Introduction Episode 7 Season 6 – Book 1 Artemis Fowl

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Episode 7 Season 6 – Artemis Fowl Book 1

By Andrea Menzies

This book is rated G for general audiences.

FH7 Book Reviews has doing book reviews in podcasts and blogs for years now. The focus tends to be on a comparison between books, and movies or other mediums like video games or music. It is amazing how much stories are changed when made into movies. Artemis Fowl is a story like that because the Disney movie changes many plot points of the books. Both have good points as we see in the review. Tune into the comment links and give the podcast a listen.

This book is rated G for readers of this restriction and is safe for under age readers. Special note, many of the entries on this blog are rated R and are NOT for listeners of all ages.

J.K. Rowling ruled the fiction world for so long. Who will be the next Fiction book best seller of fame? Many think the Artemis Fowl series is a good contender.

Fowl is a wealthy genius boy in both  book and movie versions of the story. However he is a much more troubled youth in the books as a first plot change. The movie plays up the angle that he is a wealthy super spy. He is sort of a child like James Bond hero. In the books he is a far more troubled youth with a missing dad, absent mom, and had only a body guard for company. The book series starts with him in therapy tricking his therapist. All the books show him as an anti-hero and NOT a super spy. The reasoning behind this choice was obvious: baby James Bond is easier to put on movie posters compared to a troubled youth.

A second plot change happens as Artemis Fowl discovers the magic realm. This book follows the ancient fiction recipe popular in Superman and continued into Harry Potter in the secret identity. The hero has a Clark Kent vs. Superman secret identity form as he discovers magic is real and he is part of it. Readers discover an alien Universe. Much like in the Harry Potter magic world normal “muggle” people don’t know magic is real Fowl finds an Underground magic world hiding itself from the non-magic people. The magic world hides itself from mortals to protect itself. There is magic, but there is also super science being hidden in addition to magic. The fairy people turn out to be aliens from another plant with much more high tech in comparison to humans, and this is being mistaken for magic in the books. Fairies, dwarfs, and other magic folk turn out to be aliens from another world, and their high tech is so much more advanced compared to human science that it has been mistaken for magic for years.

The next plot point is that Fowl’s father has gone missing, and his son Artemis suspects the mafia is to blame. In decoding hidden messages from dark web chat rooms he discovers something that is strange. There is more Underground beyond crime. He discovers magic users are real, live underground, and have a lot of gold. He decides to “borrow” gold from their world with tricks, He is sure massive money will help him find his father.

He kidnaps a fairy named Captain Holly of the LEPrecon Unit when she is careless. Humans have tried this before, but Fowl gets amazingly far with tricks and gimmicks before the magic Underground takes back its gold. They try to destroy his memories of the magic world, but he is so tricky they fail. In addition they feel sorry for Fowl as his sad story sways them to help him.

The Underground must have some contacts in the normal human world to survive, and they decide to let him be a tiny ally on their projects in exchange for his help. He fails on his gold quest, but in friendship he earns a far greater reward.

The fairies have healing powers. They heal Fowl’s ally Butler. They give Artemis a wish, and he uses it to heal his mother. They find they have common enemies, and agree to help.

The fairy and LEPrecon help is not as generous as it seems. Dark fairies and Goblins are using the resources of the mafia in the human world to finance an underground war. They need the Fowl family to help them defeat a Goblin uprising to capture the Underground world. In a massive plot coincidence the same human mafia that has kidnapped Artemis’s father is helping the Goblins. After many battles they get the father back, and he returns home.

The books are far better in comparison to the movie. The movie left it sort of unclear how Artemis found out about Captain Holly to kidnap her. The powers and the background of the dwarf Mulch were  completely confusing in movie format. Holly, Mulch, and the Underground world make far more sense in the slower more detailed book plot development. If you loved the wild adventure of the Harry Potter book kingdom this series is a door runner up for the fiction world crown.

Now onto reader e-mail questions….

“Is the movie available on Netflix for Disney + streaming?” I only found it on Disney streaming service.

“How many books are in the movie series?” The first 3 books are covered in the movie as Artemis does not get his father back until “The Eternity Code” book. This is 3 books into the series. However the book has far more plot the movie skips.

That is it for this week’s book review. Tune in next week for book recommendations.