Well color me suitably impressed. Or as impressed as I can get with a young adult novel that is also the finale of a series. Artemis Fowl has been up and down, but the end is definitely up, for which I am immensely happy.
I’m still salty about The Atlantis Complex. Like, literally the dumbest mental illness/plot point. Pretty much waved away here at the beginning. Also not very happy to see Dr. Jerbil Argon back. Just… ugh. Didn’t like him in The Opal Deception, still don’t like him here. Luckily, it’s only in order to assure everyone that Artemis is indeed cured of the annoying plot device so he can continue on being the hero.
I was very glad to have Opal back in the villain chair. There was no way she was going to be locked in that Atlantis prison for the rest of the series. I am a tad torn as to the way she managed to escape, but that’s the version of me that is more into alternate timelines than exploding universes. That said, I did wonder how they were going to deal with two Opals in the same time and it was handled as best as one could hope. I’m also glad the Opal clone, Nopal, was dealt with. I’d honestly forgotten Nopal existed, so it was a bit of a surprise when she showed back up.
The way Colfer did Berserkers was interesting. Very few fantasy authors that I’ve read treat Berserkers as anything more than rage machines, so to see them more as a military unit was pleasant. It was also interesting to see how the Berserkers had to overcome the difficulty of disparate hosts. I liked it. It was amusing at times. Also, ya know, always fun to have that mind-controlled loved-ones trope show up.
I even enjoyed the aside focused on Foaly and Caballine. At the beginning of that, I was sure I was going to be annoyed with it, as the action had been following Artemis, Holly, and Butler up to that point. However, it was actually nice to have a little break from them to follow Foaly around and actually get to know Caballine a bit. I liked her a lot.
The story as a whole was mostly paced well. There were points where I was rolling my eyes a bit, but not enough to completely break my immersion. Everyone was also in character, which was very nice. Also, no mention of the Holly/Artemis romance. Good riddance. I don't think it's strictly necessary to have your male and female leads be in some kind of romantic relationship. It's often shoehorned in, as it was here. Getting rid of it in favor of the platonic relationship is much better and definitely more valid for these characters.
There is a point at which the world basically explodes. It’s more of a technology explodes kind of deal. For everyone, humans and fairies alike. Colfer is apparently convinced humans would have been rocked back to the stone age by this. He says as much. I disagree. I think there’s enough non-tech and tech that was developed before the five year cutoff that we would by no means be back in the stone age. Back to the 90s, maybe, but definitely not stone age. Also, have a very big beef with how he says humanity recovered from this catastrophe. Like, it’s nice to think we’d go all solar and wind powered, but we were mostly gas powered before any of the tech got going. Doubt we’d bounce back in environmentally friendly ways, to be honest. I don’t have that much faith in humanity. But hey, it’s Colfer’s universe.
I’m also honestly not sure how much more I can say without spoiling things. Part of the fun is the play-by-play of the adventure. I am glad it ended as it did, though I’m a tad tired of sacrifices being undone. That’s definitely all I’ll say on that, though, as giving away the ending is definitely a spoiler. Anyway, I am very, very glad the series ended on a high note.
In Other News
I will be doing a Series Overview for Artemis Fowl, but it will probably take me a little while to do so. This post will also be the last of my daily posts for a good long while. I've been posting all my reviews for 2022 (and 2021 due to when I started The Women of the Otherworld/The Otherworld) and we're now all caught up. All subsequent reviews will be posted when I finish reading and/or watching whatever I'll be reviewing.
As a rather personal side note: Please, please, please be patient, polite, and flexible when dealing with your service professionals, no matter which service they're providing you. We're all overworked and understaffed and would really appreciate some understanding on the part of the consumer. We're also STILL dealing with product shortages and variable product availability, so please keep that in mind.
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