Artemis Fowl

"Artemis Fowl" redirects here; for the first novel in the series, see Artemis Fowl (novel), for the character of the same name see Artemis Fowl II, for his father see Artemis Fowl I.

Artemis Fowl

File:JacketArtemisLRG.jpg Cover of the first book in the series, Artemis Fowl (UK second edition).
Author	Eoin Colfer
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy
Publisher	Viking Press
Publication date	2001
Publication place	Ireland
Media type	Print (Hardback & 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 favored by a number of popular children's authors, including J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter) and Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

Artemis, the main character, is a ruthless and extremely intelligent young criminal whose main goal is the acquisition of money through a variety of 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 July 15, 2008. A film based on the series is also in development, although the release date is unclear.

Main characters

• Artemis Fowl II, is a child prodigy who utilises his mental and material resources towards crimes for financial gain. A year after his father's disappearance, Artemis has taken charge of rebuilding the family fortune, and put his plans into action by kidnapping LEPrecon captain Holly Short in order to gain gold which the fairy government has set aside as a ransom for any captured officer. In spite of this beginning, 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 improves. Most readers, although Artemis is never fully described in the books, think that he is mysteriously handsome, in that he is pale, cold, but charismatic. On more than one occasion, he has been likened unfavorably to vampires. Despite his aloof personalty, he has shown to be quite lonely on occasions.
• Domovoi Butler, is Artemis's butler and bodyguard. The Butler family has served the Fowl family for generations with a Butler being assigned to a new Fowl at birth. He has a comprehensive knowledge of numerous weapons and extensive training in martial arts, enough so to be able to survive an encounter with a troll. In the second book, The Arctic Incident, it states that there were only two men on the planet better educated in the various martial arts than Butler, and he was related to one of them. Butler is more than what he seems and follows Artemis around the world on his adventures. He is also one of Artemis's few friends.
• Juliet Butler is Butler's 'baby sister' and was, until Book III, a bodyguard in training. The following quote from the third book seems to describe 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."
• Captain Holly Short is the only female LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance) officer so far. She is skilled and has more field experience than most of her fellow officers. While Holly shares Opal Koboi's misfortunes of having her talents derided due to her gender, Holly had the guidance of Julius Root, her father figure who expected more of her, in contrast to Opal's father, who didn't. Holly has a strong sense of morals and usually works based on intuition rather than protocol, a quality that often gets her into trouble. She was captured by Artemis in the first book but her ability to take advantage of what she has, helped her escape her cell if not the Fowl Manor. Throughout the series Holly and Artemis come to understand each other better and eventually recognize each other as friends.
• Foaly, the lone centaur in Holly's department, 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 have yet to be invented. 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 have saved Holly more than once.
• Commander Julius Root of the LEPrecon had the personality of an old soldier, and is a father-like mentor to Holly Short and many others who he had supervised. He had the habit of smoking noxious fungus cigars, and a short temper had earned him the nickname of "Beetroot". Julius follows protocols more closely than Holly, but is driven by his concern for his subordinate and The People he serves, he 'bends rules' where necessary. He is murdered by Opal Koboi in the fourth book. 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.
• Mulch Diggums is a kleptomaniacal dwarf with explosive flatulence. He was brought in by Commander Julius Root to break into Fowl manor in the first book, having already lost his magical abilities due to entering human dwellings without invitations. Like all male dwarves, Mulch is adapted for tunnelling, 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, people that he had chose to risk his life to avenge and save, albeit grudgingly.
• Minerva Paradizo debuts in The Lost Colony. 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 award in Stockholm. She is younger than Artemis and believes she can outsmart him when he tries to save the magical world from discovery. However, it is implied that Artemis has a slight advantage in intelligence, as he was easily able to trick and ruin her plans to expose the demons. According to Butler at the end of book five, she has developed feelings for Artemis.
• N°1, a very powerful imp warlock (Qwan's apprentice as of Book V) who helps to save Hybras. Before saving Hybras, however, he gets involved with Artemis Fowl, and is kidnapped by Minerva Paradizo.
• Qwan was the most powerful of the original seven full-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 actually trapped in N'zall (a.k.a. Leon Abbot).

Villains

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 and/or injure Artemis, Butler and Juliet with a troll.

