Artemis Fowl

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Artemis Fowl is a novel series by the Irish author Eoin Colfer consisting of eight parts, which can be assigned to the fantasy / science fiction genre. The books were published in English and German from 2001 , with the German translation of the books being by Claudia Feldmann. In 2004 the third volume, Artemis Fowl - The Secret Code , received the German Book Prize . The book series has been sold 25 million times worldwide and has been translated into 44 languages.

The books

The first volume brought Eoin Colfer's international breakthrough as a youth book author , probably also because the book has one or the other parallel to Harry Potter . According to the author, this is a coincidence because he did not even know Harry Potter when he wrote Artemis Fowl. The series has typical fantasy elements. This includes a side world unknown to most people, populated by various known mythical creatures - such as dwarfs , elves or centaurs . The detailed description of the technology developed by the earth people also gives the novel a science fiction aspect. In addition, the sometimes extensive action scenes are noticeable.

So far, eight volumes belonging to the cycle have been published between 2001 and 2012. The author stated that the eighth book will be the last in a row.

In 2004 the additional volume The Artemis Fowl Files was also published . It was published in November 2006 under the title Artemis Fowl - The Files also in German and contains two short stories about the main characters of the novel series, additional information and some interviews with the author and characters from the novel. Among other things, the short story is here Artemis Fowl: The Seventh Dwarf ( The seventh dwarf ) published specifically for the 2004 World Book and Copyright Day ( World Book and Copyright Day was written 23 April).

In September 2008, a published comic - adaptation of the artist Andrew Donkin when Carlsen Verlag in German.

action

prehistory

Artemis Fowl has been the head of the Fowls, an ancient Irish criminal dynasty , and their manor near Dublin , Fowl Manor , since his father's disappearance . Artemis Fowl Sr. was pronounced dead after his disappearance without a trace in a deal with the Russian mafia. Artemis' mother, Angeline Fowl, has been suffering from hallucinations since her husband's disappearance and is no longer responsive, which is why Artemis junior now has to manage the ailing family finances. Other residents of Fowl Manor are Artemis' bodyguard Domovoi Butler and his sister Juliet Butler. At the beginning of the first volume, Artemis is urgently looking for new sources of money.

Under the earth, with the Erdvolk, whose existence Artemis only recognized at the beginning of the first book, the elf Holly Short was appointed a captain of the Central Underground Police (ZUP), something that her mentor, the ZUP-Commander Julius Root, tended to do with Upset was recorded. The first modern encounter between humans and earth people takes place when Artemis kidnaps Holly during a ZUP surface operation and demands ransom from the earth people. An enmity develops between Artemis and Holly, but it gradually turns into a friendship.

Volume 1: Artemis Fowl

Although Artemis Fowl, the son of an Irish crook family, is only twelve years old, he is already one of the best thieves in the country, because he is not only skillful, but also highly intelligent. Artemis Fowl possesses nobility , always dresses correctly and has a weakness for technology.

When he succeeds in using a trick to obtain the book of the subterranean from an alcoholic fairy and with a lot of patience and the help of his computer to translate the Gnomish characters into English, Artemis Fowl believes that he can stop the decline of his family, because he now knows that elves and other subterranean people guard a treasure of gold deep below the surface of the earth.

Artemis Fowl plans to kidnap an underground man and then offer an exchange for a ton of gold. In fact, he gets the elf Holly Short under his control and locks her in Fowl Manor, the castle that his family has lived in for many years. However, the elves are combative beings who not only have magical powers but also high-tech weapons, and Holly Short is a reconnaissance officer with the ZUP (Central Underground Police), an elite unit. The ZUP first creates a time stop, whereby the time around Fowl Manor is frozen and all people present are included at the same time.

Thanks to his ingenuity, Artemis foresaw most of the ZUP's actions and can therefore counter them first. As a ransom for Holly, he demands a metric ton of gold. The plan increasingly gets out of hand when Holly is able to free herself and at the same time a ZUP officer who has replaced Root as commander brings a troll into the building. In the end, the troll can be defeated by Butler and Artemis even gives Holly some of the gold back. In return, Holly Artemis' mother heals her depression and delusions. According to the ZUP regulations, a so-called bio bomb is then detonated on Fowl Manor, a bomb that destroys all life without leaving any other traces. However, with the help of a brilliant and banal trick, Artemis manages to leave the time field together with his colleagues. Defeated, the ZUP troops have to withdraw.

