of clues to the gate's whereabouts. But there is a traitor in the Nexus. Richard is kidnapped. Matt manages to escape with the help of a boy called Pedro and it turns out that Pedro is the second Gatekeeper. Pedro's power is to heal. The pair are reunited with Richard and travel to the Nazca Desert. It is there that Matt realizes the horrifying truth: the Nazca Lines are the second Gate – it is about to open. Pedro is injured in travelling to the gate, and when Matt is almost killed, the old ones escape into the world - Giant scorpions, monkeys, the undead and much more.Evil Star was released in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 on 1 April 2006 and in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 on June 1, 2006.

Nightrise

Jamie and Scott Tyler are both telepathic twins living in Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

 who perform telepathic acts. According to Horowitz's official website, Nightrise is like nothing he has done before. Matt Freeman, Pedro and Richard Cole feature only briefly in this book; more important is the introduction of a new heroine (Horowitz's first female hero) named Scarlett. She is mostly seen only in the past section of Nightrise, and is set to be the main protagonist in the fourth book of the series. Nightrise was officially released on 2 April 2007 in the UK and was then released in the USA on May 1, 2007. The first chapter was hidden in Horowitz's website in August 2006.

The story concerns the adventures of Jamie Tyler trying to find his brother Scott Tyler, who was kidnapped by an evil corporation
Evil corporation
An evil corporation is a staple of science fiction , usually a big multinational company which values profits over ethics....

 named the Nightrise Corporation, but before Jamie can find his brother he must enroll at the Silent Creek Prison to find more information about Scott's whereabouts. However his situation turns from bad to worse as he is catapulted ten thousand years in the past and faces the full horror of the Old Ones with the other four Gatekeepers. The five of them defeat the Old Ones and give the world a new start... but soon after he returns to the present time, Jamie discovers all about who and what he is. Jamie realizes that the end of the world will soon arrive, just like it did ten thousand years ago... He must meet with the other Gatekeepers, but is there enough time left?

Necropolis

Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

 has been taken over by the Old Ones and has become Necropolis, City of the Dead. Once in, there is no way out…
Evil has been unleashed on the world and only five children – with special powers – can save it. Matt and the other three desperately need to find Scarlett Adams, the final Gatekeeper, who has been trapped in Hong Kong, where shape-changers and possessed humans stalk the street calamity befalls Hong Kong and hope soon turns black for humanity. The Old Ones are luring the Gatekeepers into the Necropolis by holding Scarlett hostage in Hong Kong. Matt and Jamie go to Hong Kong with Richard Cole to try and thwart the Old Ones' plan, but Scarlett discovers her power all too soon.
Scarlett's power is to control the weather, whereas the Old Ones presumed that she could only forecast the weather. Scarlett's power is the strongest one of all of the five, as Matt realises, when Scarlett unleashes a storm so powerful that no-one can stop it. By holding onto her, the other 4 children and each with a guest survive the storm and make it into a church. This church holds a doorway that was made for the 5. Each one can take one person with them, and can travel to any other similar doorway anywhere over the world. Although all 5 go through, they have no destination in mind, and are separated. Just before they go through the doorway, Scarlett is shot, but survives.

Oblivion

Anthony Horowitz had previously stated on Twitter that the fifth book would be called "Death Portal", but he has recently confirmed the name "Oblivion". Horowitz stated in an interview that the book will indeed be the last of the series and that not all of the Five Gatekeepers will make it and at least one will betray the others. He also stated that the book will be separated into five parts, Earth (Matt), Fire (Pedro), Air (Scarlett), Water (Scott), and Ice (Jamie) - the last battle will be staged in Antarctica. Horowitz also claimed that he is trying to write a two hundred thousand word book which could take "years to write". The book will begin with each main character at a different area around the world. Anthony Horowitz has recently stated that he is a quarter way through the book, indicating he is on track for the early 2013 release date. However he has recently tweeted (in response to a fan's question) that the book "should be out next year" indicating a 2012 release. In a recent interview, he stated he was more than half way through writing it. The 100,000th word is 'five' according to Anthony. By the end of the first week of November 2011, he had completed 118,000 words.

He recently revealed via Twitter that the book will be finished April 2012, and out by November 2012.

Pentagram

The Power of Five series is based on ideas from a series written by Anthony Horowitz in 1983-1989, Pentagram. Pentagram was meant to have five books, but only four (The Devil's Doorbell, The Night of the Scorpion, The Silver Citadel and The Day of the Dragon) were ever published. The reasons for which the fifth book was never published remain unclear. The new series significantly expands and modernizes the original books, with greater focus on character and on building a sense of impending doom. The Power of Five also shares similarities to the Dark Is Rising series, in which four boys and a girl fight against the darkness. Although in the Power of Five books, they are against the old ones, as the old ones are the darkness / evil.

External links

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