Fowl And Fairy

Some days I absolutely love my e-books.  I can get a lot of my beloved books for cheap or free, so not only do I have a wonderful, physical copy on my shelf, but I can also carry a copy on my phone, e-reader, computer etc. so no matter what I want to read at any given moment I usually have access to it in some way shape or form.  This brings me to today's rambling on Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer.  I have read this book before, in fact a beautiful gold version of it sits on my shelf, but the other day in the car I got the urge to read it again, and wham, bam downloaded it for 99 cents and was ready to read it in minutes, ahhh got to love technology sometimes.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD

We start by being introduced to a stone-cold business man, complete with his own highly trained, and incredibly capable body guard/assistant.  This person proceeds to torture a being that turns out to be a sprite and bribes her into giving up The Book, which is essentially all the rules and history of The People (or fairies as we humans like to call them).  Much to our surprise it turns out that this ruthless person is none other than a 12 year old boy by the name of Artemis Fowl.  Artemis has procured the The Book as part of a scheme to obtain fairy gold to fund an expedition to find his missing father.  Meanwhile deep underground Holly Short a member of LEPrecon (get it Leprechaun?!? bwahahaha...sorry need to drink my coffee) is trying desperately not to be late to work.  She is the first female fairy to be assigned to the recon squad and has already run into trouble.  As she arrives Commander Root is waiting for her with his usual spate of insults and gruffness, as they are engaging in this oh so common repartee an alert comes for a troll heading towards a human

settlement.  Root asks Holly is she is running hot, if she has recently performed a ritual that replenish her magic.  Holly lies and says that she is and heads of to meet with Foaly, the geeky centaur who is in charge of technology for LEPrecon.  After supplying her with motorized wings and a high tech helmet, he shoots her to the surface of Italy where she is supposed to only observe and report the trolls doings, but when a child cries out for help, Holly takes it as an invitation to intervene.  By the time the chaos is finished, Root has become aware of Holly's lack of magic and sends her to replenish it by picking an acorn from a tree at one of the magic sites and planting it elsewhere.  Unfortunately for Holly, Artemis is also aware that fairies require this ritual and has been staking out the various sites.  He captures Holly, evading every trick she usually uses to distract humans by use of mirrored sunglasses and a tranquilizer dart.  Root and Foaly are made aware of the situation and move in to rescue there fellow agent.  Back at Fowl Manor right outside of Dublin, Artemis is making arrangements of his own, using The Book to gain knowledge of the People he has a plan all set into place.  It starts with putting his mother (who has mentally deteriorated since his fathers disappearance to the point she no longer recognizes her own son) into a deep sleep.  He then has Butler (his bodyguard) and Juliet (Butler's highly trained sister) put Holly in a fresh concrete cell.  Root and his forces arrive on the surface and put the whole manor under a time-stop, which gives them apx 8 hours to work before daylight.  Interesting note that this used to be achieved by eight wizards and could only be maintained until one of them became exhausted...or had to pee, usually only about 8 hours or so.  Foaly was able to mechanize the process, thus giving LEP a reliable time-stop tool.  Artemis uses Holly's helmet to rig up a camera that can see through the shielding of the fairies, thus taking away one of their biggest advantages.  After his knowledge has been demonstrated, Artemis meets with Root to state his demands, a mere ton of fairy gold in small ingots.  Meanwhile Holly has found the acorn she had managed to get from the magic site before her abduction and is busy using her bed to break through the floor and plant her seed, this fills her up with magic and enables her to escape her cell.

Unfortunately Artemis was smart enough to tell her not to leave the house, and since fairy rules state you must obey a human in their own home she is stuck inside.  Back with the LEPrecon team, Root has acquired the services of a rouge dwarf by the name of Mulch.  Mulch has forfieted his magic as he regularly uses his inherent tunneling skills to relieve the Mud People (what fairies call humans) of their possessions.  Mulch tunnels into the Manor and discovers Artemis's copy of The Book, finally giving the recon team piece of the puzzle of how he knew so much about them.  This also leads to a bigger problem of what to do with him as it is forbidden for any Mud People/The People interaction to be known.  They decide that the only way for this to end well is to give Artemis what he wants, rescue Holly and then blue-rinse the Manor.  Blue-rinse is a process that kills all organic life in a very defined radius, but leaves everything else untouched, brutal but effective.  What they don't know is that this plays right into Artemis's hands as he knows a way to beat the time-field.  The gold is brought in and Holly makes an exchange with Artemis for half the gold back and with a heavy heart goes to rejoin her team.  Artemis makes Butler, Juliet and himself go to sleep with the aid of his mothers sleeping pills, which effectively takes them out of the time field and safe from the blue-rinse.  This makes it so Artemis "wins" and by fairy rules he gets to keep the gold and by giving back half to Holly, his mother is healed as well.  Holly, Root and Foaly go back below and they all move on to the sequel.

I love this book for so many happy reasons.  First off it is a pretty quick read, I can usually finish it in a day or two.  The pacing is pretty good, with the action happening a fairly quick clip.  There is wit and humor and even though it is a middle grade book it never feels like it was dumbed down.  I love that the main "bad guy" was a 12 year old boy, who devious as he is, essentially just wants his family whole again.  I think my favorite part is the mix of technology and magic that is employed by The People.  Just like humans they have learned to utilize technology to enhance or replace their natural abilities.  I love that even with these advances they are still bound by their own ancient rules.  Characters in this book are all well plotted with even the random side characters getting some page time.  Pretty much everything is explained in a fairly realistic manner, considering we are dealing with 12 year old geniuses with unlimited funds, 700 year old fairy commanders, super geeky centaurs and a dirt metabolizing dwarf. The only downside to the ebook is that it is missing the cool cipher code that is in the hard copy, this is a fun little extra, but not necessary for the enjoyment of the story.  This is a great book for reluctant readers, or one to read out loud with the family.  There is a lot to talk about and little to no objectionable material.  I would pretty much recommend it to anybody.  I give it 8 out of 10 red gummy bears (those are my favorite).
What do you think of fairy technology?  How awesome would it be to be able to get your hands on The Book?  How would you use your own personal Butler?