he's one of us, I just know it
incredibly long Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex thoughts below:
Well, I just finished reading the ridiculously long-awaited (I started getting excited for it in February) book, Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex. It totally lived up to my expectations. I don't know what happened, maybe writing And Another Thing built up Eoin Colfer's comedy muscles, but TAC was hilarious. The Artemis Fowl series has always contained a certain amount of dry wit, but nothing like the kind of situational comedy that was built into one of the major conflicts of the book: Artemis Fowl behaving utterly unlike his usual self. There are going to be massive spoilers ahead for the book, so if there is actually anyone reading this who cares about that sort of thing, stop now.
Anyways, funny, funny book. The drawn out 'bivouac' gag never stopped being funny. Nor did Artemis' alter-ego's growing fantasy-novel driven insanity, for two reasons. The first was that the image of the Artemis we know and love acting like an idiot in an Arthurian legend was comical in the extreme, and the second was that it further solidified my certainty that Eoin Colfer reads fanfiction of the AF series, and enjoys it.
Let me explain. I think that sometime around when the fourth book came out, Eoin Colfer logged on to fanfiction.net and started reading stories, and decided well, my fans clearly love these sets of ideas, so why don't I give them what they want. So he starts playing around with some of the most common themes or tropes that appear in fanfiction for his stories. In The Lost Colony, he introduces Minerva, a snappy French girl with striking good looks and blond hair, the only girl in all the world to match Artemis Fowl for his intellect. In other words, a bit of a Mary-Sue. But in a good way. I loved Minerva, I thought she was an awesome plot device and both a worthy foe and quite funny. I don't think she and Artemis could ever have worked as a couple, but I also think that Eoin Colfer did that on purpose, as an affectionate send up of all the too perfect author stand-ins from fics that save the day, look fabulous, and get the boy genius at the end.
Next book, along with time travel, he tackles another popular part of the fandom- Holly/Artemis shipping. We get Holly acting completely out of character (with a valid in-plot explanation of course), and acting like a hormone-driven, blushing teenager around Artemis. We even get to see them kiss. And, of course, we also get to see Holly rationalize away the attraction, and the rest of the book serves to remind us of just how awesome they are as best friends, saving the world (or in this case, Artemis' mother), from danger.
But in The Atlantis Complex is where the fun really starts, because he's throwing not just one fic trope in there, but a whole bunch. First, the early rumors, and the first chapter released ahead of time made the book seem like it might end up smacking a bit of Hurt/Comfort fic. Artemis finds himself no loner able to depend on the one thing he has always trusted: his own mind. Handicapped by paranoia, a loss of control, and fear of his oncoming madness, he is forced to depend instead on others to support and heal him. Sounds like Hurt/Comfort fic to me. Of course, the book turns out to have a lot more than just that going on. (Thank goodness.)
There's yet more lampooning of the Holly/Artemis ship, with the appearance of Orion, whose behavior is hilarious on its own, as I said, but even funnier if you look at it from the fanfiction perspective. Because one extremely common flaw of poorly written Artemis/Holly fics is that the author turns Artemis from a socially awkward, emotionally stunted, intellectually driven genius into the sort of boy who writes romantic notes (and occasionally poems), who gives Holly pet names, and asks her questions like: "Holly, how can you tell if you are in love with someone? Because guess what, I love you!"
And Orion does quite a lot of that, and more. He quotes poetry, is determined to rush in and save everyone himself, and is continuously so outrageously not Artemis that not only does he throw the other characters for a loop, but horrifies Artemis himself.
And then Eoin throws a bunch more stuff at us- we have nods to two more obscure ships- Holly/Juliet and Holly/Trouble, with mentions of Holly going on a date with Trubs. And then there's the moment Holly shoves her hand down the front of Juliet's leotard. Fun for the whole family. There's that conversation between Artemis and his mother, in which she tricks him into agreeing to dress in a slogan-bearing t-shirt and jeans, an outfit that fanfiction author have been thrusting him into on the barest of pretexts for a long, long time. On the other hand, this tends to happen to any character who in canon always dresses formally- there is a kind of automatic compulsion on the part of the fandom to get them in something comfortable and then take their shirts off. At least the Artemis Fowl fandom is not alone in this.
But what made the book really wonderful was that in amongst all the humor was an incredibly powerful storyline- I found Turnball Root to be the first truly sympathetic villain of the series. (Artemis doesn't count). There were a lot of ideas about love woven through this book- Butler's determination to drop everything to rush to the aid of his sister, Angeline's continuous worry for her son's safety, Orion's over the top declarations of undying affection for Holly, and Turnball's slightly twisted (okay, controlling, rune-powered, and obsessive) love for the wife who he would never allow to leave him. He was the first villain of the series with a motivation for his crimes that was not solely driven by money or power. His first act upon escaping was not to reestablish his underworld contacts but to reunite with his wife, doing everything he could to keep her alive and with him. Yes, he wanted that life of luxury and freedom, but when the choice came between surviving to be imprisoned and plotting another escape or dying with his wife, he chose death.
