Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex

Nearly done with the Artemis Fowl series. Not sure how I feel about that, actually. It's been a good series, despite how I felt about the choppy writing in the first two books.

The Atlantis Complex is the seventh book in Eoin Colfer's series. It has a rather different tone from the previous books, but I found it just as funny and poignant. I think it is different because Artemis is trapped inside his own head for part of the story, causing an alternate personality to come to the surface. More on that in a moment.

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The late Commander Julius Root's twisted and villainous brother, Turnball Root, is planning a break out of The Deeps, the maximum security prison in Atlantis. Of course, no one but his guard knows this, and that's because he's got a rune spell on him. Meanwhile, Artemis is slowly descending into madness, becoming obsessive about numbers (the number five is good and the number four is bad), and trying desperately to leave his criminal past behind. He has this plan to save the ice caps, dubbed The Project. He calls his friends to Iceland so he can show them his plan. Captain Holly Short, Commander Vinyaya, and Foaly all show up. Unfortunately, things go very badly wrong. A Mars probe that Foaly himself designed has come hurtling towards Iceland. As they scramble to save themselves, Artemis' Project, and figure out what is going on, the probe crashes, killing Vinyaya and injuring the other three. Holly has to shoot (well, more like stun) Artemis to knock him out so that he doesn't do anything stupid, but that causes another problem when he awakes.

Artemis Fowl II is gone, replace by Orion Fowl, a very romantic hero-type alter ego that insists on professing his most ardent love to Captain Holly Short. To her credit, Holly takes it rather gracefully. Or at least without punching him too many times. Many reviewers on GoodReads said that this book sucked and Orion was one of the reasons why, but honestly I thought he was hilarious. And when we get to see Artemis trapped in his own mind rolling his eyes over what his alter ego is saying, it's just great.

So, the probe crashed through the ice and it headed deep into the Atlantic Ocean straight for the city of Atlantis. Turnball Root had this all planned out, of course. He even distracted Butler and his sister Juliet. But there, Mulch Diggums saves the day.

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A rather convoluted plot, yes, and certainly not the best in the series. But hilarious and enjoyable, nonetheless. I gave it four stars. I'm sad to see the series at its end. I'm in the middle of The Last Guardian right now, which I know I'm going to love and hate since I know what happens. Oh dear.

I don't know what to read next!!