Volume 2: The Conspiracy

Original title: Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident (≈ The Arctic Incident)

At the beginning of the second volume, Artemis receives a video message from Russia via email that shows his missing father alive, but he is not sure whether it is his father. Artemis Senior has been missing for two years and has already been pronounced dead. He was kidnapped by the Russian mafia while attempting to start a consumer goods trade in Russia and has been held hostage ever since. When Artemis is about to make his way there, the elf Holly Short suddenly appears. The ZUP is in conflict with the insurgent goblin gang B'wa Kell , which receives batteries from an unknown (above-ground) source and uses them to operate prohibited laser rifles. Holly suspects Artemis is behind it. But since he is innocent, the ZUP declares that it is ready to do the following: In return for Artemis' support in the "battery case", he receives help in rescuing his father.

After Artemis and Butler have found and incapacitated the aboveground who supplies the goblins with batteries for their weapons, they set off with Commander Root and Captain Holly Short to Murmansk , where Artemis' father appears to be. Meanwhile, the B'wa Kell attacks underground, organized by the imp Opal Koboi and the former high-ranking police officer Briar Cudgeon, who was humiliated by Root and Holly during the siege of Fowl Manor. Among other things, Opal's industrial empire supplied a large part of the police equipment. This can render all police weapons unusable, so that the goblins can take power in Haven , the capital of the underground. Foaly, the technical genius of the police force, is held responsible for manipulating Opal. Enclosed in his self-designed, highly secure command center, he has to watch helplessly as the goblins take over the city. With a trick and the help of Mulch Diggums, however, Artemis, Butler, Holly and Root manage to break into the Koboi laboratories and, with Foalys help, play off the culprits against each other. Briar Cudgeon is thrown into an active plasma line by Opal Koboi, which instantly kills him. Holly then knocks out Opal Koboi; At the same time, Foaly succeeds in regaining control of the computers and reactivating the automatic turrets, which then end the goblin rebellion within a few seconds.

After the end of this mission, Artemis, Butler, Holly and Commander Root go to Northern Russia, where his father's release is to take place. Artemis then explains his plan. The aim is to play the murder of his father for the mafiosi and to lure them away with the fake ransom. Despite several complications, the plan ultimately works and Holly makes peace with Artemis - for the time being and with reservations - in the epilogue.

Volume 3: The Secret Code

Original title: Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (≈ Der Ewigkeitscode)

Artemis Fowl has decided to give up his criminal career as his now convalescent father is more critical of crime. He therefore decides to only carry out one last coup, since this is now completely prepared, and then to end his criminal life. So he wants to meet with the American industrialist and dangerous criminal Jon Spiro , who owns one of the largest computer companies in the world. Artemis has developed a supercomputer in the form of a small cube from the technical devices that he had taken from the elves when he first met the earth people, which by far exceeds the capabilities of all (above-ground) existing computers. This C Cube , as its inventor calls it, would drive all other computer manufacturers out of the market and thus ruin Spiro's company. Artemis demands a large amount of gold from Spiro to keep the C Cube off the market for another year. However, Artemis and Butler get caught in an ambush in which Spiro succeeds in stealing the C Cube and Artemis and Butler can only temporarily save themselves by detonating a special bomb they have hidden as a precaution. When Spiro's bodyguard, Arno Blunt, surprises Artemis and wants to shoot him, Butler throws himself in at the last second. Fired at close range, the bullet pierces Butler's bulletproof vest and hits him just below the heart. He manages to fire a few shots in Blunt's direction, one of which grazes his temple and numbs him on the way. After Butler's heart stops beating, Artemis comes up with the idea of ​​freezing Butler so that his body is not harmed until a possible resuscitation.

Foaly has now become aware of Artemis' test run of the C Cube. The underground triggers a large-scale alarm and sends Holly Short to the surface of the earth to determine the source of the anomaly. Artemis lures her over and persuades her to use her magic to heal and revive Butler. However, the loyal bodyguard ages by about 15 years due to the unprecedented process and some Kevlar fibers are multiplied in his chest, which makes him very physically weak.

Holly then explains to her boss, Commander Root, that it is important for everyone's safety to regain the C Cube. Root wants to use the rescue unit, but sees for himself that this could end in a catastrophe. He then allows Holly to try Artemis' plan first before sending the rescue. However, he stipulates that the memory of the people of the earth is erased for all people involved after they have regained the device. In addition, Foaly should not participate, although the latter condition is of course ignored in the course of the operation. Butler is not of much help because of his only partially successful healing and therefore receives from Artemis, in Holly's absence, the assignment to make some preparations for the erasure of the memory. Butler's role as Artemis' protector is taken over by his sister Juliet. After the mission is complete, Artemis' memories are actually erased.

