Artemis Fowl

Artemis Fowl

Artemis Fowl The Arctic Incident The Eternity Code The Opal Deception The Lost Colony The Time Paradox
Author	Eoin Colfer
Language	English
Genre	Young adult
Publisher	Viking Press
Published	2001—2008
Media type	Print (hardback and paperback)

Artemis Fowl is a series of fantasy novels written by Irish author Eoin Colfer, starring the teenage criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl II. The series is written in half-serious language, alternating dark moments with humorous ones, a style favoured by a number of popular children's authors.

Artemis, the main character, is a ruthless and extremely intelligent young criminal whose main goal is the acquisition of money through a variety of often illegal schemes (although his values change towards the 5th book). The author summed up the series as: "Die Hard with fairies."

There are six novels in the series; the first was published in 2001 and the sixth released in the United States on 15 July 2008. A film based on the series is also in development, although most details are unclear.

Main characters

Protagonists

• Artemis Fowl II, an Irish child prodigy and a ruthless master criminal, takes charge of rebuilding his family fortune following the disappearance of his father. In Artemis Fowl, the first book in the series, he kidnaps Captain Holly Short, a member of the reconnaissance unit of the fairy police force, LEPrecon. His objective is the gold which the fairy government has set aside to ransom captured officers. In spite of this introduction, Artemis later works with Holly to save their worlds from impending doom on several occasions, and little by little, his moral character and emotional disposition improve. Although Artemis is never fully described in the books, in that he is pale, cold, but charismatic. He is also known to have blue eyes and black hair (The Arctic Incident) and it can be inferred that his hair is a bit long, as when in The Opal Deception his hair gets wet he has to push it back from his eyes. On more than one occasion, his smile has been said to be like a vampire's. Despite his absent-minded personality, he is shown to be quite lonely on occasions. However, he displays romantic inclinations towards Holly in The Time Paradox (book six), when they both become adolescent again. His family's motto is Aurum Potestas est, meaning "Gold is Power".
• Domovoi Butler is Artemis' butler and bodyguard. He most often referred to as "Butler". The Butler family has served the Fowl family for generations, with a Butler being assigned to a new Fowl at birth. He has comprehensive knowledge of weapons and extensive training in martial arts, enough so as to be able to survive an encounter with a troll. The second book, The Arctic Incident, asserts that there are only two men on the planet better educated in various martial arts than Butler, and that he was related to one of them. In the third book, The Eternity Code, Butler is accidentally turned 15 years older in a healing process. Butler is more than what he seems and follows Artemis around the world on his adventures. He is also one of Artemis' few good friends. Domovoi is a house spirit in Slavic folklore and literally means "he of the house".

• Captain Holly Short, the only female LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance) officer so far, is more skilled and has more field experience than most of her fellow officers. Her talents are often under-appreciated because of her gender. Holly looks up to Julius Root, her LEP commander and something of a father figure, who has high expectations of her. Holly, who has an unwavering moral code, typically operates on intuition, rather than on protocol, a trait that often leads her into trouble. Artemis abducts her in the first book, and her tenacity and creative intellect help her to escape not only her cell, but Fowl Manor as well. Throughout the series Holly and Artemis understand each other on a very personal level, and consequently recognize each other as friends. In the sixth book, The Time Paradox, there are also romantic qualities related to her and Artemis, because when they go back in time, she is transformed into a fairy adolescent.

