What better way to spice up a series than to throw in a new species and add a love interest? I can’t think of any! (This is only said with partial sarcasm and disdain.)
There are a couple of reasons I have to love this novel, 1) it involves time travel; 2) it’s called The Lost Colony and growing up in North Carolina we learn all about Roanoke and the lost colony; 3) it truly highlights how this series is a coming of age series; and 4) Artemis gets his butt handed to him socially in this novel (more so than usual) and I can identify with that awkwardness.
I’m not sure if Colfer was running out of ideas for this novel, but it seemed a bit strung together, but ultimately is one of the best novels. The novel begins with Artemis and Butler attempting to track down an anomalous demon appearance, which isn’t all that much of an anomaly. The ancient Warlocks of Hybras suspended the colony outside of time thousands of years ago and the time spell is slowly weakening and sending bits of the island back to the current time and the current planet (Demons have an affinity for the moon).
As readers begin the fourth book of the Artemis Fowl series we are in essence starting over again from Artemis’ perspective. After the mind wipe at the end of The Eternity Code I can imagine readers not knowing whether the series would continue. I hope that when Colfer wrote the book he actually questioned whether there would be additional adventures. As we begin this novel in the series, we wouldn’t know who would or would not appear with half the main cast receiving memory wipes and the other half forbidden to approach them.
So how should I begin this review? I’m already another book past this review (as I said in the last one) and I’ve managed to stay mostly off topic for the last reviews and I will do so again at least for the first part of this review.
I struggled to limit my non-‘review’ commentary on the last book and luckily this is a pretty long series so I get to stretch it out over quite a few books.
Although I’ve read this before I’m still counting it as a book I’ve read this year. I should probably only count it as a half, because it is a young adult novel and I should be challenging myself, but that would be completely undermining some of the brilliant Young Adult fiction that is currently out there. Although a lot of times the novels are formulaic and sometimes tedious in their making sure the reader understands the plot lines and characters, I just have to remind myself they’re written for a younger audience.