Mulch Diggums, the kleptomaniac dwarf who is again involved in this story, made a good living in a Los Angeles penthouse until he is finally caught. Before that, Artemis gave him a laser disk with which Mulch is supposed to retrieve the memories of the criminal genius. In return, Artemis has altered Mulch's crime file on Foaly's computer in such a way that all proceedings against him are null and void.

In the epilogue, which is the first diary entry after the memory has been erased, Artemis Fowl the Second announces that he will unleash a crime wave "like never before."

Volume 4: The Vengeance

Original title: Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception (≈ The Opal Deception)

Since every memory of the realm of the underground was erased from Artemis' memory, he has been working as a master thief again. In the underground world, the criminal Opal Koboi has awakened from her coma, escaped unnoticed and is planning her revenge: She wants to turn off the central underground police and then reveal the existence of the underworld to people.

As a first step, Opal lures Commander Root and Holly Short, who is actually about to be promoted to major, into an ambush in which Root dies and it looks like Holly shot him. This succeeds in escaping to the surface of the earth before being apprehended by his own ZUP colleagues. There Artemis and Butler, who were in the course of a theft in Munich, escaped by a hair's breadth from Opal's second act of revenge, a rocket-propelled biobomb. Holly, who saw the attack and narrowly escaped another one, finds the two injured and unconscious. To save the underworld, she turns to Artemis Fowl and takes him with her. He accepts the existence of the earth people as the truth, since the other explanations he has for the facts seem improbable to him. However, he also states that he must obtain this information from a secure source; however, the only sure source for him is himself.

At this moment Opal Koboi storms the hiding place; After a short conversation, Koboi can no longer stand Artemis' know-it-all and has him stunned. After she has also provoked Holly to the point that she is about to draw her weapon, the elf experiences the same fate as the human.

Meanwhile, Mulch Diggums succeeds in escaping from the ZUP captivity. He goes to Fowl Manor and hands the laser disc that Artemis had given him before his memory was erased to the butler who arrives soon after. The contents of the laser disk reactivate Butler's memory, who immediately decides to help Artemis and Holly, who are brought to a troll area by Koboi, as he learns from a conversation recording of Artemis' capture.

Butler and Mulch finally manage to rescue Holly and Artemis, who has meanwhile resigned himself to dying, from the troll area with the help of a ZUP shuttle stolen by Mulch and to give Artemis the laser disk, whereupon his memories are reactivated.

Meanwhile, Opal Koboi's plan to make known to mankind the existence of the underground is well advanced. With the help of a plan hastily drawn up by Artemis, however, they manage to stop them. In the meantime, however, the gnome Ark Sool has been appointed ZUP commander, who ultimately even gives the order to shoot down the shuttle with Holly, Artemis, Butler and Mulch. The order taker, Major Kelp, refuses to give this order to give Holly the opportunity to justify herself. With the capture of Opal Kobois and their helpers, the case is over. Holly then submits her resignation from the police service and plans to open a detective agency with Mulch.

Trivia: In order to make a name for himself as a master thief, Artemis plans to steal a fictional painting entitled The Elf Thief . His painter is a real person, the French professional cyclist Pascal Hervé .

Volume 5: The Lost Colony

Eoin Colfer reading volume five

Original title: Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony

Demons who live in the sea of ​​time due to a failed time spell on the island of Hybras are torn into Artemis' world, as the spell becomes fragile. The first demon is already expected by Artemis, but the time and place of the materialization of the demon do not correspond to the calculations that Artemis stole from Foalys computer.

Meanwhile, Holly Short is being recruited back by a secret division of the ZUP called "Division Eight", which has been watching the demons for 500 years. Holly is sent to contact Artemis because Foaly's calculations were incorrect and Department Eight is wrongly hoping for the correct results from Artemis, as he was able to come into contact with the demon by chance.

Holly meets Artemis in an Italian opera and learns that, according to his new calculations, a demon must appear on the stage that evening and that the time spell is dissolving. The demon also appears, but is kidnapped by another group, led by a certain Minerva Paradizo. This only works because Minerva's colleague Billy Kong has anchored him in the opera with a silver arrow in the dimension; Silver serves as a dimensional anchor and thus prevents the demons from traveling uncontrollably through time.