• Juliet Butler is Butler's younger sister, and until The Eternity Code (book three) is a bodyguard in training. The following quote from the third book describes Juliet's departure from the normal teenage girl's standard quite well: "For her eighteenth birthday she asked for, and received, a ribbed Judo crash vest, two weighted throwing knives and a World Wrestling Grudge Match video. At the age of eighteen, she could hit a moving target with any weapon you could care to name and she could throw most people a lot further than she trusted them." Juliet is introduced in the first book. She plays an important role in The Eternity Code, and is mentioned in The Lost Colony (book five).
• Foaly, a centaur, is the LEP's technological genius. He is paranoid about discovery by humans, choosing to wear tin-foil hats to protect his brain from the mind-probing rays he claims to believe are following him, although he knows they do not exist yet. He is also quite vain about his work and appearance. His inventions keep Holly one step ahead of the game. He has a tendency to make sarcastic remarks and his remarks cause him trouble on more than one occasion. He marries Caballine, a journalist, during Artemis and Holly's absence in book five, The Lost Colony, though it is not mentioned until book six. He and Mulch Diggums are friends, though whenever they meet they usually communicate largely through insults.
• Commander Julius Root of LEPrecon has the personality of an old soldier. He smokes noxious fungus cigars, and his short temper earns him the nickname "Beetroot". Julius follows protocols more closely than Holly, but driven by his concern for his subordinates and the fairy People he serves, he bends rules where necessary. He is murdered by Opal Koboi in The Opal Deception (book four). Holly Short is held responsible for his death until the end of the fourth book where Artemis, with the help of the People, clears her name. Holly deeply respects him, and up until his death he is a mentor as well as a father figure for her. He despises being called Julius.
• Mulch Diggums is a kleptomaniac dwarf with explosive flatulence. He is brought in by Commander Julius Root to break into the Fowl Manor in the first book, having already lost his magical abilities due to entering human dwellings without permission. Like all male dwarves, Mulch is adapted for tunneling, and his unhingeable jaw and accelerated digestion have proved vital on many of his criminal ventures. An amoral thief who loves luxury and cares little for the law or the environment the People hold dear, he nevertheless develops sentiments towards Julius, Holly, and Artemis, eventually risking his life on their behalf. At first he is a criminal, but later in the series his name is cleared by Artemis. More often than not, he is more or less dragged into helping Holly and the rest in their adventures.
• Minerva Paradizo debuts in The Lost Colony (book five). She is a second teenage criminal genius who captures the imp N^o1 and tries to present him as her project for the Nobel Prize in Stockholm. She is younger than Artemis and believes she can outsmart him when he tries to save the magical world from discovery. According to Butler at the end of The Lost Colony, she has developed feelings for Artemis.
• N°1 is a very powerful imp warlock who serves as Qwan's apprentice in The Lost Colony (book five). He helps to save Hybras, the lost colony of the title. Before that, however, N°1 gets involved with Artemis Fowl and is kidnapped by Minerva Paradizo. In The Time Paradox (book six), he transports Holly and Artemis through time so they can save Artemis' dying mother. He is incredibly powerful but still in training, meaning that while he often has the raw power for the job, he doesn't have the expertise.
• Qwan was the most powerful of the original seven fully-fledged warlocks who lifted Hybras out of time. The only warlock who survived in his petrified form, he brought Hybras back to the real world outside the Limbo with help from Artemis, Holly, N°1, and Qweffor (his apprentice who was believed to be deceased, but was actually trapped in N'zall, also known as Leon Abbot).

Antagonists

There is no obvious villain for the first book, as it is Artemis Fowl vs. the LEP; Fowl could himself be considered the villain or anti-hero, an unusual stance for a children's book. A minor villain is Briar Cudgeon, who attempts to kill Artemis, Butler, Juliet, and possibly Holly with a troll.

