Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is a criminal mastermind in a boy's body, the youngest in a long line of international criminals. Famed throughout history for their
escapades, the Fowl clan is known to every law-enforcing body and underground network as a force to be reckoned with - and not to be crossed, if you value your life.
After his father vanishes and his mother descends into madness, young Artemis steps forward to make his own mark on the family's illustrious record. He's going
after a prize not one of his ancestors even dreamed about: fairy gold. Like every good Fowl, he has a foolproof plan to do it.
The People, as such beings as elves, sprites, fairies, gnomes are collectively called, have been around longer than humanity. Though bits and pieces of their true nature
survive in stories, humans have never known the truth, and most wouldn't believe it anyway. Driven underground (literally) by Homo sapiens' encroachment on and
destruction of the wilderness, they live with a blend of ancient magicks and modern technology. Contact with the surface is severely limited, for fear of revealing their
presence to modern man (or Mud People, as fairies refer to humans.) Of course, there are always breaches in security... Captain Holly Short is a LEP Recon agent (Lower
Element Police Reconnaissance, that is), the first female ever to earn the prestigious position. A simple trip to stop a rogue surface troll turns into an interspecies
crisis when Holly crosses paths with young Artemis.
In all of history, not one human has ever managed to part the fairies from their gold. Will Artemis be the first?
Review
If you're expecting an Irish Harry Potter, you're looking in the wrong place. Fowl is no innocent victim but rather a fiendishly clever creature, a real antihero whom
you come to admire in some strange way. He's not so evil that you don't want him to win, but not so virtuous that you're rooting for him either. Colfer has some very
original and modern takes on fairy mythology, as the tale becomes a strange mix of fantasy, James Bond-like technowizardry, and a high-tension hostage standoff. There are
many great characters and moments in this story, and I was thoroughly entertained for most of it. The part that let me down was the ending. No matter who wins, Holly's
fairy comrades or Fowl and his gang, someone you like loses out. It also reads like a setup to a series that I wouldn't mind following. Unfortunately, it's stated at the
end that the further adventures of these characters will be revealed not in a book, but online - at a website where you have to solve puzzles to advance through each
adventure, with the ultimate prize being a chance for a walk-on role in the soon-to-shoot (and now apparently MIA) Artemis Fowl movie. This sudden, commercial slap in the
face drug the story down a full rating level. (Yes, I know the print series has gone on anyway. I still didn't like the tone of it.) Otherwise, this is a very good, very
memorable fantasy story.
It has been years since Artemis's father, former head of the Fowl crime family, was lost and presumed dead in the cold Arctic waters off Russia, his ship torpedoed by the
Russian Mafiya. In the time since, everyone but the boy has given up hope of finding him alive. Now, he has received word that his father was plucked from the arctic waters -
by none other than the Mafiya, which now holds him for ransom. Artemis and his bodyguard, Butler, race to find his whereabouts, but are interrupted by a visit from an old
friend. Captain Holly Short was among the many LEP officers whose career was severely affected by last year's affair with the boy criminal genius Artemis Fowl. Placed on
an undignified assignment, she stumbles across a terrible plot involving goblins, illegal weapons, and contraband items from the human world. Her first suspect is Fowl, the
only human ever to have successfully obtained and translated a copy of the sacred fairy Book of laws, which outlines the rules and restrictions of fairy magic. When he proves
innocent, Short and the LEP have no choice but to ask for his help in identifying the real mastermind behind the plot. In return, the fairy police will help Fowl find his
father in the frigid north.
Review
The only reason this one is ranked higher than the first one is that, unlike the last one, this one is honest about being part of a series, and doesn't play games about
it. Colfer's take on the faerie is still innovative, and his story is as much sci-fi as it is fantasy. The effects of fairy influence and having something approaching a
friend start to tell on young Artemis, who is, after all, still only a boy, despite his gifted brain and ice-cold blood. Good pacing keeps the story moving nicely, through
unexpected yet satisfying twists.