Artemis and his friends number 1 then free the demon Minerva is holding captive. This one has special abilities, because he is the first wizard among demons for several thousand years. Shortly thereafter, Billy Kong, who works as a security guard for the Paradizos, takes Minerva hostage and demands the demon as a ransom for her. His motive is personal as he believes his older brother was killed by demons. Artemis makes Kong unconsciously choose the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan as the handover location.

So Artemis, his loyal companion Domovoi Butler, Holly Short and the demon number 1 make their way to Taiwan to Taipei 101, in which there is, also in reality, a large silver-coated ball as a vibration damper.

The handover goes smoothly, Artemis and his friends and allies can go unmolested. When they disappeared in an elevator, Billy Kong No. 1 explains his plan: He wants to send him back to Hybras with a bomb so that the demons there can be killed. Since Artemis' group is now safe, however, No. 1 drops the silver arrow that Artemis removed from his leg and disappears. However, the silver of the nearby sphere ensures that, just as Artemis had foreseen, it materializes there and is brought to Artemis by the waiting Captain Short.

There is a sculpture in an art gallery in Taipei 101, which Artemis suspects are actually the seven wizards who created the time spell. This assumption turns out to be correct and No. 1 succeeds in freeing the magician Qwan from his petrification. However, the latter explains that the other wizards all died.

Meanwhile, the group is attacked by Billy Kong and his followers. Butler and Holly manage to defeat the attackers, but the bomb is activated and Artemis cannot defuse it without tools and without enough time. So Holly flies out the window with Qwan, Artemis and No. 1 to drop the bomb over the sea - but time is running out. Therefore Artemis throws away the silver bracelet from No. 1 that Qwan is also keeping in the present, whereupon everyone is pulled through the time tunnel to Hybras.

In the time tunnel, Artemis discovers a blue force in his companions , which turns out to be magic, and unnoticed draws a little of it into himself.

When they arrive in Hybras, the detonator of the bomb is at five thousand hours because the counter has been reset by the trip. Qwan now explains that it would take five wizards and a very powerful source of energy such as a volcano to bring Hybras back to the present on earth. When the group now wants to go to the demons' settlements, they are stopped en route by Leon Abbot, the leader of the demons and archenemy of No. 1, and his army.

Abbot has already got No. 1 to use the time spell and now wants to kill the newcomers. A battle of words ensues between Abbot, Artemis, Qwan and No. 1, in which it is found that Abbot is responsible for the destruction of the time ban and has merged with Qwan's former apprentice Qweffor, which gives him magical abilities. In the end, however, Artemis and his allies manage to put the army to flight. They are helped by the sudden fraying of the time spell, which leads to the crumbling of the planet, whereupon large parts of the army flee. Finally, Artemis also manages to stun Abbot, and it turns out that Qweffor is not dead, his spirit is only suppressed in Abbot's body. So there are five magicians present with Artemis. The bomb is to be used as the energy source for the transport of Hybras back to earth, the counter of which runs down much faster due to a suction of time. Together, Artemis, Holly, No. 1, Qwan and Qweffor succeed in bringing Hybras back to earth.

When they arrive off the Irish coast, the ZUP, led by Foaly, is waiting for them. Foaly informs them that three years have passed since they disappeared from Earth. Artemis also discovers that he has swapped an eye with Holly in the time tunnel, so that they both now have a brown and a blue one. He is then taken to Butler, who has since become friends with Minerva. He learns from Butler that his parents have had twins.

Volume 6: The time paradox

Original title: Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox

The sixth Artemis Fowl volume is about Hybras after Artemis' return. When his mother becomes seriously ill, Artemis uses all of his remaining magic to try to heal her, which only makes the illness worse, and he asks Holly and No. 1 at Fowl Manor to help. When Holly arrives, she recognizes the disease as the spark plague. The disease had wiped out large parts of the earth's people a few years earlier and is due to a strong anomaly in magic. The only remedy is the cerebrospinal fluid of the silk sifakas , the last of which Artemis sold eight years ago to the extinctionists whose aim is to exterminate species they consider useless. These killed the lemur.

