Artemis Fowl
May. 12th, 2015 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawyl
In need of easy reading of late, I've been coasting with a bunch of YA including Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl, the first in his series about a young criminal mastermind.Artemis Fowl, hyper-intelligent 12 year-old and super-villain, lost his father some years before when the mafia took exception to one of Artemis Senior's trade deals and now it looks like his mother Angelina is succumbing to madness following her husband's disappearance. Needing a quick way to boost the family's funds Artemis and Butler, his fanatically loyal bodyguard, come up with a desperate plan. Artemis tricks a fairy into giving him access to a book that explains the supernatural world and then traps a elf, in this case LEP Recon officer Holly Short, knowing that her people will ransom her back.
With Holly captive, her friends from the fairy community — her irascible but good-hearted boss Julius Root, the tech-genius centaur Foley, even Mulch Diggums, a kleptomaniac dwarf with the ability to tunnel through almost anything — set about trying to get her out, even going so far as to stop time around the Fowl Estate. But for almost every move the fairies make, Artemis has already worked out a counter-move to defeat it (a notable exception to Artemis' prescience occurs when Mulch Diggums experiences a bout of flatulence — a serious matter for a rock-eating dwarf — which temporarily puts Butler out of commission)
Artemis Fowl is a fun read with some extremely charming characters — the impulsive but warm-hearted Holly is particularly good — and an excellent anti-hero; because while Artemis' behaviour may be ruthless, his reasons for doing so — a desire to save his parents — raises his actions beyond the merely villainous and gives him plenty of room for character growth. The setting is well realised, with the fairies using both technology and magic to keep themselves hidden from humans, but with a set of unbreakable rules which draw on tradition and explain how Artemis is able to survive outsmarting the fairies with his tricksy plan.
