The jiffy bag containing the first copies of ALIAS has arrived and I’m really pleased with the look of the book. It complements HACKED perfectly. The lag between finishing the contents and actually seeing a saleable copy is a strange time. I try not to let myself think of all the tiny touches that might have made the story better, convincing myself instead that too much fiddling is a bad thing. Opening the cover and reading the first page, I pray that all the eyes that have checked and checked again haven’t missed a typo. Seems all right. The book won’t be released until the official launch date so for a short while I can muse on how it will be received. Lots of the readers of HACKED said they couldn’t wait to hear the other side of the story and see where Angel went after the drone attack on London. Let’s hope they’re not disappointed. HACKED was set in Bristol, where I live. Angel’s story starts in Buckingham, where I grew up, has a temporary home in rural Norfolk and ends up in Leeds. I flick through, reading the odd paragraph, then settle on the last page. As a reader, I appreciate a good ending. Does Angel’s story finish with a flourish? I think it does.
Tag Archives: HACKED
Thank you, reader from Oz
Very pleased with this review on http://www.darkmatterzine.com/
A review by Nalini Haynes.
Dan Langley is your typical 16-year-old geek except for his affinity with code. He goes down the rabbit hole to get an adrenaline rush from hacking, escalating his exploits on a dare from Angel, another hacker he only met online. Before he knows it, Dan has hacked the US military network and might be complicit in the theft of a strike drone.
From script kiddies to the dark net, Counter Strike to Starcraft II, Tracy Alexander knows her stuff. Like in other hacking movies (Wargames, Hackers) the mechanics of hacking is glossed over. The current era of wikileaks and US extradition with threats of Guatanamo Bay-style treatment of prisoners is prevalent with mentions of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange among others.
Hacked should be compulsory reading for all teenage computer geeks, many adult computer geeks and all parents of teenage geeks. Because one book speaking the language trumps lectures from a “dinosaur” every time. When my son was at school, script kiddies regularly dumped the school printers’ ink, which was hilarious until you need to print an assignment and all of the printers are out of ink. [My son knew if he was one of those script kiddies and he was caught, he was banned from the computer for the rest of high school. >:-]
I’m giving Hacked five stars for voice, plot, pacing, relevance and currency. Read it. Pass it on. Make sure it’s in all the libraries in all the schools. Kgo.
Thanks to www.thatjessebloke.co.uk
Book Review: Hacked By Tracy Alexander
ReviewAs someone who has spent the vast majority of my life near a keyboard, mouse and monitor it’s probably no surprise that this book appealed to me. And appeal to me it did. 
Hacked is the story of Dan whose life online got him rather more than he bargained for. He got involved in something which progressively found himself digging bigger and bigger holes for himself.
I don’t really want to say too much more than this for fear of spoiling it so I’ll stop there on the story details
So, lets instead talk about Dan, I can so easily see how he got himself into the mess to begin with and I loved watching it unravel. There are moments that he shows himself to have a true strength of character. Where he’s in a position to make decisions – decisions where neither outcome is a particularly happy one – but where one is probably what he should choose. And yes he has to decide because to do nothing in this case is making a decision too!
I really liked the unusual way Tracy used usernames for characters (particularly Angel) which we only meet online – not always revealing their real names, shrouding the place in secrecy which makes the twists and turns much harder to spot. It leaves you never really sure about each characters motives which moves me back onto Dan…
Because as much as Dan had a strong strength of character he did seem to dig himself into the hole without too much help. Considering how bright he must be to crack the hacking puzzles it does seem that maybe, just maybe he was a little too trusting.
Oh and as an added bonus you do get a little peak at Bristol as this book is mainly set here – just saying! 
