“Trust me. I’m a genius.”
― Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl
Artemis Fowl written by Eoin Colfer is one of the series I grew up with. First book was published in 2001 when I just about learned to read and there was a new book nearly every year and the last one was published two years ago. I begged my parents to buy these books for me for Christmas present every year and I kind of made them spend long time to get the hardcovers of the books (thank you for getting me the hardcovers ^^)
… At some point I was worried that they would not interest me anymore but I think Artemis Fowl series are suitable for anyone’s interest. It has the perfect amount of fantasy combined with science fiction and imagination and you also grow to like characters a lot.
“Who or what inspires you?”
“I must admit that I often read my own articles in scientific journals and inspire myself.”
― Eoin Colfer, The Artemis Fowl Files
What I enjoyed about Artemis Fowl (when I was young) is that he is not too much of good kid…he is more like…tech-geek antihero, rebellious teen sort of person. Yet at the same time he is this criminal mastermind who doesn’t have a choice to do anything different than he does (krrhm) as his father is missing or not there and his mother is not well. I also enjoyed a lot seeing him grow as character during this series, and he actually starts caring more at some point. My favorite characters included also Butler (the fictional bodyguard everyone wants to have) and Holly Short (the strong female).
What else…fairies, centaurs, trolls, dwarves all presented from original point of view.
I would give this series 8+++/10
How-To Read Artemis Fowl
1. The Code is quite fun. You should definitely pick the first book and start translating the string of Gnommish symbols. It’s best to use The ‘Artemis Fowl Files’ guidebook for that. A bit time consuming but totally worth it.
2. Prepare to be excited about learning Latin…or maybe it was just me. I actually learned my first phrases in Latin from the first book of this series… “Aurum Potestas Est”. And I also learned (somewhat) much about Greek mythology.
3. I would say Artemis Fowl is more for the young readers because they are more easy to read and plot is more simple (+ maybe a bit repetitive at some points) but for me it never mattered whether the book said it’s for children or not. I would say that these series is also for both boys and girls. If you don’t read these, don’t let your kids to grow old without Artemis Fowl!
4. Artemis Fowl has it’s own humour. Sarcasm. Wittiness. I loved the sarcasm Artemis always had. It wasn’t too dark but you won’t like this if you don’t like or don’t understand sarcasm.
5. This series consists of eight novels, I don’t find them to be especially long to read…fast-paced!
6. Great books always make you go through rollercoaster of different emotions and that is what this will do to you.
7. Skip the comic books you might encounter.
“Stay back, human. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
― Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl
