Stephen King vs. John Grisham

I’ve just been reading some Stephen King and John Grisham the past few days, two of the most successful American authors in recent decades. And I must say, though Grisham is good at developing a plot, his characters are absolut cardboard compared to many of King’s characters. It’s amazing how many characters he can make up in his head with such a rich history and believable psychology. One is tempted to think that they are all based on real people he knows, but the sheer amount of them makes that utterly impossible. I don’t like King in every respect, but I do admire him for his insightful portrayal of human characters.

On the Vice of Novel-Reading, Part II

Here’s Part II of the essay on the vice of novel-reading (take note that I skipped a big chunk in the middle that I found less interesting):

In expressing the idea that the reading of novels is only an amusement—to be taken up when there is nothing else to do—your average grocer, tailor, lawyer, or what not, has but spoken to you the world’s judgment. In fact there are countless readers of novels who have grown up in this atmosphere of conviction that novels are meant only to amuse. They are so habituated to the idea that novels, to them, are valueless—mere sentimental unrealities or spiced narratives of heated invention—so that they go through the treasure houses of genius without ever hearing the soft-voiced persuasion of knowledge or seeing the marvelous, vivid panorama of human life, illustrating its aspirations, sorrows, struggles, triumphs and failures. Such readers, convinced in advance that everything in a novel is fictitious, because the personages discussed are fictitious in name, never dream that study of the conduct of these personages may be useful to influence their own manners, conduct, morals or sympathies. Indeed, some of them are so confident of the unreality of novels that when they are confronted with their own counterparts in fictitious personality they feel a certain sense of humiliation as of being convicted of eccentricity, of an unlikeness to actual persons, which must be concealed as branding them “fit to be put into a novel.” To such persons novel-reading is a vice, because it is an indolent excitement, a mental opium-eating; the useless butting—against an unscalable wall—of brains intended to be fully occupied in developing those parts of the nervous and muscular systems that find their highest application in vigorous devotion to the washboard or the laying of gas pipes down.

What a different result is achieved by the reader who knows the secret that imagination is the soul of thought, that taste is the power of truth and that the abstractions produced by imagination and taste dealing with fact to convert it to fiction, or carefully assembling fiction to convert it to fact, have been the stars that have lighted up the night of human history. By the light of these in their varying forms man discovered Religion, Philosophy, Science, Government and the possibility of orderly Liberty. To such a reader the novel comprehends all human society, its customs and secrets. The untraveled man may sit in his library and become as familiar with the world as with his native town; the diffident student may mingle familiarly in the society of courts; the bashful girl may learn the most engaging manners; the slow may learn the trick of wit; the rich may learn sympathy for the poor; the weak may be warned against the pitfalls of temptation and every one may there survey himself in every aspect, subjected to discussion and exhibition under various disguises and under various circumstances; and, if he have courage and the desire, he can decide what he thinks of himself and the possibilities of improving the opinion in the light of full knowledge of the subject.

The Novel has come as the solvent of all literary art. In its possibilities all the essentials of other literary forms are combined and conveyed without injury. Professedly not History, it performs all its wonders in the guise of History and adds a light and a human interest to chronicle that gives increased value. We do not get sympathetic and human knowledge of England from History, but from Scott, Thackeray and her splendid historical novelists. We do not turn to Guizot and Thiers for any knowledge of French history except its stated public facts, its documents with royal seals and its verified dates and details—it is to Dumas, Merimee, Balzac that all but the professional students of history go. We do not seek in the rapid sketches of Gibbon for the story of Nero, but in the pages of “Quo Vadis.” Where do we find the breathing history of Spain except in the countless novels that its picturesque subjects have suggested? I would scorn to underestimate the profound and substantial value that the great muse of History has conferred upon the world. In all literature she deservedly ranks first in dignity, power and usefulness; but who will say that at her court the Prime Minister is not the Novel, which by its lightness, grace and address has popularized history all over the world?

While the Novel has none of the guise of poetry, yet it has its every essence, neglecting only form and rhyme. In the Novel you may find the measure, the accent and the figures of the whole range of poetry, and a capacity for inspiring enthusiasm and emulation quite as great as poetry unjoined to the divine enchantress, Music.

Plainly not Drama, yet what is more dramatic than the Novel? In the miracle of its pages you find theater, scenery, actors, audience and author. You may sit at your ease in your library chair and command the services of the most innumerable company of comedians, tragedians, lovers, ladies, buffoons, soubrettes and pantomimists that the world ever knew. How many novels have been turned into dramas, how few dramas have been successfully expanded into novels!

