Fletcher, Charlie

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Fletcher, Charlie

PERSONAL:

Born in the United Kingdom; children: Jack, Ariadne.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Edinburgh, Scotland.

CAREER:

Writer, screenwriter. Worked in Hollywood, CA, as a screenwriter for films, including Mean Machine and Fair Game; writes regularly for British television series, including Taggart and Afterlife.

WRITINGS:

STONEHEART TRILOGY

Stoneheart, Hyperion Books for Children (New York, NY), 2007.

Ironhand, Hyperion Books for Children (New York, NY), 2008.

Silvertongue, Hodder Children's Books (London, England), 2008.

ADAPTATIONS:

Paramount Pictures has purchased the film rights to Stoneheart, with Scott Rudin and Lorenzo di Bonaventura to produce, and Fletcher set to write the script.

SIDELIGHTS:

British-born writer Charlie Fletcher has worked as both a screenwriter and a novelist. Fletcher lived for a time in Hollywood, writing screenplays for a number of films, including Mean Machine and Fair Game. Ultimately, however, he returned to Britain, settling down in Edinburgh, Scotland. He continued writing for the screen, concentrating instead on television, and has written scripts for episodes of Taggart and Afterlife, both of which are series made for British television.

However, it as a writer of novels for younger readers that Fletcher has met with his true success. Stoneheart, the first book in a trilogy of fantasy novels for readers ages approximately ten and older, follows the adventures of a twelve-year-old boy named George Chapman on his class trip to a London museum. During the guided tour of the exhibits, George is attempting to get a better view when one of his less-likable classmates shoves over a display of brochures and blames George for the mess. The teacher takes the bully's word, and takes George out into the hall to yell at him. George protests his innocence but knows better than to tattle on the real troublemaker, and so is left to stand alone in the museum's main exhibit hall while the rest of the class continues the field trip. In a fit of frustration, George flees the museum proper and ends up smashing a dragon head off a statue outside. Before he knows what has happened, another statue comes to life and begins to chase after him. This is how George discovers the mysterious parallel universe where the statues are able to come to life, and he soon finds himself chased by gargoyles and all sorts of scary beings. Fortunately, not all of the statues are evil; some are actually of human beings who offer George assistance. It is one of these humans that advises George to consult with the statues that look like matching Sphinxes. From them he learns that he is responsible for some state of unbalance between the good and evil beings, and in order to put things back the way they were, he must locate the stoneheart. If he does not, his life will remain in jeopardy. This starts George on his quest for the stoneheart, a search that takes him through a series of alternate Londons where nothing is quite as he thinks it should be.

A reviewer for Publishers Weekly found the book somewhat disappointing, writing that "there is an ironic lifelessness to Fletcher's tale, particularly his protagonist who doesn't ring true; George is a bit more likeable at the finale." However, a reviewer for the Scholar's Blog commented: "Charlie Fletcher's Stoneheart is an assured debut novel with a wealth of beautiful and detailed descriptions. According to his author's note at the back of the book, Fletcher's godson read an early extract of the story and he said Fletcher should describe things better—advice Fletcher clearly took to heart." Steven Engelfried, in a review for School Library Journal, wrote that the "characterizations often take a backseat to the many clashes and narrow escapes, but the humans' relationships become more interesting as events proceed," and went on to praise the descriptions of Fletcher's alternate version of London. A contributor for Kirkus Reviews remarked that "Fletcher's action sequences are disappointingly dry. More intriguing are his philosophies about stone and ‘makers.’"

The film rights to Stoneheart have been purchased by Paramount Pictures, and the film adaptation is being coproduced by Scott Rudin and Lorenzo di Bonaventura, and Fletcher himself is set to write the script. Meanwhile, the second and third books in the series, Ironhand and Silvertongue, have both been published.