Artemis then decides to go eight years back in time to save the lemur. However, due to the unforeseeable consequences, time travel is strictly prohibited in the underground legislation. Artemis convinces Holly that it was she who infected his mother in order to use her guilty conscience to get her to accompany him back in time. When No. 1 finally appears, he sends Holly and Artemis back into the past, happily applying what he has just learned about time travel. When they arrive, Artemis has to realize that his memories do not match what happened. As a result, they suffer multiple defeats against Butler and the still absolutely unscrupulous ten-year-old Artemis Fowl. Finally, Holly and Artemis manage, with the not entirely voluntary help of Mulch Diggums, to get the lemurs in Morocco into their possession. However, Holly is captured by Butler and Artemis the Younger unceremoniously passes the extinctionist Dr. Damon Kronski sells so he can exterminate another species at the upcoming extinctionist meeting. In the course of her rescue by Artemis, he is caught by Opal Koboi. Artemis learns that the supposedly executed animals are deprived of their brain fluid in order to make Opal the most powerful magician in the world. The lemur's cerebral fluid would enable her to travel through time.

Eventually Artemis escapes and escapes with Holly, Mulch and the lemur to Fowl Manor, where Butler and Artemis the Younger are already waiting for them. Both desire to know the full truth, which will eventually be told to them. Holly and Artemis then travel back to the present with the lemur and the younger Artemis. There it turns out that Artemis' mother did not have the spark plague at all, only the symptoms that were imitated by Opal Koboi. Opal followed Artemis through the time tunnel to take the lemurs from him, however, a few days before Artemis she “jumped off” and was able to take possession of his mother's body and cause the symptoms. After some confusion, the allies manage to defeat Opal Koboi before they finally manage to flee. However, she returns after a short time to get the Sifaka, whereupon Artemis pretends to flee with the lemur in an airplane. Opal pursues him until he tells her that the lemur was brought to safety during the chase. Finally, he can temporarily disable them under a heap of rubble.

The younger Artemis Fowl is then subjected to a memory erasure and sent back to his time. Artemis the Elder comments on this by saying that he knew there had to be a memory erasure because he could not remember anything. Since Opal Koboi has left part of her thoughts in Angeline Fowl, Angeline manages to persuade Artemis to tell her everything.

When the underground recovery unit arrives, Opal Koboi has fled. Now there are two opals in the present.

The book ends with ten-year-old Artemis Fowl the Second, for reasons that are not apparent to him, waking up contentedly and believing he can vaguely remember a dream in which elves played a role. This lays the foundation that he will later come up with the idea of ​​kidnapping an elf (see Volume 1: Artemis Fowl ).

The title of the book refers to a time travel paradox . Only the time travel in the past leads to the events because of which one will undertake the time travel.

Volume 7: The Atlantis Complex

Original title: Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex

In the seventh part of the book series, Artemis Fowl is haunted by a mysterious, mental illness, the "Atlantis complex", which arose from his sense of guilt and the abuse of magic. The disease manifests itself in an compulsion to count one's words and other things. He also distrusts everyone, even his loyal bodyguard, Butler, whom he sends to his sister in Mexico under an excuse. Artemis meets with a delegation from the underground to present his invention and plan to save the earth from the effects of global warming . During the presentation, a spacecraft attacks and destroys the underground shuttle, killing many of them. The attacking space probe is of underground origin and was programmed by Foaly to explore Mars, but the imprisoned Turnball Root, brother of the late Commander Julius Root, managed to take control of the probe.

When Artemis was briefly incapacitated by an electric shock, his second self , Orion, took control of his body. Orion escapes in an escape pod with Holly and Foaly. The three try to save the city of Atlantis, which lies under a glass dome on the sea floor. The reprogrammed space probe is heading for this glass dome and threatens to destroy it. After the city has been evacuated, the space probe hits a ferry with evacuated prisoners next to the city , from which Turnball Root and some helpers can escape shortly before.

Holly manages with a second electric shock that Artemis is himself again, but still with the symptoms of the "Atlantis complex". Butler, his sister Juliet and the dwarf Mulch Diggums join the three. Together they pursue Turnball Root, but are captured in the process. Turnball provides Artemis and Holly with a mark of black magic and can thus suppress their will and control them. With the help of Holly, he wants to kidnap the demon wizard No. 1 and force him to heal and rejuvenate Turnball's aged woman. No. 1 is in a hospital ship that nurses evacuees from Atlantis. While Turnball brings Holly there to get No. 1, Artemis provokes his guard and receives another electric shock. As a result, Orion takes control again, who cannot be controlled by Turnballs black mark. When Turnball tries to impose his will on Artemis over the mark, Orion can surprise and overwhelm Turnball. Turnball has to admit his defeat and chooses the path to death with his wife, whose wish is to die. You steer Turnball's spaceship, in which he had activated an irreversible self-destruction mechanism, away from the hospital ship and thus save the lives of the many inmates.

