Alexander Gordon Smith - Furnace series
Alexander Gordon Smith
Alexander Gordon Smith
Author profile
born February 27, 1979 in Norwich, The United Kingdom
gender male
About this author
Alexander Gordon Smith is the author of the Escape from Furnace series of young adult novels, including Lockdown and Solitary. Born in 1979 in Norwich, England, he always wanted to be a writer. After experimenting in the service and retail trades for a few years, Smith decided to go to University. He studied English and American Literature at the University of East Anglia, and it was here that he first explored his love of publishing. Along with poet Luke Wright, he founded Egg Box Publishing, a groundbreaking magazine and press that promotes talented new authors. He also started writing literally hundreds of articles, short stories and books ranging from Scooby Doo comic strips to world atlases, Midsomer Murders to X-Files. The endless research for these projects led to countless book ideas germinating in his head. His first book, The Inventors, written with his nine-year-old brother Jamie, was published in the U.K. in 2007. He lives in England.
Author profile
born February 27, 1979 in Norwich, The United Kingdom
gender male
About this author
Alexander Gordon Smith is the author of the Escape from Furnace series of young adult novels, including Lockdown and Solitary. Born in 1979 in Norwich, England, he always wanted to be a writer. After experimenting in the service and retail trades for a few years, Smith decided to go to University. He studied English and American Literature at the University of East Anglia, and it was here that he first explored his love of publishing. Along with poet Luke Wright, he founded Egg Box Publishing, a groundbreaking magazine and press that promotes talented new authors. He also started writing literally hundreds of articles, short stories and books ranging from Scooby Doo comic strips to world atlases, Midsomer Murders to X-Files. The endless research for these projects led to countless book ideas germinating in his head. His first book, The Inventors, written with his nine-year-old brother Jamie, was published in the U.K. in 2007. He lives in England.
Lockdown - Alexander Gordon Smith
Furnace Penitentiary: the world’s most secure prison for young offenders, buried a mile beneath the earth’s surface. Convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, sentenced to life without parole, “new fish” Alex Sawyer knows he has two choices: find a way out, or resign himself to a death behind bars, in the darkness at the bottom of the world. Except in Furnace, death is the least of his worries. Soon Alex discovers that the prison is a place of pure evil, where inhuman creatures in gas masks stalk the corridors at night, where giants in black suits drag screaming inmates into the shadows, where deformed beasts can be heard howling from the blood-drenched tunnels below. And behind everything is the mysterious, all-powerful warden, a man as cruel and dangerous as the devil himself, whose unthinkable acts have consequences that stretch far beyond the walls of the prison.
Together with a bunch of inmates—some innocent kids who have been framed, others cold-blooded killers—Alex plans an escape. But as he starts to uncover the truth about Furnace’s deeper, darker purpose, Alex’s actions grow ever more dangerous, and he must risk everything to expose this nightmare that’s hidden from the eyes of the world.
Solitary - Alexander Gordon Smith
Furnace Prison ...
Where death is the least of your worries.
Escape is just the beginning ...
We thought we’d made it, we thought we were free. But we should have known there was no way out of Furnace.
All we did was slip deeper into the guts of the prison: into solitary confinement, where the real nightmares live - the warden, the Wheezers, and something much, much worse.
The clock’s ticking. Because if we don’t escape soon they will turn us into freaks - like them. For ever.
In the darkness of the hole your worst nightmares come to life.
Furnace 3 - Death Sentence - Alexander Gordon Smith
Alex's second attempt to break out of Furnace Penetentiary has failed. This time his punishment will be much worse than before. Because in the hidden, bloodstained laboratories beneath the prison, he will be made into a monster. As the warden pumps something evil into his veins--a sinisterly dark nectar--Alex becomes what he most fears . . . a superhuman minion of Furnace. How can he escape when the darkness is inside him? How can he lead the way to freedom if he is lost to himself?
Furnace 4 - Fugitives - Alexander Gordon Smith.
I am no longer trapped in the darkness. But the darkness is still trapped inside me. We did it. We cracked the gates, escaped from Furnace. We're out, but we're not free. Not yet. Now the whole city is in lockdown — the roads sealed, the police scouring every building. And there are worse things here — creatures of unimaginable fury hunting us down. An unholy army, sent by Alfred Furnace himself.
Now a war is raging as he tries to bring the world to its knees. I can still feel the warden's poison inside me. It's the only thing keeping me alive, but it's turning me into one of them, into a monster. I don't know how much longer I can fight it before the rage takes over. If I don't find a cure soon then it will be me out there tearing this city apart, me feasting on blood.
If I ever want to be truly free then I have to travel into the heart of the darkness. I have to find Alfred Furnace before he finds me. We made it out but the nightmare followed us, and soon the whole world will be our prison..
Furnace 5 - Execution - Alexander Gordon Smith
The whole world has become a prison, and Alfred Furnace is its master. Monsters rule the streets, beasts of pure fury that leave nothing but murder and madness in their wake. Those who do not die are turned, becoming slaves to Furnace's reign of cruelty. It is a war to end all wars, one that will leave the planet in ruins. I am a monster too. I am one of Alfred Furnace's children. And I am the only one who can stop him. I have to find a way to use my powers to destroy Furnace, but in doing so I risk becoming the very force that kills us all. I don't know if I am the executed or the executioner. I don't know who will die: me, Furnace or the entire human race. All I know is that one way or another, it all ends today.