If your father was a criminal millionaire mastermind, and you had the same mind as his at twelve years of age, add to that an interest in fantasy and a need to solve some financial problems, what would you become? The answer is Artemis Fowl.

In this series destined mainly for kids and preteens, Eoin Colfer introduces us to Artemis, a super smart kid with access to plenty of wealth from his father. However, since his father’s gotten into some financial troubles, Artemis captures LEP-RECON member Holly Short, who is one of the fairy people, and holds her for ransom so that he can extort a great amount of gold from them in order to restore his family’s fortune. However, things don’t go very much as planned and, throughout the series, Artemis becomes more and more involved with fairy policies.

Even though Coifer did receive some negative feedback and had her book mentioned on some of the bad fantasy lists, the fact that Disney is making an adaptation of Artemis Fowl in a movie speaks volumes about the positive acclaim it is receiving. The most interesting thing about this series is that it is both smart and quirky. In my opinion, Artemis’ mind and way of thinking is reminiscent of a diluted version of the character Light from Deathnote, which is highly welcome for the new generation which is slowly being dumbed down. Despite the fact that Artemis starts out with far from noble intentions, his resourcefulness is to be appreciated. In addition to that, Colfer’s work on developing the various characters in a detailed yet humorous manner is also to be appreciated.

In conclusion, Artemis Fowl is a very interesting read that I would highly recommend for all kids aged eight to fifteen. Do not be discouraged by the criminal mastermind part of Artemis, he is a very noble character in general.

Originally posted on September 18, 2020 @ 10:44 am