• Opal Koboi is a narcissistic pixie genius and the main antagonist of the series. She masterminded the Goblin uprising in The Arctic Incident but was defeated by Artemis with the help of Holly and the LEP. She returned in The Opal Deception, the collapse of her previous plan and her year long coma having reduced her to a paranoid madwoman bent on revenge. She also planned to mobilize humans and fairies in a cross-species war and conquer the world. In this book, she also murders Julius Root (see Heroes above). Opal made her vast fortune by forming "Koboi Laboratories" after bankrupting her father's company. Opal was a rival of Foaly, with whom she held a bitter grudge over her loss of a contest much earlier in their lives. At the end of The Opal Deception she is robbed of her powers and arrested. Her younger self returns in the sixth book, by traveling to her future (Artemis's present) to wreak havoc upon Artemis, seeking out Julius Junior, or Jayjay, the lemur he had travelled back in time to retrieve.
• Briar Cudgeon was a power hungry officer in the LEP driven by ambition and planning to ascend the Council. He was a centuries old friend of Julius Root but by the end of the original Artemis Fowl incident however he was found to be corrupt. After Foaly exposed him, Cudgeon attacked the centaur in a rage. Root incapacitated Cudgeon with a poisoned dart which reacted badly with the illegal brain enhancing chemicals he had been taking, leaving him physically deformed, partially robbed of his magical power and somewhat insane. He was also demoted to the rank of lieutenant. In Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident, consumed with rage and bitterness, he plans to get back at the LEP by allying himself with Opal Koboi in her plan to take over The Lower Elements. He co-headed the B'wa Kell rebellion but had plans of eliminating Opal rather than retaining her as his "empress", knowing that she would not be satisfied to share power. At the end of the rebellion, he was killed when he fell into a plasma conduit and was incinerated.
• Jon Spiro is the villain of Book III. A shady and powerful businessman from Chicago, he formed and headed the company Fission Chips which was backed by the Mob. Instead of paying Artemis off to withhold the C Cube from immediate market, he robbed Artemis of the mini-computer while ordering his bodyguard, Arno Blunt, to kill Artemis, critically injuring Butler in the process. Spiro captured Artemis when he could not crack its "Eternity Code" encryption, but ended up playing into Artemis and LEPrecon's plans to recover the C Cube which had been built from stolen fairy technology.
• Goblins are a species of fairies who have lizard-like bodies and can conjure fire. In spite of their incredible lack of intelligence, they have a highly competitive gang, B'wa Kell, which poses a threat to the tourists who stray into their paths. They become a threat in The Arctic Incident, with the aid of Opal and Cudgeon, who supplied the brainwaves of the revolution along with the weapons that would keep working when the LEP's went off line. They are incredibly unintelligent and rely mainly on instinct and brute strength, but they are also very dangerous.
• Leon Abbot is the villain of Book V. He is the self-proclaimed savior of the demons, who venerate him for bringing a bad romance novel and an old crossbow from the human world. He is believed to be the only demon to journey to leave Limbo and survive, though both N°1 and Qwan also survived the trip. He was the one who threw off the original time spell and his stunt caused him to absorb the warlock apprentice Qweffor, therefore granting him limited magic powers, including the mesmer, an ability similar to hypnosis. At the end of the Lost Colony, his conscience is implanted in the brain of a hamster.
  • In the book Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony, demons are arguably antagonists, but characters like N°1 and Qwan are ambivalent due to the aid they render to Artemis and all inhabitants of the Earth, magical or not and for the fact they are Warlocks. Demons are probably the second stupidest of the fairy races, next to the trolls, and are imps as children. Bloodlust causes an imp to warp into a demon. Warlocks do not warp.
• Billy Kong is the alias of Jonah Lee, a villain in Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony. He is a former bodyguard of Minerva Paradizo and betrays her when she chooses to postpone her research on demons. When Jonah was a child, his older brother Eric claimed to be a demon slayer to cover his illicit activities. When Eric was killed by a gang, Jonah thought that demons were responsible. Though his belief in demons waned over the years, it was revitalized when Minerva showed Billy that demons truly existed. This made him dangerously fanatical in his pursuit of demons and all fairies, which he believes are also demons.
• Ark Sool replaces Julius Root as the new Commander of the LEP. Foaly holds him in high contempt, and his distrust for Holly drove her to quit the LEP. He was fired as LEP Commander during the time when Holly and Artemis were at Hybras (the demon island, lifted out of time by the demon warlocks) in Book 5. He distrusts the LEP.
• Arno Blunt is Jon Spiro's bodyguard from Book III . Blunt attempted to shoot Artemis, instead shooting Butler, almost killing him. Artemis called upon Holly to save Butler, then Butler (with Foaly & Holly's help) tricks Blunt into giving a confession. He wears a cut off t-shirt and silver pirate earrings, and towards the middle of the book, ostentatious pairs of false teeth.
• Damon Kronski is the leader of the radical group, "the Extinctionists" in book VI. Artemis Fowl had sold him the silky sifika lemur, and he killed it as the "opening trial" at the Extinctionist banquet 8 years prior to the main time line. Artemis and Holly go back in time to rescue the lemur, but Holly is captured and sold to Kronski, who tries to prosecute her.

