Book Review: Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

A friend recommended Artemis Fowl, claiming that the series was fun and similar in many respects to the Rowling books. So, the other day while I was cooling off in the wading pool, I read it.

Artemis Fowl is a 12-year-old criminal mastermind, the youngest member of a wealthy old family of criminals. His father was lost at sea over a year ago and his mother's grief has led her into insanity. Artemis, spurred on the emotional upheaval in his family, hatches a plot to steal fairy gold in order to restore depleted family riches and (perhaps?) be granted a wish. Once Artemis takes action, Colfer shifts our attention to fairyland, and to the adventures of Captain Holly Short (assigned to LEP recon, get it?) and a small cast of characters working to derail Artemis' nefarious plot and repair the breach Artemis creates between the magical and human worlds.

The first of a growing series, Artemis Fowl attempts to provide the intricately woven plots and detailed world of the Potter series coupled with the wit of Lemony Snickett's Series of Unfortunate Events. Unfortunately, the book fails on both counts. Although the premise has potential, the creativity Colfer employed in developing it is largely absent from the book itself. Character development is minimal. For the most part Colfer's characters never depart from the stereotypes he uses to construct them. The pace of the book is quite uneven, at times the storyline drags while at others circumstances with tremendous potential for development are resolved in a sentence or two. Although there is plenty of material for witty commentary on the part of the intermittently present narrator, for the most part the narrator does little but make toilet jokes and point out upcoming twists in the plot.

This book isn't particularly worthwhile so I don't recommend spending the couple of hours it takes to read it unless you're killing time at the airport or something along those lines.