Artemis Fowl
Written by Eoin Colfer
Reviewed by Michael C. (age 12)
Artemis Fowl is a book about a boy, his butler, fairies, and riches beyond belief. The story begins with Artemis and Butler finding a sprite, who lets them photograph every page in a magic book in exchange for a bottle of liquor. They then try to translate the symbolic text, and find that it most closely matches Egyptian hieroglyphics.
The fairies that live near the mantle of the Earth come above ground to fight a troll, and Artemis and Butler capture a fairy named Commander Holly Short. The other fairies, mainly Commander Root, try everything to get Short back.
Root tries to find Short?s tracker, but ends up an inch from getting blown to pieces. He stops time and sets up a bio-bomb that will explode in eight hours. Root tries to reason with him, as not to resort to detonating the bio-bomb. Artemis tells him to give the ransom fund to him, but the fairies don?t want to lose that much gold.
A dwarf named Mulch is hired to break in and, if he can?t save Short, collect evidence. They discover that Artemis is always one step ahead because he has a copy of the book. They try to send a troll in, but with little success. Their last resort is to detonate the bomb, what will happen? Read the book!
I thought that this book was really superior. I lunged forward quickly with a look of pure terror on my face when I began to read about Commander Root almost getting blown up. My favorite part was when Mulch explosively released solid waste all over Butler, knocking him out cold. There are two other books in this series: Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident and Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code. Artemis reminds me of myself because he is smart and is always one step ahead of those fairies.
I would recommend this book to those who like high-tech fairies and heavily-armed butlers who know martial arts.