Minor characters

Humans

• Artemis Fowl I is the master criminal father of Artemis the Second. He loses his leg in an incident with a ship loaded with cola during his latest and last scheme in the Bay of Kola, Russia, where he was kidnapped and imprisoned for 2 years by the Russian Mafia. Artemis II was able to save his father at the end of the second book, during which Artemis I realizes his prior mistakes and starts to develop stronger morals, deciding to go legal.
• Angeline Fowl is the mother of Artemis the Second. She was driven to insanity after her husband, Artemis Fowl the First, went missing. LEPrecon Captain Holly Short restored Angeline's sanity as part of a deal with Artemis in Book I. The deal consisted of Artemis returning half of the ransom gold he received after Holly's kidnapping and Holly granting Artemis one "wish" which was apparently the returning of his mother to a normal state. In book VI, she is impersonated by Opal Koboi and pretends to have contracted a magical illness that was supposedly eradicated some time prior.
• Beckett Fowl is one of Artemis' two-year-old (as of Book VI) twin brothers. He was first mentioned, though not by name (only referred to as one of "the twins") at the end of Book V. Beckett is the more down to earth, fun loving, but still extremely intelligent one of Artemis' baby brothers. He also is known to have very strange tastes, such as espresso sachets and treacle-in the same cup.
• Myles Fowl is Artemis's little brother and also Beckett's twin brother. He was first mentioned, though not by name, at the end of Book V. Myles is shown to be the slightly more intelligent twin, having built a step ladder out of encyclopedias and potty trained himself at fourteen months. Myles is also known to call people (mainly his older brother, Artemis) "simple-toons".
• Giovanni Zito is a dedicated and rich environmentalist. He is chosen by Opal Koboi as her adopted parent in book IV which she uses to achieve her evil scheme to reveal the Lower Elements to the humans, and is mentioned very briefly in the 5th book, now a friend of Artemis'.
• Pex & Chips, are two of Spiro's henchmen. Their nicknames result from Pex's large pectorals, and Chips's liking of chips. Both lack intelligence.
• Aloysius "Loafers" McGuire, is a hit-man sent by Spiro to capture Artemis Fowl in Book III. He is later relocated by the fairies (after having his memory modified) to a Kenyan tribe to prevent further trouble.

Fairies

In the Artemis Fowl series, "fairy" is a generic term for all supernatural creatures.

• Trouble Kelp is first introduced as a LEP captain, and promoted to major somewhere between the third and fourth books. In The Time Paradox, it is revealed he is now a commander. At his manhood ceremony he officially changed his first name to Trouble. His little brother calls him "Trubs".
• Wing Commander Vinyáya is the head of Section Eight. A supporter of Julius Root, she offered Holly a job in the secretive Section Eight department in Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony. She was one of the first to believe that Holly did not kill Root in Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception. She was also Holly's flight instructor in the LEP academy. During the B'wa Kell uprising and attack on Police Plaza, she was the only council member not to retreat to the operations department; she demanded to be given an electric rifle and did not miss once.
• Corporal Grub Kelp is Trouble's younger brother who is a coward and often refers to his "Mummy." Later in the series, he is famous for issuing complaints about every flaw he happens to discover, whether real or imaginary.
• Chix Verbil is a sprite in the LEP whose life was saved by Captain Holly Short in Book II. He also lent his starter chip for his shuttle to Mulch Diggums in Book IV, in order to save Holly, somewhat reluctantly.
• Doctor Jerbal Argon is a psychiatrist in Book I and the owner of a medical clinic in Book IV.
• Doodah Day is an illegal fish marketing pixie. He took a great disliking toward Mulch, due to being swallowed up and cocooned inside slimy dwarf spittle. He was later granted amnesty. He worked as Mulch's PI partner during the time period when Holly and Artemis disappeared in Book V.
• Mervall "Merv" and Descant "Scant" Brill (referred to as the Brill Bros.) are the pixie twins that are accomplices to Opal Koboi in Book IV and Book VI. . Working as janitors of the medical institution at which Koboi was kept, they helped wake her from her self – induced coma, just as she had instructed prior to her "condition". They return in Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox as Opal's henchfairies eight years prior.

Books in the series

1. Artemis Fowl (novel) (2001)
2. Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident (2002)
3. Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (2003)
4. Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception (2005)
5. Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (2006)
6. Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox (2008)

Additional books

• "Artemis Fowl: The Seventh Dwarf" is a story written for World Book Day and is set between the first and second books.
• The Artemis Fowl Files (2004)
• Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel (2007)

Events

After the success of his London West End show, Eoin Colfer held a UK National Live Tour from 10-17 August 2008, entitled Fairies, Fiends and Flatulence.

Upcoming film

An Artemis Fowl movie has been confirmed by Eoin Colfer. In a recent AFC interview, Colfer stated that the screenplay was still being written, but pre-production was at a standstill because of the recently-ended WGA strike. He stated that it would be finished "two years after he died."

In an August 2008 interview, Colfer stated that "we are finished writing it, now we are just waiting for the green light."

In addition, at the 2008 Hay Festival Colfer stated that a dispute was being settled over whether the film should be a CGI production or shot in live-action, with Colfer apparently favouring the latter.

External links

• Official website
• Official UK website
• Eoin Colfer's website
• The Artemis Fowl Wiki
• Brazilian Site