Book – Artemis Fowl
Author – Eoin Colfer
Year – 2001
Genre – Fantasy
Pages – 277
Series – Artemis Fowl
I remember my Mum suggesting this book to me years and years ago when I was pining for a new Harry Potter book. As a fantasy series based around a young boy, there would always be comparisons made, but this series has a twist – instead of being a young hero, the eponymous Artemis is a young criminal.
Artemis is a great character. He is immensely intelligent, incredibly wealthy and manages to combine enough bad qualities to make him look a criminal, but enough good qualities to keep him squarely as the main character of the book. This first outing sees him attempt to infiltrate the world of fairies to make himself more money, and introduces the fairy characters of Holly Short and Commander Root – also brilliantly written characters. You would think from my description that it is a purely character led book, but the plot is brilliant as well. I won’t claim that it has the twists and turns of a literary classic, but it is engrossing throughout, and not just to the children’s/young adult’s audience that it is nominally aimed at, but even to me as a (slightly) older reader.
I always like starting a new fantasy series, and this is a great one to have gotten going on. I only wish that I had made the plunge many years ago when my Mum suggested it to me.
9/10