Artemis Fowl

Fantasy · Comedy

First published: 2001
Print length: 271 pagesDisney-Hyperion, 2018

Description

Twelve-year-old criminal prodigy Artemis Fowl proves that fairies exist, acquires their sacred book, and studies its secrets for a profitable purpose. By exploiting the ritual through which fairies restore their magic, he ambushes Lower Elements Police officer Holly Short and holds her at Fowl Manor for a ransom of one ton of gold. Holly’s technologically advanced colleagues surround the estate, freeze it inside a time-stop, and deploy increasingly dangerous specialists and magical countermeasures. Artemis treats the siege as an intellectual contest he has already calculated, while Holly searches for a weakness in his plan and a way to reclaim her power. The young-adult fantasy combines folklore, science-fiction technology, and caper plotting in a brisk battle of wits between a ruthless child strategist and an equally determined fairy officer.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Dialogue-driven · Direct · Witty

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Humorous · Irreverent · Playful · Tense

Structure

Linear

Focus

Character · Plot · World

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 2 / 5
Structure: 2 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

AmbitionFamilyFreedomKnowledge and truthMoralityPower

About Eoin Colfer

Eoin Colfer is an Irish writer of children’s literature whose work combines brisk adventure, comic plotting, fantasy, and science fiction. A former primary school teacher, he writes in direct, dialogue-driven prose and tends to organize stories around ingenious plans, reversals, and competing systems of knowledge. The Artemis Fowl series gives this method its clearest form. Its twelve-year-old criminal prodigy treats the hidden fairy world as both a discovery and an opportunity, while technologically advanced fairies answer his schemes with elaborate countermeasures. The first novel turns a hostage crisis at Fowl Manor into a prolonged contest of calculation. The Eternity Code widens that contest through stolen fairy technology, a supercomputer, and an uneasy alliance assembled for a retrieval mission. Folklore and machinery share the same practical reality in these books, and trust is often negotiated under pressure rather than granted in advance. Colfer has also written for very young readers, collaborated on graphic novels, and extended Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide series with And Another Thing....

Series

Artemis Fowl · Book 1

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Language: English
ISBN: 9781368036986

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