Thus the Novel, while it is not History nor Poetry nor the Drama, is a combination of all. And it possesses more than this. Its lightness enables it to tell the history of the commonest peasant—a subject that History disdained until the Novel bent to the task. Its flexibility makes it possible to write the history of types and classes; its capacity enables it to convey science, to teach morals, to illuminate the abstract difficulties of every philosophy, to utter the despairing human protests stifled elsewhere, and to embrace every purpose for which words were created and human aspirations were kindled. That it has lent itself to base uses is true. How could it escape the contamination that has smirched every other art? And, as in every other art, that which is base and false in fiction soon dies of its own inherent weakness and is forgotten. But decade by decade the Novel grows more powerful, more noble, and more adaptable to the spiritual uses of man. The time will come when the Novel will stand on the book-shelves with history, the philosophies and the sciences, as of equal honor and use—necessary to complete the education of every scholar; yet even then there will probably be a tribunal to pronounce it to be, if not a vice, at least of doubtful utility.

On the Vice of Novel-Reading, Part I

By Young E. Allison, 1897

Ever since the Novel reached the stage of development where it was demonstrated to be the most ingenious vehicle yet designed for conveying the protean thought and fancy of man, there has stood in the judgment book of Public Opinion the decree that novel-reading was a vice. Of course, that judgment did not apply exclusively to the reading of novels. It was a sort of supplementary decree in which the name of this new invention was specifically added to the list of moral beguilements against which that judgment had anciently stood. Poetry, the Drama, even the virtuous History, had had their noses disjointed by this tribunal. But their great age and the familiarity of their presence had softened the decree in its enforcement. The Novel was a young offender in aspect (though he had the nature and inheritance of the other three), and was, besides, strong in masculinity and virility. A certain sympathy thus sprung up for the three quaint old ladies, as for old offenders whose persistence had won the wink of toleration. They actually achieved a certain factitious respectability in comparison with the fresher and more active dangers afforded by the Novel. But the Novel was simply a combination of all three, more flexible and adaptable. It, therefore, merely shares in the old judgment directed against everything in literature—and in all the arts—that displays the seductiveness of fancy or taste. The judgments of public opinion have been consistently in the line of distrusting and discrediting everything that appeared to be purely spiritual and intellectual, and that could not at once be organized into a political or religious institution or into a mechanical industry with the prospect of large sales and quick profits.

Novel-reading is a vice, then, under this judgment, just as the reading of all fictions, fancies, inventions, and romances in all their forms, poetic, dramatic, and narrative. And if the reading is a vice the writing of them, in all common sense, can be no less than murder or arson. If it is a vice to devote time to the reading of novels it must be a crime to professionally pander to and profit by the vice. And if all this is true, what a wonderfully attractive corner that must be in Hades where are old Homer and the ever young Aristophanes, Sophocles and Æschylus, Dante, Virgil and Boccaccio, Shakespeare and Moliere, Goethe and Hugo, Balzac and Thackeray, Scott and Dumas, Dickens and that wonderful child of Bohemia, who lately lay down to rest on Vailima mountain. Think of all these marvelous eons of genius gathered together for their meet punishment! In one especially warm corner, perhaps, Lope Felix de Vega, the most incorrigible of all, slowly expiating upon some most ingeniously uncomfortable gridiron the 1,160 volumes of crime and vice that are to be set down against him in the indictment, if it be a true bill. We may wonder whether the unknown authors of “Esther” and “The Song of Songs” and the psychological novel of “Job” are there, too, where they properly belong. It must be a great congress with these chief criminals as the senators and a lower house made up of the most agreeably vicious souls of earth, who, in their sojourn here, yielded for a moment to siren voices. If everything in fiction—from the astonishing conspiracies overthrown by “Old Sleuth” to the magnificent visions that old John Milton saw, of incarnate ambition like a branded criminal driven out before the radiant hosts of heaven—if all the fiction that makes up the spirit of the novel is included in this index expurgatorius of eternity, then we may well have a doubt, my friends, whether hell can hold us all.

It is a curious exercise for persons immersed in writing and study as an occupation, and possessing a catholic tolerance for all occupations, to hark back to the time when they were still within the jurisdiction of the world that acts but does not study. In all the average towns, hamlets and country-sides of the world human nature beats with exactly the same pulse. If a change come, it comes slowly and it changes all together, so that all are still alike. In the small towns novel-reading has been considered about as contemptuously as playing the fiddle, though admitted to be less dangerous than family card-playing. It was estimated that a novel-reader was confirming his indolence, and in danger of coming to the poor-house; a fiddler was prophesied to get into jail for vagrancy or larceny; while a card-player had entered a path that might lead as far as the gallows and comprehend all the crimes. This opinion still largely exists in towns and country-sides. We find it maintaining itself even in large cities, among all sorts of very good people, even among the most exceptional men of business, of the professions and of the pulpits. Novel-reading, as a mental vice, according to this opinion, may be compared with opium-eating as a moral vice. It is thought to enervate and corrupt by means of a luxurious excitement, purely fictitious and temporary.