Volume 8: The Magic Gate

Original title: Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian (≈ The Last Guardian)

The last announced volume Artemis Fowl: The magic gate appeared on July 10, 2012 in English and in March 2013 in German. 10,000 years ago, elves and humans fought for supremacy. Humanity triumphed and forced the elves and the other "subterranean" underground. To prevent the people from pursuing them, the elves created a magic-sealed portal that is guarded by the spirits of their soldiers. Unfortunately, this portal is now located in Fowl's country estate in Ireland. Opal Koboi opens the first gate of this portal and thus awakens the spirits of the soldiers, who are thereby obliged to be loyal to her and now take possession of the bodies of the people and animals in the area. With Holly's help, Artemis now has to save his family and all of humanity. He has to prevent Opal Koboi from opening the second gate, which she tries before daybreak, because she can only get help from the loyal soldiers until then, as they have to disappear again into the afterlife after daybreak. Artemis comes up with a plan to stop the wily elf Opal Koboi from wiping out all of humanity. However, he has to sacrifice his life in this plan. The intelligent boy knows that only the person who opened the first gate can open and close the second gate. In the fourth part of Artemis Fowl, Opal Koboi created a clone of himself to escape the ZUP. Artemis has Foaly send them up, along with a mask from Holly Short, but his girlfriend Holly manages to figure out his plan, so Artemis tricked her and drugged her. Together with the clone, the youngster now makes his way to the second gate and asks his archenemy Opal to spare his brothers, Myles and Beckett. Opal is enjoying her triumph too much to notice that the person who dragged Artemis with her is not Holly Short, whom Artemis says he should have stunned her because she didn't want him to respond to Opal's offer, but Opals own clone. Bruin, the guardian of the second gate, which he personally created, opens the gate and two stone tablets come to light. Opal Koboi only needs to push one of them to complete its aim. The first stone tablet would make the second one useless forever, and kill all subterranean in its vicinity, the second wipe out all of humanity on earth. Opal herself puts her clone's hand on the first board because she wants to make fun of Artemis. She noticed too late that she had closed the second gate. Oro, the soldier who had previously been released from his allegiance by Bruin, kills Opal Koboi. Artemis dies from closing the gate. However, Foaly manages to create a clone of Artemis. Artemis had taken appropriate precautions and secured his DNA by kissing Holly's forehead. Finally, Artemis' soul returns to the clone. So Artemis survived, and he slowly remembers everything again, with Holly speeding up the process by telling him all about her experiences.

The file

Original title: The Artemis Fowl Files (≈ Die Artemis-Fowl-Akten)

“The File” is another book from the Artemis Fowl series. It does not belong in the cycle, but contains two short stories and additional information about characters and locations. The first story contains an account of Holly Short's Reconnaissance Exam, in which Turnball Root makes its first appearance. The second is about a raid by Artemis Fowl with the forced help of the kleptomaniac dwarf Mulch Diggums. This raid can be classified between the first and the second volume. The book also contains an explanation of the Gnomish alphabet, representations of the ZUP equipment and some puzzles.

The underground world

History of the earth people

The underground, also known as the earth people, once lived above ground in a world with humans. However, these displaced the earth people more and more. It soon became clear that people were not ready to live together. So the earth people saw themselves forced to fight for their existence above ground. These circumstances led to the battle on Taillte Hill. Since the people of the earth were numerically far outnumbered, they had to retreat underground. The demons left the earth with their island through a dimension leap.

Types of the earth people

The underground live below the surface of the earth, in partly naturally formed cavities. In general, they are more environmentally conscious and more sophisticated than humans, both mentally and technically. The underground also have magical powers. However, these are limited by the rules of the Book of the Underground , which is both a religious textbook and a code of law for the Underground.

