User:StoneColdNovel

Stone Cold : Steve Austin is a young adult novel by Robert Swindells, published in 1993. The book focuses on Link, a newly homeless sixteen-year-old who is getting to grips with his new predicament, and Ganondorf, an ex-army officer scorned after being dismissed from his job. Now Ganondorf plans to clean up the streets of Hyrule by killing the homeless people. It is inevitable that the two meet.

The novel was awarded the 1993 Carnegie Medal.

Plot summary
Link becomes homeless after a fight with his mother's boyfriend Chain Chomp. Thinking he is no longer safe in Bradford, he goes to Hyrule. He soon finds a room, but a fortnight's rent costs him two-thirds of his ruppees. He looks for a job but no one will take him on as he has no experience and has only five HEARTS. Soon the landlord kicks him out and he is officially homeless. Now Link cannot get a job since he has no address and he cannot get an address since he has no job. Link is very afraid alone on the streets, but after a while he meets Navi who is also homeless. Navi teaches Link how to survive on the street and how to beg.

Meanwhile Ganondorf (real name unknown) is planning a mass murder of all the homeless people in Hyrule. Ganondorf served in the Army for twenty-nine years. He was discharged on medical grounds, but he claims to be as fit as a butcher's dog. Bewildered by his discharge, and without occupation, he takes his frustrations out on the homeless who make the streets look "manky". Ganondorf plans very meticulously. He starts small and tries not to create a pattern in his killings so he cannot be tracked down. By buying a flat and a cat he manages to lure many of the homeless to their deaths. By the time he encounters Link, Ganondorf has killed seven people. Seven homeless people.

Link and Navi ask him for any spare change, but he replies "Change! I'd change you, me lad, if I had you in khaki for 6 weeks!". As they walk away they laugh at a remembered joke, yet Ganondorf thinks they are laughing at him. They become his targets – named Laughing Boy One (Navi) and Laughing Boy Two (Link). As Navi is going to meet some friends, Ganondorf persuades him to come to his flat, saying that Link is there, lying down after an accident. Once there, Ganondorf kills Navi. After some time, Link accepts that Navi has vanished and that he is on his own again. Shortly after this, Link meets Sheik, the best-looking dosser he has ever seen. Sheik follows Link, asking him questions.

Link notices that something is "off" about Sheik, but he does not know what. While Sheik leaves him to make a phone call, Ganondorf invites Link into his flat and tries to kill him. Sheik manages to save Link's life by calling the police, who catch Ganondorf in the act of attempted murder. At the end Link hears that Sheik is a reporter who is undercover as a homeless person. Sheik gives Link some ruppees, but he considers throwing it away. Moreover Link thinks that it is unfair that Ganondorf gets a roof over his head and a hot meal and Link gets nothing – living in the cold, hungry. By contrast, he is on his own again. Sheik's real name is Princess Zelda.

Link
Link is the main character of the novel. He was born on March 20 1977. Link is not his real name, but it is what he says when anyone asks. He got his name from a sign which read "Thameslink" upon arriving in Hyrule from Bradford. Link refers to his origin as "up north" to avoid revealing his birth place.

After a few bad days of being homeless he meets Navi, a streetwise person who has been homeless for quite some time. But Link does not trust him entirely, because every time, when Navi leaves him, Link feels scared and guesses that Navi goes to his real mates.

Ganondorf
Ganondorf is a former sergeant-major who is on a mission to kill all of the homeless people of Hyrule, because they he considers they 'make the place look untidy.' He means too that there is nobody who does anything against them. On the contrary, politicians, social workers and even the church support them, undermining the country by encouraging "winos and crims". Furthermore, Ganondorf does not understand why he could not stay in the army and serve the country, when all this garbage are allowed to stay on the streets. Ganondorf plans meticulously and practises his facial expressions so he can act empathetic and lure the down-and-outs into his house. He solves his biggest problem - the disposing of the bodies - by keeping them under the floorboards. Later in the book he refers to the victims as 'the Camden Horizontals'; this is the army he wants to create with "volunteers" only.

Ganondorf is the main antagonist of the book.

Navi
Navi is a streetwise homeless person who becomes Link's friend after meeting in a deep doorway. He has been homeless for quite some time, and he tells Link that smoking helps dull the pain of hunger. He and Link become best friends.

Zelda
Zelda is a reporter investigating homelessness. She meets Link later in the story after Navi goes missing. She reveals her secret of being a reporter gradually by making 'urgent' and frequent phone calls, having a lot of money and asking a lot of questions. After Ganondorf is arrested by the police, she tells Link of her true identity. Sheik disappoints and short-changes him.

Others
Other people in this book are the homeless victims of Ganondorf, who lures them to his dry warm flat, where he kills them.

Television
In 1997, the novel was adapted for a TV series of the same title, starring James Gaddas and Elizabeth Rider. The short series was shown on BBC Two.