Book Recommendations - Artemis Fowl

 The first in a series of book recommendations/reviews by Trinity and myself. The today's subject shall be the Artemis Fowl series. Don't worry, no spoilers.

Artemis Fowl

by Eoin Colfer

This is one of my main fan-girling series. It consists of eight books: Artemis Fowl, The Arctic Incident, The Eternity Code, The Opal Deception, The Lost Colony, The Time Paradox, The Atlantian Complex, and The Last Guardian.

This particular series was first "discovered" by Trinity (which is common). And while she mentioned quite a few funny things that were said and done, the subject did not sound very interesting. "It's about an Irish boy who finds fairies," she said.

Mm. Fascinating.

But that doesn't do it justice at all.

Artemis Fowl is a twelve-year-old Irish boy, yes. But he's also a millionaire, a genius, and, most importantly, a criminal mastermind. After some research, he believes he has confirmed the existance of fairies, and, with the help of his bodyguard, Butler, kidnaps one. 

But this is no sappy, bedtime-story Tinker Bell fairy - this is Captain Holly Short of LEPrecon, the recon division of the LEP, and a fairy elf. And Artemis Fowl gets a lot more that he bargained for.

This is just the first book. The saga continues throughout eight books, the last of which came out just last year. The series has been compared to Harry Potter, which is apt in part. The Artemis Fowl series, in my opinion, is mostly character-centered, though the plots are clever - at times I might even go so far to say ingenious. There is a lot of humor and witty jokes throughout the books, along with pretty lovable characters.

Also, as a little nerdy bonus feature, on the bottom edge of the pages in almost all of the books, there is a code that is mentioned in the story. If you crack the code, there is a little page-long message for the reader. Just an interesting little tidbit.

As a warning, this series is not strictly Christian. Some of the books have demon characters, briefly mention evolution, have minor expletives, and all of them involve magic. Read at your own discretion.

If I win, I'm a prodigy.

If I lose, then I'm mad.

That's the way history is written.

- Artemis Fowl