Roderick Gordon
Encyclopedia
Roderick Gordon is the author of Tunnels
, a bestselling children's book and the first book in the Tunnels
series by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams.
, North London
. Chronically shy throughout his childhood, he sought refuge in drawing and writing, and whilst at the Hall School, Hampstead
, he had his first short story published in the school magazine, at the age of twelve. He went on to public school at Oundle
, and then attended University College, London
, where he read biology (specialising in genetics
). It was here that he met his future collaborator on the Tunnels
series of books, Brian Williams, who was at the Slade School of Fine Art
. They became friends in the summer of 1980, and kept in touch until, some twenty-three years later, they finally began to cooperate on their writing.
After an unsuccessful attempt to transfer to medical school to train as a doctor, Roderick had graduated from University College London
in 1983 without any idea of what career he wanted to follow. For several years he wrote music and played in a number of bands, and also toyed with the idea of getting into films (he was employed briefly by George Harrison’s
Handmade Films
), but eventually ended up in the City. Here he worked in corporate finance, specialising in private equity transactions. In 2001, after a nine year stretch with an investment bank, Roderick was made redundant, something that he has since described as a blessing in disguise. He was now able to meet more regularly with his old university friend, Brian Williams, and in 2003, they decided to start working together. Their first project was a film screenplay for a crime thriller called “Second Face. They both found the process so rewarding that they decided they would continue the collaboration, and embarked on a book for younger readers, an idea first suggested by Roderick’s wife, Sophie.
Roderick had always been interested in archaeology
and palaeontology. Amongst his ancestors (which include R.D. Blackmore and Matthew Arnold
) was William Buckland
, his great-great-grandfather, who is widely recognised to be one of the forefathers of geology
. In 1824, Professor Buckland
gave what is credited to be the first scientific lecture on the jaw bone of a dinosaur
called the Megalosaurus
, some twenty years before the word dinosaur itself was coined by Richard Owen
. Roderick himself was fascinated by “what lies beneath”, and when he bought a sixteenth-century country house in Northamptonshire
and was told that it was rumoured to have a secret passage beneath it, he began to think about a character who would eventually become “Will Burrows” in the Tunnels books. All through late 2003 and the summer of 2004, Roderick and Brian worked together, and in 2005 Roderick finally self-published the first book in the Tunnels
series, then known as The Highfield Mole
. It quickly sold out, attracting the attention of Barry Cunningham, J.K. Rowling’s
original publisher and founder of The Chicken House, a publisher of children’s books. Barry Cunningham signed Roderick and Brian for the first two books in the proposed series. After a period of editing, he republished The Highfield Mole
in July 2007, renaming the book as Tunnels
to reflect the fact that it had been subject to a degree of change.
After intense media interest around its launch, Tunnels
was a huge success, and has now been published in forty counties, achieving sales of more than a million copies worldwide. Both Tunnels
and sequel Deeper reached The New York Times Best Seller List. Tunnels
was also a finalist on TV Channel 4’s Richard & Judy’s Best Kids Book’s Ever (11+). Shortly after publication, the film rights were purchased by the US production company Relativity Media
in a deal worth more than $1m. Vincenzo Natali
has been appointed as Director and shooting is expected to begin in 2010. A three-part manga
of the book has also been released in Japan
. Tunnels
has been followed by further books in the series, Deeper (2008) and Freefall
(2009), and a further instalment entitled Closer
was published in the UK on 3 May 2010 and the fifth book Spiral in 2011. Roderick lives in North Norfolk
with his wife and two sons.
Tunnels (novel)
Tunnels is a subterranean fiction novel by British authors Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams released by Chicken House in 2007. The story follows Will Burrows, a 14-year-old archaeologist, who stumbles upon an underground civilization called The Colony...
, a bestselling children's book and the first book in the Tunnels
Tunnels (novel)
Tunnels is a subterranean fiction novel by British authors Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams released by Chicken House in 2007. The story follows Will Burrows, a 14-year-old archaeologist, who stumbles upon an underground civilization called The Colony...
series by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams.
Biography
Born in November 1960, Roderick grew up in HighgateHighgate
Highgate is an area of North London on the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath.Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, to protect its character....