Overall, Hacked is a thrilling and fast paced story which won’t take long to take hold and leave you begging for more. Don’t dismiss it just because you think hacking is boring or uninteresting – this book might just surprise you
http://www.thatjessebloke.co.uk/bookish/book-review-hacked-by-tracy-alexander.html
A review of my school visit – Tracy Alexander Visits Hans Price Academy
During the literacy celebrations in the lead up to World Book Day Tracy Alexander, author of HACKED, visited Hans Price Academy and talked to the whole of year seven about literature, creative writing and being an author as well as holding a question and answer session and reading an extract from her brilliant book.
The students were gripped from start to finish and bursting with questions for Tracy about everything from writing habits and getting a book published to computer hacking and just exactly how a professional author would know about “aimbots” in computer games?
It was amazing to see an author at school and Tracy Alexander was really interesting and really funny. I already like to write but it inspired me to think about writing a book! Amelia
It was amazing and I liked talking to her about what inspired her to write a book. I asked who inspired her and she said that she gets inspiration from her children. After school that day I started writing my own book. Becca
I found Tracy Alexander’s visit very interesting, especially talking about military drones and hacking. I asked whether there was going to be a sequel to HACKED and there is and I’m excited about it. I suggested another book and Tracy Alexander said it sounded like a great idea and maybe I should write it myself. We learnt what makes up a good story and found out what happens in HACKED without spoiling the ending so we can read it and find out ourselves! Alistair
I enjoyed finding out how authors get their inspiration and learnt that it is good to plan out a story, not just rush into writing it. I’d love more authors to visit the school! Ethanial
I knew from the second Tracy Alexander started talking that it was going to be really exciting! We learnt so much and Tracy Alexander was really lovely. I bought HACKED and had it signed and I can’t wait to read it and then write a review which I can send to Tracy Alexander for her website. Lottie
Writing The Villain
My next book – ALIAS – is the story of Angel, the shadowy character from HACKED. My publisher, Piccadilly Press, likes it – huge relief. That means there’s some downtime while I wait for the copyedit. I need it.
It was a tricky book to write because the protagonist is usually the hero, whereas mine was the villain. Or maybe not. ALIAS is written in the first person, so I had to be in Angels’ head and of course that meant I had to believe the same things. A terrible thing happens to Angel, and all the people that you think would help . . . the military, the government, the police, your MP . . . they all do nothing. So Angel does something. Does that make Angel a villain? Or an activist?
ALIAS is set in the here and now, starting off in Buckingham and migrating to Leeds. I used real events to influence the journey. Angel looks back at the Civil Rights Movement where peaceful protest was met with violence, at the ANC’s struggle in South Africa and at the sufragettes. In the present day Angel follows the march of the US Predator drones across the skies of Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan . . . pilotless weapons incinerating people based on grainy images and unreliable intelligence. Right and wrong aren’t opposites. They merge. What’s right for the drone pilot, is wrong for the villagers massacred without a trial, a judge, a voice. The ‘war on terror’ is on the side of right unless you’re a farmer, midwife, baker caught in the crosshairs because a ‘known insurgent’ is nearby. Wrong place, wrong time and all that.
Step back from Angel’s story and it’s clear. Bad things happen to good people – that’s the way life is. Get on with it. But get close, get inside and the world is a different place. In Angel’s world, horror will win out unless the victims rise up against the enemy. The enemy is American foreign policy.
No one likes to think that violence is the answer, but as Angel would say, “They started it.”
Can’t move for drones
When I had the idea – or rather when James the hacker had the idea – that my character might hack a drone, I had a very rough picture of what a drone was. A thing that flew around snooping, or a toy for a well-off kid. It didn’t take much research to realise that drones are crop-sprayers, wildlife trackers and, much more menacingly, killers. Quite how they kill is fairly brutal, as is the number they accidentally kill. The writers’ cogs started to whir.
While I was writing, drones appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme every week – flying over football matches, nearly colliding with aeroplanes, delivering Amazon parcels, annoying the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority). In Alabama, you can get a licence to hunt drones – if they dare to buzz over your land. Gosh!
After I’d delivered the book – not by drone – and the proofs had been handed back, the new Homeland series started with (SPOILER) a drone strike on a wedding party in Pakistan. I mention a similar event in my book. Did we both happen upon the same idea? No. It’s a well-documented true story, that we both adapted.
