Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer

Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
Buy Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: This volume in the series introduces us to the demon world, put into self-exile centuries ago, and which must never return to the world of humans or Fairy, but which one by one is doing just that. The rollicking entertainment levels are attained yet again in the latest atventure to feature Artemis Fowl.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 400	Date: May 2007
Publisher: Puffin Books
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-0141320793
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Artemis Fowl, the best fourteen year old in the world when it comes to both interfering with and saving the very existence of the world of Fairy, has got it hard in this, his fourth full-length adventure.

He has a female rival, of similar age.

And he at last has puberty - affecting his brains, slowing his thought processes, diverting his attentions.

But the world of Fairy needs to call on the boy from Ireland they have hated to love and loved to hate before now to save them.

When the worlds of Fairy and humankind (or Mud Men as those below call us) separated, the demon island of Hybras was moved by the magical inhabitants to an elsewhen that has kept them safe for many a century. But now, the margins are breaking, and demons are reaching our known world - Barcelona, Sicily, etc.

The Fairy world must rely, as usual, on Foaly, the technologically masterminded police expert, and Holly Short, recently sacked as field agent to become a private eye, and their grudging use of Artemis Fowl's genius to keep demons happy - and away from everyone.

Now I know what Eoin Colfer has to go through to try and make this stuff sound convincing...

And convincing it all is - from the rather gruesome biology of the demon (which starts out as imp, like our sad hero Imp #1, who is the oldest and saddest imp, who just cannot find it within himself for some reason to transform into an angry, scaly, venomous demon) to the globe-trotting settings used (Malaysia is added to the European locales mentioned earlier, and Siberian wastes as seen in the second book in the series).

All the Artemis Fowl books are self-contained, but there are enough tiny clues at the beginning of this one to make you want to go back and read the rest. All the regular characters are back, like the heroic Butler - Artemis's superlative bodyguard, and Mulch Diggums, the disgusting dwarf with his unique brand of toilet humour - and toilet action.

The use of a school-aged boy with excellent skills in interacting with the unseen world is not alone in the book world, and indeed the gags about Artemis's hitting puberty in this volume might have been influenced by Harry Potter gossip. But although the Rowling books have broken all records, Fowl is still a huge hit - and deservedly so.

In fact, I got this very volume from the public libraries for my own reading when it was fresh in hardback, having read the rest - and now it's time for the paperback. There's something that appeals to the teenager in me - and there is an awful lot in the Fowl books to appeal to many teenagers.

There's the mix of technology with the fantasy species uses - did I mention Foaly is a centaur? There's the rivetting action, which is superbly paced throughout - although perhaps here the small jumps back in time to see events from a second viewpoint will confuse the less experienced reader. And there is the lavatorial Diggums, which is the only rankle I have ever had with the series from the parental viewpoint.

The cinematic scope of the cycle of stories is only added to here with the high action, time-bending finale. It's clearly not the last of the Fowl books we can expect. But for fans of the series everything's still the same - Artemis still has the upper edge on the Fairies who think they have him where they want him, the characters are still fully defined and well used, never doing anything they wouldn't, and the encrypted lines at the bottom of the page are still not worth the effort decoding.

For those new to the series, I can only recommend them - in any order, but of course preferrably from the beginning onwards. I'm twenty years older than the target audience, but to me and the more expected reader, Artemis Fowl is rollocking entertainment.

I would like to thank the publishers for sending this volume to the Bookbag.

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Reviews of other books by Eoin Colfer

Half Moon Investigations

Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel

Airman

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nada@ns7 said:

The first book was okay-ish; I LOVED Artemis but the story wasn't so great. I started to look into this book because Artemis hits pubery (yes!!) and possibly falls in love (YES!!) which is how it should've been from book 1. If the Artemis Fowl books take a turn in the romance direction- I'll worship Colfer. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna read this one and skip the others for now. But, seriously, a horomone crazed mastermind criminal genuis millionare that had better fall in love? With a name like Artemis Fowl? H*ll yes!

skywalker.dave said:

the last book ws pretty good. It displayed the concept of time travel in a nice way. But i definitely didnt like the ending...it just pained me to see an 18 year old artemis and also not the only son of his parents now. Even butlers become too emotional. Not ood. the story was catchy and i hung till the last page and after that i was lyk "was colfer drunk when he wrote the last page??"