, North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
. Chronically shy throughout his childhood, he sought refuge in drawing and writing, and whilst at the Hall School, Hampstead
Hall School (Hampstead)
The Hall School is an independent boys' preparatory school in Belsize Park, Hampstead, London, currently teaching boys from the age of four to thirteen.-Description:The school is known for high academic standards...
, he had his first short story published in the school magazine, at the age of twelve. He went on to public school at Oundle
Oundle School
Oundle School is a co-educational British public school located in the ancient market town of Oundle in Northamptonshire. The school has been maintained by the Worshipful Company of Grocers of the City of London since its foundation in 1556. Oundle has eight boys' houses, five girls' houses, a day...
, and then attended University College, London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
, where he read biology (specialising in genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
). It was here that he met his future collaborator on the Tunnels
Tunnels (novel)
Tunnels is a subterranean fiction novel by British authors Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams released by Chicken House in 2007. The story follows Will Burrows, a 14-year-old archaeologist, who stumbles upon an underground civilization called The Colony...
series of books, Brian Williams, who was at the Slade School of Fine Art
Slade School of Fine Art
The Slade School of Fine Art is a world-renownedart school in London, United Kingdom, and a department of University College London...
. They became friends in the summer of 1980, and kept in touch until, some twenty-three years later, they finally began to cooperate on their writing.
After an unsuccessful attempt to transfer to medical school to train as a doctor, Roderick had graduated from University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
in 1983 without any idea of what career he wanted to follow. For several years he wrote music and played in a number of bands, and also toyed with the idea of getting into films (he was employed briefly by George Harrison’s
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
Handmade Films
Handmade Films
HandMade Films is a British film production and distribution company. Through a series of sales, and acquisitions, the company now known as Handmade Plc owns all the rights and assets of the original HandMade Films Ltd...
), but eventually ended up in the City. Here he worked in corporate finance, specialising in private equity transactions. In 2001, after a nine year stretch with an investment bank, Roderick was made redundant, something that he has since described as a blessing in disguise. He was now able to meet more regularly with his old university friend, Brian Williams, and in 2003, they decided to start working together. Their first project was a film screenplay for a crime thriller called “Second Face. They both found the process so rewarding that they decided they would continue the collaboration, and embarked on a book for younger readers, an idea first suggested by Roderick’s wife, Sophie.
Roderick had always been interested in archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
and palaeontology. Amongst his ancestors (which include R.D. Blackmore and Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
) was William Buckland
William Buckland
The Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus...
, his great-great-grandfather, who is widely recognised to be one of the forefathers of geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
. In 1824, Professor Buckland
William Buckland
The Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus...
gave what is credited to be the first scientific lecture on the jaw bone of a dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
called the Megalosaurus
Megalosaurus
Megalosaurus is a genus of large meat-eating theropod dinosaurs of the Middle Jurassic period of Europe...
, some twenty years before the word dinosaur itself was coined by Richard Owen
Richard Owen
Sir Richard Owen, FRS KCB was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist.Owen is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria and for his outspoken opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...
. Roderick himself was fascinated by “what lies beneath”, and when he bought a sixteenth-century country house in Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
and was told that it was rumoured to have a secret passage beneath it, he began to think about a character who would eventually become “Will Burrows” in the Tunnels books. All through late 2003 and the summer of 2004, Roderick and Brian worked together, and in 2005 Roderick finally self-published the first book in the Tunnels
Tunnels (novel)
Tunnels is a subterranean fiction novel by British authors Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams released by Chicken House in 2007. The story follows Will Burrows, a 14-year-old archaeologist, who stumbles upon an underground civilization called The Colony...
series, then known as The Highfield Mole
The Highfield Mole
The Highfield Mole is a book by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams which follows the adventures of 14-year-old Will Burrows in a tyrannical underworld to which he has travelled in an attempt to find his father, an archeologist who disappeared down a mysterious tunnel.-Plot summary:The book follows...
