Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer

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So, a while back I started listening to the Artemis Fowl series, by Eoin Colfer. It's fantasy, of course (juvenile and/or YA fiction).

I still have one book left before I'm done with what he's written so far. Anyway, I'll talk about each book I review in replies to this so it can be organized.

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This was a pretty good book. It was easy reading and was all-around fun. The characters are certainly interesting. I like that the main character is Irish, in a modern setting—it's not something I see often (especially with a kid as the character).

The book is about a genius boy named Artemis Fowl who seeks to restore his family's partially depleted fortune via various criminal endeavors. His latest ploy—after discovering the existence of fairy people—is to take a fairy hostage and collect the ransom (there's more to it, but that's pretty much what it is).

Artemis' body guard is a significant character. He basically protects Artemis and assists him throughout the book. He seems to be the most well-equipped bodyguard alive.

Anyway, the fairy people (AKA 'the people', as might be expected) have progressed far beyond humans with their technology—magic isn't so much a focus in this book as you might expect with fairies and all (although it's certainly there). Artemis knows the rules that the fairies (which also include elves, gnomes, centaurs and who knows what else) have to follow in order to keep their magic, as well as the rules of the LEP, apparently (that's basically the force in charge of making sure the fairies in their underground world aren't discovered and/or exploited by humans; they seem like the government, sort of). Things get interesting.

I liked the book. It was clean, too. I could recommend it to pretty much anyone who can handle the fairy setup (some adults might not take well to fairies working in a modern-style military-style force with advanced technology).

Interesting note: After listening to the book, I checked out the script of the graphic novel seems to be pretty much exactly, if not exactly, like the original novel. So, you shouldn't be missing out on details if you get the graphic novel instead.

[Cordilow]

In this book, Artemis finds that his father is being held captive, for ransom, ironically (in a very cold place—hence the name). Meanwhile, Artemis and Butler (his bodyguard) are abducted by the LEP who get him mixed up in some catastrophic incident pertaining to a plot of some criminal fairies (which takes up most of the book).

I liked this book, too, although I liked the first one more.

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In this book, Artemis constructs some revolutionary piece of technology out of some fairy devices he had managed to keep from his previous adventures. He tries to make money through this by bargaining with some infamous criminal. However, the infamous criminal ends up stealing the device, and eventually attempting to kidnap Artemis. (Personally, I don't know why he didn't try making money a thousand other ways with the thing, it being as powerful as it was.) Anyway, somehow the fairy people get involved (seeing as they could be compromised by this—and there are other reasons). Basically, they try to get out of the fix.

I liked this book a lot, actually—at least as much as the first one. Artemis does some pretty interesting things.

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This book is about one of the criminal characters from book 2 who had gone into a coma (self-induced, apparently). Basically, through her preparedness for the situation, and through her own genius, she manages almost to take over the fairy people and the human world (maybe).

In the previous book, Artemis had been mind-wiped (part of the fairy technology I mentioned in my review of the first book). In this one, he is, after some time, brought out of it and helps some renegade LEP to save everything. I say renegade because the criminal fairy made them seem to be the bad ones.

This was pretty good. I liked it more than the second book, but probably not as much as the first and third (though probably more than I'm making it sound).

[Cordilow]

This book was pretty cool. It deviates considerably from all the others by the introduction of another race of fairy people (demons) who had left to some other dimension/world.

Artemis somehow finds out about demons and how they're in for a catastrophe if they don't get help soon. He decides, out of the kindness of his heart (something new in his view, perhaps), to help them (and consequently the underground fairies, too, seeing as they might be compromised if humans learned of demons).

There's another hostage scene in this book, as well as an earlier kidnapping. That sort of thing seems to happen a lot in this series.

Anyway, the use and amount of magic in this book is interesting as it deviates somewhat from that used in previous books. Plus, it's nice to explore this new race and the culture that has developed—which culture is largely influenced by a romance novel some dimension-traveling demon manage to get from Earth and show to his fellow demons. That novel is Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow, by Carter Cooper Barbison. Kind of funny, actually. After reading this book, I'm tempted to take a look at the one parodied here, if it really exists (I've seen people who have their doubts after research, although I saw one post on a forum where a person acted as if he/she had read the book).

I think this is probably my favorite book of the series so far, although it's probably not the best of the series in most people's views.

[Cordilow]

This post contains spoilers.

This book had a lot more tension than I had expected (although looking back on it, I don't know why I expected less, except that Artemis had magic and I supposed it would be a time travel story). Nevertheless, Artemis loses all his magic. Opal comes back (yet again) and makes things difficult for everyone.

The book builds character for Artemis, though—particularly in his interactions with his younger self.

There's definitely room for more books to be written. I expect there will be more.