Artemis Fowl Series Book #8: The Last Guardian by Eoin Colfer

A lot of people weren’t happy with the way that JK Rowling ended her Harry Potter series. In some ways, I was one of them. I don’t like endings to epic series, they don’t always live up to my expectations. The same could be said for the last book of the Artemis Fowl series. Everything in this book wrapped up loose ends, except for a few, but there were just some things that drove me absolutely crazy…

But I’m getting ahead of myself. In the last book, Artemis went into treatment for his Atlantis Complex. When this book starts, Artemis is dealing with his last therapy session when all hell breaks loose, again. This time around, Opal is at it again, or so it seems. Two masked dwarfs take Opal from the past – the one who came through in book 6 – hostage and threaten to kill her if the LEP don’t release the current Opal from Atlantis. The only problem is that there isn’t enough time to get Opal out, and do you really want Opal on the loose? No. No you don’t.

But if the Opal they have is shot there are a lot of repercussions. Basically, the time line will split and everything that Opal has had a hand in will go BOOM. Supposedly. But the LEP doesn’t want to take any chances and begin a citywide evacuation and place Opal into an underground tube just in case she goes BOOM too.

Ah, Opal is a cunning little pixie though. She planned all of this, and with her younger self’s death, she becomes…well, I’m not even sure what she becomes. Let’s just say she becomes really powerful with dark magic, and she has a plan to unlock these ancient warriors called Berserkers to help her unlock a switch that would basically wipe out all of humanity.

So, like I said there were some things with this book that drove me absolutely crazy. For one thing, Opal. Yeah, I know, I really liked her in book 4 but when she gets dragged into half of the books in this series, you have a repetitive villain. You might as well just rename the series Artemis Fowl and Opal Koboi Take on the World. Second, the ending was just ridiculous. Artemis Fowl finally dies because of his actions – huzzah. But Butler and Holly can’t live with it and figure out a way to bring him back to life. The chrysalis that Opal used to make her clone gets brought into play to make an Artemis ‘clone.’ That’s great. Not. Why can’t you just have Artemis stay dead? And I thought everything that Opal was involved with blew up? So how was it that this chrysalis didn’t explode too? The final thing that I didn’t like about this book was that while loose ends were tied up, there was one I was disappointed that didn’t get tied up. Whatever happened to the girl genius criminal mastermind from book 5? She just sort of disappears.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. The ending wasn’t completely horrible, but there were some things that should have been done differently.

Bookshelf worthy? Support your local library!

Artemis Fowl Series Book #7: The Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer

So just in case time travel, demons, Opal clones, and Mrs. Fowl finding out everything her dear son has been up to for the last six years wasn’t enough, Eoin Colfer throws a new curve ball for the readers. Artemis Fowl, the criminal mastermind at fifteen years old, has finally gone mad. He has OCD, multiple personality disorder, and numerous other psychoses that all add up to the rare fairy disease – The Atlantis Complex.

This shouldn’t be too much of a problem, because as he’s presenting his new idea to save the world to his friends – Foaly and Holly – they realize what’s going on with him and are going to try to fix him. The only problem? There’s another plan going on that Artemis and the gang get caught up in, and his Atlantis Complex has to take a back seat as they try a figure out who is behind this plot and what the endgame ultimately is.

It’s not Opal like they all think – thankfully, there’s only so many times you can use that particular villain without it getting boring. This time around the villain is a familiar face, in fact he worked with Opal in book 2 during the goblin uprising. Yeah, that’s right, the villain in this book is Turnball Root – Julius Root’s brother. This guy…I wanted to like him, because he was trying to get out of jail for a good cause, to return to his wife who is desperately in love. He ruins it though when it’s revealed that Turnball used a compulsion rune to make her love him. That’s just so wrong.

This book was good – just not as good as the last two have been. I’ll admit the Atlantis Complex for Artemis was quite comical, especially when he gets shocked by Holly and his other personality Orion comes out. I wish there would have been more Orion, he was the romantic that Artemis never seems to be.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. The comedy was still present in this book. The characters were fantastic – especially Juliet’s memory of the People coming back. The only thing I didn’t like was how easy the characters seemed to make it out of their sticky situations. How many more times can we get out of this unscathed? A good question indeed.

Bookshelf worthy? Electronic or support your public library!

Artemis Fowl Series Book #6: The Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer

In book 6 of the Artemis Fowl series, Artemis is dealing with the fall out from his three-year absence. He’s playing with his younger brothers when his father comes in and tells his son that his mother is barely hanging on to life. Her organs are shutting down. It turns out that Angeline Fowl has a disease call Spelltropy that plagued the People for many years before a cure had been found. The only cure for this disease comes from a species of lemur that is instinct, thanks in part to Artemis Fowl.

So what does Artemis do? Well…as the title of the book suggests he goes back in time to stop himself from selling the last of this species of lemurs and bring it back so a cure can be administered to his mother. Through twists and turns that gave me a few headaches, you find out that the mastermind of this plot is none other than Opal Koboi only from eight years ago. The following quote from the book when Artemis realizes this, pretty much sums up how I felt when she was brought in: What do I have to do? He thought. How many times must I save the world from this lunatic?

Seriously? What does Artemis Fowl have to do to defeat this devilish pixie? This girl has survived a coma, becoming human, and yeah, even though this is the Opal from eight years ago, she still survives a kraken collapsing on her. The only problem now is that there are two Opals out there, this CAN NOT end well.