• Briar Cudgeon was an officer driven by ambition, and was once a centuries long friend of Julius and was planning his way up into the council. By the end of the original Artemis Fowl incident, however, Cudgeon was disgraced, demoted and deformed physically and mentally when the dart Julius shot him with reacted badly with the illegal brain enhancing chemicals he had been taking. In Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident, he co-headed the B'wa Kell rebellion, where Opal had presented him as a leader of their new world, but he had boisterous plans of eliminating her rather than retain her as 'his princess', knowing that she would not be satisfied to remain at the side of power. At the end of the rebellion, he was killed when he was splashed with plasma from an opened conduit, causing severe burns.
• Opal Koboi was the mastermind behind the Goblin uprising in The Arctic Incident, but by The Opal Deception, the collapse of her previous plan and her year long coma had reduced her to a paranoid pixie bent only on revenge. Opal had formed "Koboi Labs" after bankrupting the company of her father, who had expected little of her, and drove him into insanity. Opal was a rival of Foaly, with whom she held a bitter grudge over her loss of a contest much earlier in their lives. Opal can be compared to what Artemis was - a young genius with extreme ambition who had created and succeeded with outrageously risky plans. While she escaped the LEP while disguised as a human (through surgical changes to her pointed ears and the addition of a human pituitary gland for added height), she lost her magic in return and spent several weeks working on a vinyard. She was eventually located by a LEPrecon team and arrested. She also returns in the sixth book to wreak havoc upon Artemis' future.
• 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 with-hold the C-Cube from immediate market, he instead robbed Artemis of the mini-computer while 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. He has a bodyguard named Arno Blunt.
• 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 does pose some 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 goes off line.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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, young 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 sacked 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 V.

Minor characters

Humans

• Artemis Fowl I is the father of Artemis the Second and lost 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 Mafiya. Artemis II was able to save his father at the end of the second book, during which Artemis I realizes his prior mistakes and he becomes a nicer person.

• 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 by making 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.

• Arno Blunt is Jon Spiro's bodyguard. He wears a cut off t-shirt and silver pirate earrings. He is captured and imprisoned in Book III.

• The Fowl twins, Myles and Beckett, to whom Artemis becomes an older brother after his ordeal in Hybras (mentioned very briefly in the end of the 5th book).

• 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 and is mentioned very briefly in the 5th book.

• Pex & Chips, Some of Spiro's "henchmen". Their nicknames result from Pex's large pectorals, and Chips's liking of chips. Both "strongly" lack intelligence.

• Loafers McGuire, a man sent by Spiro to capture Artemis Fowl in Book III. He is later relocated by the fairies (after having his memory modified to prevent trouble) to a Kenyan tribe in order to prevent future trouble.

Fairies

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

• Trouble Kelp is an LEP major, who appears to be a good friend of Holly. His younger brother gave him the nickname "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 and said that Holly "could fly a pod through the gap in your teeth". 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 didn't miss once.
• Corporal Grub Kelp is Trouble's younger brother who is a coward and often refers to his "Mummy."
• 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 but understandably so.
• 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 fairy twins that are accomplices to Opal Koboi. 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".

Dwarves

In a rather more creative reworking, the Artemis Fowl series' dwarves act as a sort of earthworm, tunnelling through soil and loose rocks and getting nutrition thereby, excreting it just as fast as they eat it except when they need to build up pressure to break through a layer of solid rock. They are short, round, and hairy, have large tombstone teeth, unhingible jaws, sensitive beard hair, suction-cup-like pores, luminous and hardening spit, and are incredibly foul smelling. They are sensitive, intelligent, and have tendencies for being criminals. The most famous one is Mulch Diggums. Dwarves are also known for loving gold and gems, tunnelling, and the dark. They are very sensitive to the sun and can burn in mere minutes. It has been shown in Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code that dwarves are afraid of heights.

Books in the series

1. Artemis Fowl
2. Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident
3. Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code
4. Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception
5. Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony
6. Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox (Available 7 August 2008 for UK)

Additional books

• Artemis Fowl: The Seventh Dwarf is a special mini book (written for world book day) set between the first and second books.
• The Artemis Fowl Files
• Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel

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.

Colfer stated at a book signing in 2006 that he would be writing the screenplay, admitting (with a little annoyance) that after the company searched for five years for a writer, they finally asked him.

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 favoring the latter.

External links

• Official website
• Eoin Colfer's website
• Artemis Fowl Confidential, fansite
• The Artemis Fowl Wiki