Artemis Fowl's father's rescue from the Russian Mafiya and subsequent miraculous recovery - due largely to fairy magic - has proved a mixed blessing. His time in
captivity seems to have changed the head of the notorious Fowl crime family, and now he wants to make amends and set the family on a new, more honorable path. The young
Artemis is torn between unexpected love for his new, more generous father and his own schemes, which he has had free rein in pursuing for the past two years. In his
latest caper, he has cobbled together a revolutionary new device from stolen fairy technology, and plans to use it in a scheme to con money from the rich and ruthless
American technology magnate Jon Spiro. The meeting is already set up, and certainly one last devious escapade won't do anyone any harm. He is, after all, a genius of
unparalleled cunning, the only human in all of history to outwit the fairy folk, and certainly among the few called on when the People need human help. Besides, he'll
have his faithful bodyguard Butler by his side. What could possibly go wrong?
LEP Recon agent Captain Holly Short is mopping up the last remnants of the goblin uprising when a new crisis diverts her attention. Apparently, a human device has briefly
detected the vast network of fairy technology, a detection which could lead to the "Mud People" (humans) discovering the underground havens of the magical folk. Shortly
after the puzzling detection, a call for help comes to the fairy police from an oddly shaken Artemis Fowl. Something, it seems, has gone very wrong with his last escapade.
While Butler lies near death, Spiro outsmarted him and stole the "C Cube" Fowl constructed from fairy machinery. Now the whole of the fairy kingdom is at risk due to his
arrogance. Once again, Short and Fowl must team up, or all of civilization - above and below ground - could fall into the clutches of the power-hungry Spiro.
Review
I wavered a bit on the rating because of the ending, but, on the assumption that this is the conclusion to the Fowl trilogy, I gave it the benefit of the doubt. The
ending certainly feels like a finale, bringing the series pretty much full-circle. The writing continues to be sharp and witty, the characters memorable and intelligent.
The story is almost too complicated, bringing together many threads and characters human and otherwise, but it reads fast.
Fourteen-year-old criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl II, mind wiped of two years' worth of contact with the fairies, is back to his old ways, turning his greedy eyes to a
painting so rare that only a dozen or so people know it exists... every one of them a thief intent on stealing it. His conscious has been unusually bothersome lately,
though, and a nagging voice in the back of his mind tells him that maybe it's time to give up his shadow life and go legitimate like his father. First, however, he fully
intends to pull off this last big job: if successful, the theft will cement his name as the youngest master criminal in history.
Meanwhile, LEP Recon Captain Holly Short, cleared of charges after her last dealings with Fowl, is up for a promotion, though she isn't certain she wants to be the first
female major in the thousand-odd year history of the Lower Elements Police. Aside from Commander Root, her superior, few Recon bigwigs care much for the troublesome upstart,
especially with her name irrevocably tangled with that of Artemis Fowl.
Neither expected to see the other again (or, in Fowl's case, remembered seeing the other to begin with), but both become targets of a ruthless enemy, an enemy so obsessed
with revenge that she faked a coma for a year, that she would give up her own magic and her own species, that she would see her entire race wiped out in a bloody war with
the "Mud People": the ruthless pixie Opal Koboi.
Review
Like the previous volumes, this is a fun, fast read with plenty of action. Some of Colfer's spark seemed to be missing, though, and the narrative lacked his usual wit; I
have to wonder if he's using a ghostwriter. It was fun visiting the characters again, but that's what it felt like: just visiting, in just another death-defying adventure
installment from which the main characters would emerge unscathed, or at least fit enough for more adventures. Colfer also used the remarkably potent digestive tract of
dwarf sidekick Mulch Diggums far too often; it was vaguely amusing in the first book, worth a chuckle or two in the second and third, but this time around it seemed to be
Colfer's sole reason for including Diggums in the story. Still, I enjoyed the book overall, though I'm leery to learn of a fifth book, The Lost Colony - not to mention
a sixth, and probably more besides. A little voice in my head says that Colfer should've quit when he was ahead, after the third story. I don't expect that I'll follow A
rtemis much further, save through Half Price Books or the library.