The earth people consists of eight types:

  • Elves
The elves are similar to humans, but differ from them in their pointed ears, caramel-brown skin and an average height of about one meter. The main difference from humans, like most undergrounds, is that they hate pollution and see human civilization as more or less a disaster for the earth.
  • Fairies
The fairies are the last of the underground people who can still fly on their own. They have green skin and wings. In addition, the wings are the fairies' most important organ, as several main arteries run through them. If a fairy or a fairy man's wings are injured, he / she needs a quick healing, as fairies have limited magic.
  • Dwarfs
Dwarfs are underground people who have always lived in caves underground because their skin is highly sensitive to UV rays . They have various unique abilities that not even most of the other undergrounds have; for example, they are able to dig or eat through almost any material and thus move forward. Most dwarfs, however, have problems with flatulence as a result , which repeatedly affects the plot in the book.
  • Goblins
Kobolds are very stupid as their brains are barely bigger than a rat's. Descended from reptiles, they have no eyelids and forked tongues and can conjure up fireballs, but their claws are also dangerous weapons. Their own skin is fire resistant, but goblins have to shed their skin at regular intervals.
  • Gnomes
Gnomes rarely appear in the books and don't add much to the plot. The only important gnome is the successor to ZUP-Commander Root, Ark Sool . Her big bum is spoken of in many proverbs and sayings.
  • Centaurs
Centaurs are extremely intelligent but cannot do magic. There are only 100 copies left of them. Their closest relatives, the unicorns , have already been completely wiped out by humans. The most famous centaurs are ZUP technician Foaly and his wife Caballine.
  • Gnome
Apart from their size and pointed ears, pixies look exactly like humans. They have a lot of brain mass and thin skulls. Because of this, they often suffer from migraines , narcolepsy and amnesia . Their disproportionately large heads make them look very cute and childlike, but they are not.
  • Demons
Demons are slightly smaller than humans and are the only members of the earth people who do not live underground, but on the island of Hybras . Hybras was magically moved into the so-called sea ​​of ​​time (English limbo ) by wizard demons . From puberty onwards, wizard demons clearly differ from the non-magically gifted demons and have far more powerful magic than the other conjuring species of the earth people. There are only three known wizard demons left : Qwan , Qweffor and the young No. 1 . Everyone else died moving hybras.

Other beings

  • Trolls
Trolls are primitive game animals and are not counted among the people of the earth due to their low intelligence. As loners, they sometimes tear each other apart when it comes to reproducing or procuring food. Their weaknesses include water shy and, due to their excellent night vision, sensitivity to light.
  • Blue tunnel spiders
Tunnel spiders are small, blue-silver in color and have extremely sharp claws. A spider cuts its victim from the inside. A handful can dismantle a troll in no time. Tunnel spiders are highly sensitive to caffeine. One sip of coffee is enough to kill a tunnel spider.
  • Cursed toads
Curse toads are an unwanted by-product of a prank on one of the graduates of wizarding school. Its creators had forgotten that toads also reproduce . Your bite makes the part of the body that has been bitten swell, but is otherwise ineffective.

Book of the Underground

The Book of the Underground is a kind of code. There it is written down how and when magic can be used, but also how to deal with people. If an underground person violates the book, he is cast off by his people and loses his magic. Up to and including the fifth volume (The Lost Colony) it was forbidden to enter the houses of human beings without a direct invitation, but since this rule severely hindered the ZUP operations, the ban was given at the beginning of the sixth volume The Time Paradox of the little wizard demon No. 1 dissolved. He managed in five minutes what numerous elven magicians had failed to do for centuries.

Magic of the underground

The magic of the underground is a kind of natural energy. You can achieve this through a certain ritual, but you are only allowed to use it according to certain rules in the book, for example you have to carry "Das Buch" with you everywhere and at all times. The ritual consists of collecting the acorns of an old oak tree at a bend in the river during the full moon and burying it in a distant place. If a criterion is not met, e.g. no full moon is shining, only part of the magic can be charged. If the earth in which the acorn is buried is heavily polluted, diseases such as spark plague can occur. This is transmitted through magic and cannot be cured through it.

Technology of the underground

The equipment of the ZUP officers, in the form of helmets, special uniforms, weapons and a few other things, was largely developed by Foaly the Centaur and partly also by Opal Koboi and is far superior to human technology.

Notable inventions are the iris camera, which is inserted into an eye and - in addition to some additional functions such as filters, zoom and X-ray vision - can transmit what is seen by radio, and the camouflage film, behind which you are almost invisible. However, the camouflage film can only fool the eye and not cameras. From his point of view, Foalys most important invention are the batteries, in which the magic of wizards can be stored and thus a field can be held for a time stop of more than four hours. With this invention, he simplified the work of a ZUP rescue unit significantly.