I’ve been visiting secondary schools with my new book, Hacked, talking about hacking and drones and hard decisions. Dan, my hacker, appears at first to be making poor choices, but – hopefully – the readers’ sympathies are firmly with him. Whether there is any sympathy with the drone pilots, pulling the trigger from thousands of miles away, I don’t know. They hardly feature. What I do know, when I describe the way the unmanned aerial vehicles roam, armed with Hellfire missiles, is that all the kids in the audience that like gaming (most therefore) think it sounds brilliant. Understandable, because it mirrors their own experiences. The pilots – despite the label – don’t leave the ground. They sit looking at a heads-up display full of data with a controller at the ready, coffee by their side I expect.
I’ve changed the way I talk about the ‘drone wars’ because of the reaction from the audience. Leaving any shred of an idea that a drone operator would be a cool job would make me very uncomfortable.
If you’re interested in reading a huge article:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/unblinking-stare
Dan, my hacker, could have just as easily hacked the International Space Station, or his local cinema. But I didn’t want to trample on Mars and Dan isn’t that fussed about the whole film thing. That’s the trouble with characters, they do their own thing.
Redland Green, Bristol Met, Writhlington, St. Bede’s, John Cabot Academy.
Highlights of my tour of Bristol so far –
Barney from Redland Green bought the book, read it in two days, talked about it to his family, and then started reading it again.
Three children from Bristol Met wrote reviews:
‘Your book was great. It was funny and serious.’ Rahimah
‘HACKED is a modern book with a 21st century plot.’ Regina
‘A good read all round.’ Cameron
Lots of children from Writhlington bought books.
A girl from St. Bede’s taught me about pathetic fallacy. One of the boys couldn’t believe he lived in the same road as the main character in my book.
John Cabot Academy were full of beans, despite our session being first thing in the morning. There were so many hands in the air we could have filled another hour.
HACKED launch party
Tuesday 18th November
Foyles Cabot Circus.
I wore a silver skirt that I bought in a charity shop. Robb Norton, the go-to man at Foyles, organised the space for me, introduced me and coveted my skirt.
Kath was the first guest.
We had wine, Maltesers and flying saucers – they were a tribute to the drones in the story. I gave a wee talk. 
The best gags were the one about hacking a toaster and my excruciating tale about writing about teenage fumblings.
I read Chapter 4, because I like the last line.
“If I could time travel, I’d nip back and warn myself – stay away from Angel.”
The only person to heckle was my husband. He was also the cameraman. My sister was the wine waiter. Maya was in charge of sweets.
The oldest person there was my mum – 89, the youngest was Kate – 10.
The people who helped me write HACKED – James the hacker, Mike the judge, Seal the brain, Rob the logician, Felix the sceptic, Honor the meticulous, Jess the steady one and the three ugly sisters – Amanda Mitchison, Rebecca Lisle and Christine Purkis aka writing group – were all there. (James asked not to be identified.)
Oscar the plotter was missing in deepest Cornwall.
There were three school librarians – who came to check me out before letting me loose on their kids.
Granny Pat brought all four grandchildren.
We sold all but four books.
I signed copies for lots of children that read the Tribe books but are now at secondary school and ready for teenage stuff.
I used a purple pen bought from Harold Hockey – that awesome Bristol shop.
The last people to leave were Jo and Liberty – they also bought the most books!
We trooped to Giraffe afterwards and ate Mexican burgers.
Good job, as Angel would say.
HACKED tour – starts tomorrow . . .
I’m running my first HACKED event tomorrow at Redland Green School and I have a secret weapon. Flying Saucers. It was the closest I could get to drones. There’s another link, actually. Gary McKinnon was nearly extradited to America because he hacked the US Military looking for evidence of UFOs. His experience got me thinking. What would the US government do to a boy who hacked a Predator drone carrying Hellfire missiles? The answer’s in the book.