Can't get enough of the boy criminal Artemis Fowl, his nemesis-turned-sometimes-ally Captain Holly Short of the fairy police, the paranoid techno-genius centaur Foaly,
the cunning dwarf thief Mulch Diggums, and the rest of the crew? This book features two original short stories, plus interviews with characters (and one with author Eoin
Colfer), puzzles, information on various fairy species, sketches of a few of Foaly's inventions, and a decoder for the Gnommish alphabet.
Review
The short stories alone might have merited a Good rating. They had some of the wit that the fourth Fowl book was notably lacking, and were fun visits with favorite
characters. The rest of the book, however, drug it down a full ratings point. I found the reek of blatant commercialism a bit too strong. The interviews felt forced, less
like I was reading something the characters would actually say and more like I was reading what someone else would think the characters would say. As for the puzzles, they
were space-fillers, plain and simple. A more in-depth book on Colfer's fairy world might have been interesting, with more thorough maps, sketches, species info and such,
but the extra material offered here is just fluff to pad out the short stories into a book-length manuscript. Unless you're a rabid Fowl fan who has to get their hands on
every scrap of paper related to the series, I can't say that this is, as the cover claims, a "must-read" book.
The hapless human Arthur Dent, his hitchhiking Betelguesean friend Ford Prefect, the one-time human girlfriend of the President of the Galaxy Trillian, and Arthur and
Trillian's moody teenage daughter Random were last seen on Earth - at least, an Earth from a dimension that wasn't destroyed by Vogons - facing down the planet-devouring
death rays of the Grebulons. This story, the long-anticipated sixth installment of the late Douglas Adams' classic sci-fi series, begins with Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and
Random facing down the planet-devouring death rays of the Grebulons, after a brief sidetrack into the lives they wished they'd led. With improbably good timing, ex-President
Zaphod Beeblebrox and the Infinite Improbability Drive ship Heart of Gold (now powered by one of Zaphod's heads instead of the original shipboard computer) turn up to
snatch the foursome from the soon-to-be-destroyed-in-all-remaining-dimensions Earth. Meanwhile, Prostetnic Jeltz, the Vogon responsible for orchestrating not only the
downfall of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but the utter pandimensional destruction of Earth (to ensure a smooth and large-planetary-obstacle-free hyperspace
bypass passage), turns his bureaucruiser Business End toward a new target. Evidently, a handful of Earthlings survived the fall of their planet on a small
Magrathean-crafted world called Nano. Surviving Earthlings could mean official protests and demands for restitution... just the sort of messy and expensive justice the
Vogons would rather avoid.
Thus begins another chapter in the lives of Arthur Dent and company, a chapter involving unemployed gods, a dark matter ship with a crush on its former owner, improbable
love affairs, strained family ties, planet-endangering peril, and of course cheese.
Review
I'm not sure how to review this one. My original impression of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series was severely tainted by the final book, which read like a dark cloud spitting all over an otherwise enjoyable picnic
lunch. From what I gather, the late Douglas Adams wasn't too keen on the way he ended the series, and may have been considering a sixth book himself before Fate decided
otherwise. Now comes this story, written by Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl young adult fantasy series. In tackling this book, he not only took on an iconic
universe, but picked up the considerable challenge of writing a sequel to a series that ended fairly definitively in the previous volume, with the utter annihilation of the
characters, the planet, and the titular guidebook. Of course, in sci-fi, dead doesn't mean dead unless the ratings say otherwise, and in a universe as irreverent and
deliberately illogical as the one Adams created, it means even less than that. Colfer comes across as a bit over-eager; he frequently interrupts the narrative with items
from the Guide's vast repository of generally useless galactic trivia, a gimmick that works better on screen (as in the last movie or the BBC adaptations) than in print, and
he goes out of his way bringing in species and characters from Adams' works as if hoping to win over any remaining skeptics about the revival of the Hitchhiker print
franchise. Other than that, he did a good job capturing the whimsical, occasionally fatalistic feel of the original books. As for the characters, they were pretty much as I
remembered them... unfortunately so, in the case of Random. Except for the very last bit, she was nothing but a stereotypical brooding teenager, and even then she took her
moody selfishness too far. But, then, the characters always had a touch of exaggeration to them, as it was a deliberately exaggerated universe. In the end, Colfer manages to
pull most of the story's wild threads together into a fairly cohesive ending... a distinctly better ending, I must say, than the one Adams smacked me in the face with in
Mostly Harmless (the fifth Hitchhiker book.) I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that there's a very strong hint of more books to come; I wonder if Colfer
will get to write them, or if the resurrected franchise will be passed like a torch among authors, to carry where they will. In any event, even if this wasn't five-star
literature, it entertained me while I read it and left me reasonably satisfied; for that, it earns four stars. I mostly read it hoping to dispell the gloom of depression cast
by the fifth book, and in that I have to say Colfer definitely came through with flying colors.
Satellite City was supposed to be the great promise of the future, but in a world where clean oceans and clear air are a distant memory, the future is a hopeless place
to be. Cosmo Hill is an orphan at the hellish Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys, where hideously inhumane medical experiments and maltreatment mean
few live past 16. At 15, Cosmo knows his time is nearly up. He's constantly on the lookout for the split-second of opportunity he needs to escape. A terrible bus accident
gives him his chance at freedom, but almost at the cost of his own life. On the edge of death, he sees a host of strange, blue creatures swarming around him... creatures
that seem to suck the very life from him. Rescued by a small band of others who share the special sight, he becomes a Spotter with the Supernaturalists, whose mission is
to hunt down and destroy the ever-increasing numbers of invisible Parasites in Satellite City. Just where the creatures come from and what their purpose is, nobody knows...
or nobody admits to knowing. As a Supernaturalist, Cosmo is drawn into a struggle for survival and answers that may lead to a secret darker than the toxic smog-filled nights
of Satellite City.
Review
Like Colfer's other books (the Artemis Fowl series, The Wish List), The Supernaturalist starts fairly fast and has few lulls in the action. I liked
the cast of characters, each with a troubled past, unique personality, and strengths and weaknesses that contribute to the team. Colfer's future, much like his Artemis
Fowl faerie world, paints a grim picture of the planet and what we humans have done to it. Overall, it's a quick read and a satisfying story, though something about the
way it set itself up as a series kick-off felt a little off to me.
Meg Finn's rough life ends during a botched burglary when she is only fourteen years old, but her troubles are far from over. Her final act - defending the elderly Lowrie
from her brutal co-burglar Belch Brennan and his pit bull Raptor - placed her in a most unusual spiritual position, being neither good enough for Heaven nor evil enough for
Hell. To decide the issue, Meg must return as a ghost to help Lowrie fulfill his wish list for what he should have done (or not done) with his life. Satan's not about to let
her go that easily. He sends a very special minion to foul their plans: the hybrid man/pit bull spirit that was once Belch and Raptor. If Meg and Lowrie succeed, she gets
to ascend to the pearly gates, but if Belch gets his way, he'll drag her to Satan's clutches.
Review
This read fast, but it had the old Colfer spark that I missed so much in the fourth Artemis Fowl book, the clever humor and character insights that make for a fun,
memorable story. All lives gather regrets, wounds that time never quite heals, whether they end at fourteen or a hundred and four, and Meg and Lowrie discover that they have
a lot more in common than their ages and relative stations in life (or death) would indicate. The top rating may be slightly generous, but I so missed the "real" Colfer style
that I'm willing to bump it up in the ratings. (Yes, I know it was written before his latest Fowl books... more's the pity...)
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