. It quickly sold out, attracting the attention of Barry Cunningham, J.K. Rowling’s
J. K. Rowling
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, OBE , better known as J. K. Rowling, is the British author of the Harry Potter fantasy series...
original publisher and founder of The Chicken House, a publisher of children’s books. Barry Cunningham signed Roderick and Brian for the first two books in the proposed series. After a period of editing, he republished The Highfield Mole
The Highfield Mole
The Highfield Mole is a book by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams which follows the adventures of 14-year-old Will Burrows in a tyrannical underworld to which he has travelled in an attempt to find his father, an archeologist who disappeared down a mysterious tunnel.-Plot summary:The book follows...
in July 2007, renaming the book as Tunnels
Tunnels (novel)
Tunnels is a subterranean fiction novel by British authors Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams released by Chicken House in 2007. The story follows Will Burrows, a 14-year-old archaeologist, who stumbles upon an underground civilization called The Colony...
to reflect the fact that it had been subject to a degree of change.
After intense media interest around its launch, Tunnels
Tunnels (novel)
Tunnels is a subterranean fiction novel by British authors Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams released by Chicken House in 2007. The story follows Will Burrows, a 14-year-old archaeologist, who stumbles upon an underground civilization called The Colony...
was a huge success, and has now been published in forty counties, achieving sales of more than a million copies worldwide. Both Tunnels
Tunnels (novel)
Tunnels is a subterranean fiction novel by British authors Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams released by Chicken House in 2007. The story follows Will Burrows, a 14-year-old archaeologist, who stumbles upon an underground civilization called The Colony...
and sequel Deeper reached The New York Times Best Seller List. Tunnels
Tunnels (novel)
Tunnels is a subterranean fiction novel by British authors Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams released by Chicken House in 2007. The story follows Will Burrows, a 14-year-old archaeologist, who stumbles upon an underground civilization called The Colony...
was also a finalist on TV Channel 4’s Richard & Judy’s Best Kids Book’s Ever (11+). Shortly after publication, the film rights were purchased by the US production company Relativity Media
Relativity Media
Relativity Media is an American independent motion picture production and investment company based in West Hollywood, California.- Company :...
in a deal worth more than $1m. Vincenzo Natali
Vincenzo Natali
Vincenzo Natali is an American-Canadian film director and screenwriter, best known for writing and directing science fiction films such as Cube, Nothing and Splice.-Early life:...
has been appointed as Director and shooting is expected to begin in 2010. A three-part manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
of the book has also been released in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Tunnels
Tunnels (novel)
Tunnels is a subterranean fiction novel by British authors Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams released by Chicken House in 2007. The story follows Will Burrows, a 14-year-old archaeologist, who stumbles upon an underground civilization called The Colony...
has been followed by further books in the series, Deeper (2008) and Freefall
Freefall (novel)
Freefall Freefall Freefall (sometimes known simply as Tunnels 3 is the second sequel to the book Tunnels, and is the third book in the series by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams...
(2009), and a further instalment entitled Closer
Closer (novel)
Closer is the fourth book in the Tunnels series, written by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams. Released in the UK by Chicken House on 3 May 2010, its publication in the US by Scholastic Inc. followed on 1 February 2011.-Plot summary:Part 1: RevelationsThe story picks up following the events of...
was published in the UK on 3 May 2010 and the fifth book Spiral in 2011. Roderick lives in North Norfolk
North Norfolk
North Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, United Kingdom. Its council is based in Cromer. The council headquarters can be found approximately out of the town of Cromer on the Holt Road.-History:...
with his wife and two sons.
Novels
The Tunnels Series:- TunnelsTunnels (novel)Tunnels is a subterranean fiction novel by British authors Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams released by Chicken House in 2007. The story follows Will Burrows, a 14-year-old archaeologist, who stumbles upon an underground civilization called The Colony...
(2007)- Tunnels was originally self-published as The Highfield MoleThe Highfield MoleThe Highfield Mole is a book by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams which follows the adventures of 14-year-old Will Burrows in a tyrannical underworld to which he has travelled in an attempt to find his father, an archeologist who disappeared down a mysterious tunnel.-Plot summary:The book follows...
on 17 March 2005
- Tunnels was originally self-published as The Highfield Mole
- Deeper (2008)
- FreefallFreefall (novel)Freefall Freefall Freefall (sometimes known simply as Tunnels 3 is the second sequel to the book Tunnels, and is the third book in the series by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams...
(2009) - CloserCloser (novel)Closer is the fourth book in the Tunnels series, written by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams. Released in the UK by Chicken House on 3 May 2010, its publication in the US by Scholastic Inc. followed on 1 February 2011.-Plot summary:Part 1: RevelationsThe story picks up following the events of...
(2010) - Spiral (1 September 2011)