While writing this book blog over the last few months, I’ve gone through a list of things that I don’t like in books – prequels written after the primary series, novellas, etc. – now I’ll add one more thing to my list. TIME TRAVEL. Seriously. Here’s another quote from the book that basically explains my feelings about time travel in books:

 It was confusing even for Artemis. Opal wouldn’t even be in his present if he hadn’t gone back in time. And he had only gone back in time because of a situation she had created. It had been Artemis’s own attempts to cure his mother that had led Opal to infect her.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. I loved Artemis and Holly in this book – especially a teenaged version of Holly. It was fantastic. The only two things I didn’t care for was the use of Opal and the time travel. My head still aches from trying to figure out how any of it was possible. …Wait. That might have actually been the headband… hm…

Bookshelf worthy? Support your local library!!

Artemis Fowl Series Book #5: The Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer

With Artemis’s memories restored, Holly Short no longer a member of the LEP, and Mulch Diggums partnering with Holly to start a private investigation service, how can the Artemis Fowl series get any better? Well, by throwing in the mysterious race of the People – demons – of course!

I’ll admit that the Artemis Fowl series hasn’t really made me laugh before; shake my head in disappointment and shame, sure. Smirk at the sarcasm, definitely. Groan in protest, obviously. But never laughter…until this book. There’s something about a boy genius experiencing puberty (“I will find a way to beat it!” Artemis said. ) that’s just gut-wrenching hilarious. Especially when you throw in the fact that his ‘adversary’ for this book is a twelve-year-old French girl named Minerva. Who he instantly grows an attraction to, because of course, she’s a genius too!

Anyway, yeah. Minerva is the female and younger version of Artemis – but think Artemis from the first book – only instead of being after faeries and gold, she’s after demons and a Nobel Peace Prize. Holly, Artemis, Butler, Mulch and Foaly team up to retrieve the demon she has captured and rescue his planet whose time spell is unraveling or else the People are in serious danger of being exposed.

Speaking of demons, let’s talk about the character of No1 shall we? Personally, I loved him, especially while he was in Minerva’s possession and started to speak English. I was really rooting for him throughout the whole book.

The ending though! The ending killed me. Like, what do you mean Artemis and Holly have been gone for three years?! And Artemis is an older brother?! What?!

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. The Lost Colony was good, but I didn’t care for the ending. The specifics of the saving of the demon island kind of confused me a little, especially with the whole time loop thing.

Bookshelf worthy? Still undecided, if anything guys just borrow them from your library.

Artemis Fowl Series Book #4: The Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer

In the last book, Artemis Fowl had been mind wiped after helping the People secure technology that could have endangered their existence. He has no memories whatsoever of faeries. The only thing he does know is that he woke up one morning with mirrored contact lenses in his eyes. He just doesn’t know why.

A few months later, the reason becomes clear as the People have need of his help again. Well, at least, Captain Holly Short of the L.E.P. does. A familiar foe from book 2 has decided that it’s time to take her revenge out on those that have betrayed her.

This book was fantastic. I mean, out of all the possible villains that Colfer could have brought back – in reality there were only two – I’m glad he chose Opal Koboi. I got the feeling in The Arctic Incident that her tale wasn’t over just yet. There was no way someone with that much intellect could have been taken down that easily. And don’t you know she wasn’t.

Holly Short’s character is still fantastic, and ass kicking. It was fun to see her become friends again with Artemis – and can I say that it was oddly weird for him to agree to help her out with the whole Opal thing before he got his memories back. Obviously, he must have subconsciously recognized her, right? As usual, Opal was mind boggling frustrating, but in a good way, and the new Commander of the LEP – Sool? – was a total ass hat. Kind of don’t blame Holly for quitting. I just wish she had hit him in the process.

Only two dislikes were the fact that Julius Root got killed off. I was just starting to like the guy! And I didn’t really care for the way Artemis got his memories back. He had to watch all the videos he recorded for himself, while Butler just had to hear his first name to remember everything. Then again, people’s minds are always different, aren’t they?

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Characters are still awesome. The plot was fantastic. I’m curious to see if Artemis can continue his nice guy streak or will the criminal part of him still show up every now and again?

Bookshelf worthy? I’m still undecided on this one.

Artemis Fowl and the Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer

Artemis Fowl is a young mastermind with a high IQ. He does the impossible and not only finds out about the People – faeries, leprechauns, dwarfs, etc. – but he captures one of them as well. Holly Short is a faerie who works for L.E.P. and who has the unfortunate circumstance of being captured by Fowl. Gold is exchanged and a tense friendship is formed between the two. In the second book, Holly even helps Artemis rescue his father from the Russian Mafia – in exchange for helping her with a goblin uprising.

In book 3, Artemis is up to his old tricks, one last time. His dad – now fully recovered from his two year capture - has decided that Fowl family who has been making millions due to a life of crime will now go straight. Artemis has one last job to do and that’s to put his new invention – the C Cube – on the market. But first he has to convince his biggest competitor to step down.

Things go horribly wrong. Butler – Artemis’s bodyguard – gets shot and killed and the C Cube winds up in Spiro’s hands. Through twists and turns that leave the reader on their seat, Artemis has to team up again with the People to steal back the Cube. But why are the people involved? Well, because the technology used in making the Cube were parts of their technology that can also pick up L.E.P. satellites making the Cube a threat to the People.

The thing that I love about Artemis Fowl is that he’s smart but not in that rub your face in it constantly sort of way. I also love how he’s transformed over the last two books and I was with Holly at the end of the book – wouldn’t the mind wipe regress that progress? From what I read of his diary in the epilogue it looks that way…

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Better than the last one, with more action and character development.

Bookshelf worthy? I used to own these, but donated them. But I don’t know the new covers are quite interesting I might go out and buy them again.