So yeah, I loved the book. When's the next one coming out?
Well, I just finished reading the ridiculously long-awaited (I started getting excited for it in February) book, Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex. It totally lived up to my expectations. I don't know what happened, maybe writing And Another Thing built up Eoin Colfer's comedy muscles, but TAC was hilarious. The Artemis Fowl series has always contained a certain amount of dry wit, but nothing like the kind of situational comedy that was built into one of the major conflicts of the book: Artemis Fowl behaving utterly unlike his usual self. There are going to be massive spoilers ahead for the book, so if there is actually anyone reading this who cares about that sort of thing, stop now.
Anyways, funny, funny book. The drawn out 'bivouac' gag never stopped being funny. Nor did Artemis' alter-ego's growing fantasy-novel driven insanity, for two reasons. The first was that the image of the Artemis we know and love acting like an idiot in an Arthurian legend was comical in the extreme, and the second was that it further solidified my certainty that Eoin Colfer reads fanfiction of the AF series, and enjoys it.
Let me explain. I think that sometime around when the fourth book came out, Eoin Colfer logged on to fanfiction.net and started reading stories, and decided well, my fans clearly love these sets of ideas, so why don't I give them what they want. So he starts playing around with some of the most common themes or tropes that appear in fanfiction for his stories. In The Lost Colony, he introduces Minerva, a snappy French girl with striking good looks and blond hair, the only girl in all the world to match Artemis Fowl for his intellect. In other words, a bit of a Mary-Sue. But in a good way. I loved Minerva, I thought she was an awesome plot device and both a worthy foe and quite funny. I don't think she and Artemis could ever have worked as a couple, but I also think that Eoin Colfer did that on purpose, as an affectionate send up of all the too perfect author stand-ins from fics that save the day, look fabulous, and get the boy genius at the end.
Next book, along with time travel, he tackles another popular part of the fandom- Holly/Artemis shipping. We get Holly acting completely out of character (with a valid in-plot explanation of course), and acting like a hormone-driven, blushing teenager around Artemis. We even get to see them kiss. And, of course, we also get to see Holly rationalize away the attraction, and the rest of the book serves to remind us of just how awesome they are as best friends, saving the world (or in this case, Artemis' mother), from danger.
But in The Atlantis Complex is where the fun really starts, because he's throwing not just one fic trope in there, but a whole bunch. First, the early rumors, and the first chapter released ahead of time made the book seem like it might end up smacking a bit of Hurt/Comfort fic. Artemis finds himself no loner able to depend on the one thing he has always trusted: his own mind. Handicapped by paranoia, a loss of control, and fear of his oncoming madness, he is forced to depend instead on others to support and heal him. Sounds like Hurt/Comfort fic to me. Of course, the book turns out to have a lot more than just that going on. (Thank goodness.)
There's yet more lampooning of the Holly/Artemis ship, with the appearance of Orion, whose behavior is hilarious on its own, as I said, but even funnier if you look at it from the fanfiction perspective. Because one extremely common flaw of poorly written Artemis/Holly fics is that the author turns Artemis from a socially awkward, emotionally stunted, intellectually driven genius into the sort of boy who writes romantic notes (and occasionally poems), who gives Holly pet names, and asks her questions like: "Holly, how can you tell if you are in love with someone? Because guess what, I love you!"
And Orion does quite a lot of that, and more. He quotes poetry, is determined to rush in and save everyone himself, and is continuously so outrageously not Artemis that not only does he throw the other characters for a loop, but horrifies Artemis himself.
And then Eoin throws a bunch more stuff at us- we have nods to two more obscure ships- Holly/Juliet and Holly/Trouble, with mentions of Holly going on a date with Trubs. And then there's the moment Holly shoves her hand down the front of Juliet's leotard. Fun for the whole family. There's that conversation between Artemis and his mother, in which she tricks him into agreeing to dress in a slogan-bearing t-shirt and jeans, an outfit that fanfiction author have been thrusting him into on the barest of pretexts for a long, long time. On the other hand, this tends to happen to any character who in canon always dresses formally- there is a kind of automatic compulsion on the part of the fandom to get them in something comfortable and then take their shirts off. At least the Artemis Fowl fandom is not alone in this.
But what made the book really wonderful was that in amongst all the humor was an incredibly powerful storyline- I found Turnball Root to be the first truly sympathetic villain of the series. (Artemis doesn't count). There were a lot of ideas about love woven through this book- Butler's determination to drop everything to rush to the aid of his sister, Angeline's continuous worry for her son's safety, Orion's over the top declarations of undying affection for Holly, and Turnball's slightly twisted (okay, controlling, rune-powered, and obsessive) love for the wife who he would never allow to leave him. He was the first villain of the series with a motivation for his crimes that was not solely driven by money or power. His first act upon escaping was not to reestablish his underworld contacts but to reunite with his wife, doing everything he could to keep her alive and with him. Yes, he wanted that life of luxury and freedom, but when the choice came between surviving to be imprisoned and plotting another escape or dying with his wife, he chose death.
So yeah, I loved the book. When's the next one coming out?