Published Information
| Author: | Eoin Colfer |
| Series: | Artemis Fowl |
| Published: | August 2010 |
| Genre: | Fantasy |
| Pages: | 368 |
Plot Summary
As the book begins, we find that Artemis has a mental illness that only affects magical creatures called Atlantis Syndrome, with symptoms of paranoia, multiply personalities, OCD, and a few other things. But he has also come up with a plan to save the world (human and fairy) to help rid him of the guilt he has felt (which brought on the illness). He heads off into the Arctic area to show off his new idea to several important people in the fairy world.
At the demonstration, things go well and most of the group begin to buy into his idea. However the discussion is cut short when Artemis picks up an invisible craft flying towards their meeting. This craft is a space probe Foaly sent out years ago that, for some reason, is no longer responding the Foaly's instructions and commands. The probe basically kills all those at the meeting except Artemis, Foaly, and Holly. They are able to escape by using the machine Artemis has invented to save the world.
In a pod they were able to recover, they follow the probe as it drills into the ice and water. Very quickly they realize its destination is Atlantis. Their mission becomes returning to the surface to be able to transmit a distress signal to the fairy community (that and they are running out of air and will die if they don't get out). They are able to get the message and Atlantis is evacuated.
At the same time, Butler has received a message that his sister is in trouble. Butler goes out to meet his sister and shows up just in time for he and sister to be attacked by thousands of mesmerized humans being controlled by an unknown fairy. They are able to escape, but are tracked by some criminal dwarfs intent on killing them. Once again they escape and realize Artemis must be in trouble. Using a tracking device Butler put on Artemis, Butler tracks Artemis and saves Artemis' group from the pod.
Now that they are back together, the realize the events must be related, but are not sure who the perpetrator is. They must work quickly to figure out who is behind all of this and catch them before more damage can be done.
Comments
While the book was fun, it was a disappointment to me for several reasons. First, the book is very different than the others, meaning, Artemis isn't as important as he is in other books in the series. Instead he is more of a comic relief character. I found some of the best parts of the previous books have been the interaction with Artemis and this change was hard for me to accept.
Second, a new villain is introduced, Commander Root's brother to be exact, but we don’t really have time to connect with him. It seems the character development with him is very weak, and he is killed off by the end anyway. Though he is killed off through his own choice. Through the whole book, he seems like a self serving, egotistical type criminal, but it the end, his love for his human wife, whom he mesmerized, who is now very old and about to die, is enough for him to walk off into the sunset with her, saving the day. Just seems out of character.
I also don't like that the book starts you off in a very confusing situation. We have been use to the Artemis of old that is smart, can solve any problem, does whatever it takes, but from the first minute in the book, we know Artemis is not his normal self. He seems crazy, weak, etc. The best way for us to begin this book would have been for the author to walk us through his transition into craziness, especially as he begins to realize he has a problem, rather than drop us the middle. That can sometimes work, but in this case it left me very unsatisfied. It was almost as if the writing was being limited in some fashion outside of the book/story. For example, having to meet a deadline so the author cut some content, or having a limit on the number of pages. I can't imagine any other reason why some of the pieces of the story were summarized rather than detailed. Especially when the last couple of books in the series were quite a bit longer. So why not this one?
Additionally, we now know that there are two Opals running around in the world (from the last book), and she gets a passing mention in this book. That is especially irritating because there were several items I wanted cleared up from the last book regarding her. So what was the point of the book? Add a new villain just to kill him off? Was this whole book basically a setup for the next book where Opal is dealt with? Was the book just to set the stage for how Opal would be released? It seems like a waste of effort if that is all that is achieved.
Finally, for some reason, I had thought the plan was to do seven books? I remember reading that 4 or 5 books ago. So what happened? Story get too big for the series? Making too much money to just end it? I am all for a continuing series, but set that expectation, or at least don't set the expectation of the number of books, and then change. I feel the same way as I felt when Aragon became a four book series. Brandon Sanderson did this as well, but he warned people about it before releasing and explained his reasoning so most people were ok with it. Aragon and Artemis Fowl did not set expectations, and so once again, it was a surprise. And if the next book (assuming there is one) is not of a better quality, then it's not a good surprise.
Overall, compared to the rest of the series, it seemed like a rushed effort and was not up to the caliber of the rest of the series. It almost seemed to me like one of those webisodes that are becoming popular with TV shows these days. Keep the main story running and then add small inserts here and there to explain away plot lines that are about to be introduced.
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