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It would be a great read for preteens, but as an adult, I thoroughly enjoyed it as well. I admit, it took me a little while to warm up to this series, but now I'm hooked. It's much higher quality material than you usually find in a hardback. I also love the physical book - the cover is much nicer than shown here, and it has uneven, old-fashioned looking rag paper pages. The audiobook is an incredible performance, as well. Eoin Colfer creates a fascinating new universe that is peopled with equally fascinating characters.
Enjoyable by more than just children, Artemis Fowl is a truly excellent work of fiction. This book was a favorite of mine in my early childhood, and still holds together now. A truly fantastic world is created where magic and technology are blended together, and where both can be triumphed over by brainpower.
Through the first ~2/3 of the book, the author introduced a fairy swear word and used it a handful of times. This is a book presumably for an audience of young kids. Colfer uses this phrasing enough that it got distracting to me, especially the times when he used it without a good frame of reference or without numbers. I don't have the text with me to provide an exact example.but the memory I have is something like "he passed out again in as many minutes." The numerical reference "again" isn't really concrete (can be alluded to as it being 2 since it's the second time) and the timeframe mentioned didn't fit based on everything that happened in between.2. So, with him continually asking how I liked it, I read Artemis Fowl.When asked by my wife about the plot, my best quick answer was that it is sort of an "evil Richie Rich carrying out a dastardly scheme against the world of fairies." (For those unfamiliar with Richie Rich, he's the super rich kid with tons of fun gadgets and crazy adventures to save his family/friends/world).
However, as a parent who doesn't condone swearing, it wasn't something I appreciated.CharactersMany of the characters in this book were fairly static and/or stereotypical representations. Overall, very nice.I have only 2 gripes about the writing itself:1. One of the violent fight scenes (the main one) and a handful of (human) swear words, make me a little uneasy about letting my kids read the rest of the series unsupervised (historically, series books tend to get grittier as they go on), but I'm definitely willing, and in fact intrigued enough, to pick up book two and read it myself and then possibly hand it on to my kids.With so many similar books flooding the market lately, I don't see this necessarily becoming a classic to endure for decades or beyond. There were a lot of great details and exploration of the interaction between the fairy and human worlds. The writing style provoked a little time confusion when interweaving the same instance from different points of view without really announcing the change other than via a double space on the paragraph break.
We get depths into her psyche throughout the book and get to see her struggling with decisions and with deeper questions. It was written very simply and straightforward which was good considering the audience. Swearing. He was too "textbook supervillain." Which made one of his actions at the end of the book very unpredictable and unnatural. Numerical consistency. I first saw this on a shelf a couple years back and was intrigued by it but hadn't picked it up to read it until my 8 year old insisted that it was an awesome story and that I'd love it.
Being a children's book, that's probably for the best since it makes it easier for kids to picture the characters and not have to deal with too much psychology as the characters change and struggle.Artemis Fowl himself was surprising flat for a title character. Captain Short was the character I felt had the most depth. The writing and dialog was natural and flowed well. Through most of the book he was a little too rigid and uniform. However, as the book reaches its climax and the bodyguard Butler is having a big fight with a troll (sorry, possible spoiler there), we end up with (to use my first gripe) a handful of swear words in as many pages. In this case, the rich kid is 12-year-old Artemis Fowl, and his motives are less altruistic.StyleThe writing was well done.
Root, Foaly and the other fairy creatures have interesting banter going on, but are largely a faceless police force trying to save the day.Plot/PacingThe plot was a lot of fun. I acknowledge that many young kids will at least hear these words from television, possibly the radio, and possibly from their parents. I also felt a little cheated that his only real goal in this plot was that of greed. I thought it was a good addition, but it didn't fit with the lack of growth and development he had through the rest of the book. Butler gains a little depth late in the story when he ignores Artemis for a minute to help his sister first. Still, the writing generally allowed for quick reorientation as the reader encountered deja vu on reading about the same thing happening again.OverallOverall, I enjoyed Colfer's unimaginative tale and found it a fun and enjoyable read.
The details of the fairy recon team and the various technologies and magic made for a lot of entertainment.The pacing was well done. But it's worth picking up and taking a glance at for a bit of escapism and it's a fun adventure that kids will enjoy as well.***3 stars Fowl's plot was thin in motive but fun in execution. It was something that a young reader could pick up and push through without getting bogged down by the language. He tried to make himself out to be a 'higher class of villain', but in the end, he was really a petty crook/kidnapper just with a bigger scale scheme.The rest of the characters were interesting, but fairly flat. I didn't count the words, but there were enough that I took notice.
Specifically, the phrasing "[something happened:] in as many [amount of time:]." You've likely heard this phrase before.along the lines of "He fell on his butt three times in as many seconds." Which means he fell on his butt 3 times in 3 seconds. The word itself is meaningless and the reference to it as a swear word was subtle and probably lost on young children.
I have never read a book of Eoin Colfer's that didn't impress me; his characters, his wit, and his plots are always excellent. Unfortunately for them, the fairy they capture is Captain Holly Short, of the Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance squad (that's LEPrecon for short). The story begins with Artemis, a 12 year old Irish millionaire with a genius for crime, ruthlessly pursuing his plot to steal fairy gold. Fighting, cooking, obtaining false papers--you name it, Butler is on top of it.
He doesn't think so. Holly has a few tricks of her own up her sleeve (or down her boot). Foaly, the wisecracking centaur, commands technology that's decades ahead of any competition, and Julius Root, the politically incorrect LEP commander, will stop time itself to get his officer back. With combatants like this, there's no predicting what will happen. So are they too much for Artemis. The Artemis Fowl series, however, is Colfer at his best.
Nor are Holly's friends back at LEP headquarters to be overlooked. And the series only gets better from here. Helping Artemis is his bodyguard, Butler, who is possibly my favorite fictional character of all time. Together, these two kidnap a fairy to hold for ransom.
It pokes fun of itself and all of its crazy characters as well as the entirity of Irish mythology. The little people with their gold. I appreciate the lengths Colfer has gone to, and the action is hilarious and well-done.It's not what I could call timeless fantasy, but it certainly is worth the popularity it holds. To put is simply, Colfer has a gift for taking excellent research of Irish mythology and giving it a modern and technical twist. That makes for plenty of wry, clever humor for this smartly paced book.It's a great concept: child criminal mastermind, big tough bodyguard.
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