Reader´s Choice Review: Artemis Fowl

ARTEMIS FOWL

By Eoin Colfer

Amazon prices: 50 GBP (Hardcover) or 7 GBP (paperback)/ 8 USD (Paperback)

You probably remember, if you were reading it at the time, last week´s review of Skulduggery Pleasant, and how I compared it to a book called Artemis Fowl. Well, apparently one of my readers has been interested in reading my opinion on that book, and as such, that´s what I´m intending to do.

You might also remember how I mentioned that Ireland was the country of Fantasy, and how Derek Landy was my third favourite Irish Fantasy author? Whether or not, today you´re getting the rest of the list: Michael Scott and Eoin Colfer. Who´s number one is for anyone to guess.

As for a setting, this book has a ridiculous amount of story elements: Fairies, sci-fi guns, trolls, rich prodigious child criminals, kidnappings, a dramatic climax and a backstory of thousands of years. Oh, and a coded message along the bottom of each page.

And this, I think, is why many, in spite of its popularity, reads half the first book, then give up on the series. And to be frank, Colfer has outdone himself many times since this book. Being the first book of a long series, Artemis Fowl takes place in a half-finished universe where many smaller details are later to be decided or changed. On top of that, it follows the common pattern of being shorter than most of the following books, so as a result this book has a lot of content on a relatively small amount of pages, and until you´ve grown used to little fairies with large guns, Colfer makes it difficult to suspense the disbelief.

But trust me, this is worth reading anyway. Colfer´s universe is extreme, complex and impulsive, and just at the climax, we discover that everything´s always been part of somebody´s plan – the excitement of reading a Colfer novel, for me, mainly lies in trying to figure out who´s been manipulating who.

Not a single character in this book is what I´d classify as sane, and every character has its own kind of insanity about it. Though it´s definitely not the selling point for me, it can be great fun to watch these insanities interact with each other – so to say the least, Colfer has a good grasp of characters.

THE CONCLUSION:

Are you the target audience for Artemis Fowl?

You might like fairies, or you might like guns. You might like stories, or you might like unconventionality. You might even like all of these, but as long as you don´t actively dislike any of them, Artemis Fowl is a book for you to at least consider reading.

What are, respectively, the best and worst parts of Artemis Fowl?

The best part to me is the intrigueful mind of Artemis Fowl the Second. But with all these things stuffed into one book, that´s up to yourself to decide.

The worst, though undeniably interesting, part is to read this after finishing the whole series, and realizing how much Colfer has changed about the his universe since writing this.

For me specifically, was Artemis Fowl worth buying?

...Yes.