Reviews Literature / Artemis Fowl

A Loss of Potential

Artemis Fowl started off really well. I loved it when I was younger. It was funny, it was entertaining, and it had very enjoyable characters. The plot twists weren't necessarily expected, but they made sense. It was refreshing.

Artemis was a great character. He was clever without everyone else being made stupid to elevate him. He was interesting because he was a criminal. While he did care about his family, he also legitimately enjoyed breaking the law because of the intellectual challenge it posed to him. That could have been a great thing to hold onto throughout the rest of the series, but for the most part, Artemis stopped being brilliant once he stopped being a villain.

As the books continued, they got more and more full of contradictions and the plots got progressively more bizarre. I'm inclined to be more forgiving about that when it comes to the Atlantis Complex than I am when it comes to either the Time Paradox or the Last Guardian because as ridiculous as the Atlantis Complex was, it was at least fun. The other two were just kind of dumb.

Another thing that bothered me was that in the later books, other characters that started off smart and interesting also got progressively less so. Foaly, Holly, Opal - they were all supposed to be smart in different ways. By the end, that was gone.

This series had so much potential, but it got thrown out the window. The first three books were really good. I even liked the fourth and the fifth. They were a little different, but they were still entertaining and the contradictions and character derailment hadn't hit full force yet. Then the last three took a good thing and removed pretty much everything I liked about it.