Secret scripts

Cryptographic key
Gnommish.jpg
... for volumes 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and probably all of the following:
Gnomish
Artemis Fowl cipher key volume 2.jpg
... for volume 2:
Centauric
Artemis Fowl Secret Script Key.jpg
... for Volume 3:
Language of the C-Cube


In every book there is a secret message that is below the normal text and is easily mistaken for an ornament. If you solve the code , you get a message from the people of Earth or from Artemis Fowl. Decryption is made possible by the fact that there are identical key and plain texts in the books .

reception

In general, the books were praised by a clear majority of critics and readers, but there were also completely opposite opinions. For example, a few passages accused the author of orgies of violence, but the latter commented that children and adolescents from ten could process and cope with far more violence in literature than adults imagined; Incidentally, not only television and cinema offer more violence than Artemis Fowl, but almost all youth literature.

The third Artemis Fowl volume, Artemis Fowl - The Secret Code , was awarded the German Book Prize in 2004.

Books of the series

  • Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl . List , 2001, ISBN 3-471-77251-0 (English: Artemis Fowl (Artemis I) . Translated by Claudia Feldmann).
  • Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl: The Conspiracy . List , 2002, ISBN 3-471-77255-3 (English: Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident (Artemis II) . Translated by Claudia Feldmann).
  • Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl: The Secret Code . List , 2004, ISBN 3-548-60485-4 (English: Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (Artemis III) . Translated by Claudia Feldmann).
  • Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl: The Revenge . List , 2006, ISBN 3-548-60660-1 (English: Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception (Artemis IV) . Translated by Claudia Feldmann).
  • Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony . List , 2008, ISBN 978-3-548-26867-5 (English: Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (Artemis V) . Translated by Claudia Feldmann).
  • Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox . List , 2010, ISBN 978-3-548-28182-7 (English: Artemis Fowl & The Time Paradox (Artemis VI) . Translated by Claudia Feldmann).
  • Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex . List , 2011, ISBN 978-3-471-35061-4 (English: Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex (Artemis VII) . Translated by Claudia Feldmann).
  • Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl: The Magic Gate . List , 2013, ISBN 978-3-471-35096-6 (English: Artemis Fowl and the Last Guardian (Artemis VIII) . Translated by Claudia Feldmann).

Additional works

filming

In the summer of 2013, Disney announced that it was planning to film the series as live action films.

The film, based on the first book, was due to hit theaters on May 29, 2020, but the theatrical release was canceled due to the global COVID-19 pandemic . Instead, the film was released on the Disney + streaming platform in the USA on June 12, 2020 , and has been available there since August 14, 2020 in Germany.

See: Artemis Fowl (film)

literature

  • Marco Prestel: Action productions in modern children's and youth literature. The Artemis Fowl novels by Eoin Colfer . Peter Lang , Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-631-61101-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gordon Deegan: Artemis Fowl firm sees € 1.7m in profits in The Irish Times . October 21, 2013. Accessed May 7, 2020
  2. ↑ Emma Kantor: Disney to Publish 'Artemis Fowl' Spin-Off Series in Publishers Weekly . April 11, 2018. Retrieved May 7, 2020
  3. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Runkel: Potter's double fights like Bond. on: Zeit Online. 2001.
  4. ↑ Harry Potter on the trail. on: SpiegelOnline. 2001.
  5. ↑ Newsletter CARLSEN COMIC NEWS October 2008.
  6. ↑ Eoin Colfer : Artemis Fowl - The Secret Code. S. 322 in the translation by Claudia Feldmann
  7. ↑ Press release of the publisher: Volume 8 ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / gamutnews.com
  8. ↑ cinema.de
  9. ^ The Walt Disney Studios Announces Film Release Schedule. May 7, 2019, Retrieved May 7, 2019 (American English).
  10. ↑ On Disney + instead of the cinema: The start date for "Artemis Fowl" has finally been set. April 6, 2020, accessed June 15, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Worst Disney + Movie? Artemis Fowl fails the criticism. Retrieved June 15, 2020 .

Web links

Artemis Fowl


Books

Artemis Fowl  (2001) • The Conspiracy  (2002) • The Secret Code  (2004) • The Vengeance  (2006) • The Lost Colony  (2008) • The Time Paradox  (2010) • The Atlantis Complex  (2011) • The Magic Gate  (2013 ) • The Acts  (2008)

Movies

Artemis Fowl  (2020)