At an annual meeting of members of the public library of a large city, the librarian read the aggregate number of calls for books of each class during the year. Let us assume that there were calls for 65,000 works of fiction, 5,000 of history and biography, 2,000 of science and philosophy, and, say, 75 of theology. One of the trustees, who had pretentions as to responsibility for the public conscience that would have dwarfed the pyramid of Cheops, arose and appealed to the members to suggest a plan for counteracting the deplorable tendency of the times to the reading of fiction. It did not occur to anybody to recommend the abolition of the printing press, and so a discussion began. One of the most distinguished and scholarly ministers and educators of the world, who was a member, came to the rescue of the Novel. He said, in substance, that the large majority of the men and women in the world were laborers for the bread they ate, and it was his opinion that when such persons were resting after the day’s toil, indulging their leisure, it was impossible to expect them to read works on theology and the abstruse sciences, while it was natural for them to seek amusement in novels and romances. He thought reading novels was much better than idle gossip, or loitering in saloons or in the streets. His remarks were received with great applause, and this declaration of his liberality of opinion was widely commented upon.

But is there any real liberality in considering the reading of novels as only just a better use of one’s leisure than gossiping, guzzling in saloons or wandering idly about the streets?

The idea that novel-reading has no value except as a relaxation and amusement is born of the same dense and narrow ignorance which concludes that alcoholic drinks and wine serve no real purpose but to promote drunkenness and wife-beating; that opium promotes only luxurious debauchery, and that all the elegant, graceful and beautiful ceremonies and customs of society are invented merely to amuse and gratify the vain selfishness of the rich.

The most curious aspect of novel-reading, considered as a vice, is that the great majority of those indulging in it, like those who indulge in drinking, gambling and other vices, are themselves willing to admit that it is indefensible if less perilous than other vices. They excuse it, just as the distinguished minister did, as an amusement so harmless, as compared with other vices, that you may indulge it and yet skirt hell-fire by a margin of a million miles. Some hypocrites conceal and deny the indulgence like your secret toper; others apologize for not indulging when they are in the company of notorious but pleasing offenders, as the hypocrite feigns benevolence. Every one of you doubtless has in mind the amiable man of business—maybe your tailor, your broker, your banker, your lawyer, your grocer—who cultivates your good opinion, and for the sake of the customer in you tolerates lightly the doubtfulness of your employment. He will even introduce the subject of books as a respectful and diplomatic concession to your heresies—much as all of us humor lunatics amiably and curiously, by broaching the subject of their delusions. He is tolerant because of fat success; his income is large, he spends it in a fine house, full of costly adornments, of which he has no knowledge except in the measure of cost and the correctness of their usage; he has equipages, and gives dinners and sits securely in Abraham’s bosom of society. He pays you the deferential compliment of asking what books you are reading. It maybe you are just out of the profound philosophical complexities and pathetic problems of “Les Miserables.” Perhaps you have immersed yourself again in the paradoxes of “Vanity Fair,” or have been pumping up the flabby tires of your better nature with the fresh air of “David Copperfield.” It is possible that “Tess of the Durbervilles,” or “A Window in Thrums” has been newly received, and has been enlightening your mind and conscience as to your relations to the world about you. Whatever it has been, you suggest the fact.

“It is a novel?” He replies doubtfully:

“Certainly,” you respond with enthusiasm. “A masterpiece.”

“Well,” protests the amiable Philistine, “I have—so little time—for amusing myself, you know. My daughter, now, she is a great novel-reader. She buys a great many novels. Last year I read a book called “The Greatness of Our Country.” It is a wonderful book. It said in that book that the United States could support a population of 400,000,000. I had no idea of that before. I asked Prof. So and So about it and he said why not: that China had 400,000,000 people. It is surprising what we learn from books,” etc., etc., etc.

This man has got one bald statistical suggestion in his head out of a book that is made to sell on trains. He recognizes it. It recalls dimly mathematics which he was taught at school. It is a concrete suggestion; it requires no effort to understand or remember. It is so wonderful to him that he has no time to amuse himself with the heart allegories and the practical questions of the condition of those possible 400,000,000 as revealed in “Les Miserables.” His daughter will do that and he buys for her novels, bicycles, gloves and chocolates with equal fond readiness to humor what he considers whims pardonable in children.

The Crack Beneath the Worlds – Chapter 1

This is the first chapter of my fantasy novel The Crack Beneath the Worlds:

 

CHAPTER 1 – VOICES IN THE CLOUD

“Finally!” Jerick kicked hard against the propane tank of the hot-air balloon. “Why didn’t this darned thing turn off earlier?”

“And why did we have to climb in here at all? This was the dumbest idea you’ve ever had.” Naomi clung to the side of the basket, which was suspended a hundred feet above ground. And rising fast.

Even for Jerick, hijacking a hot-air balloon belonged to the category of Exceptionally Rare Achievements. An ordinary day in the life of Jerick Faust might include carrying a gun replica through a security check, accidentally erasing all of his father’s work from his computer, or lighting firecrackers in his room and almost burning down the whole house. But not hijacking a balloon.

The feat was all the greater in that he managed to drag his little sister along, Naomi, who would not even steal a cookie without asking their mother.

Naomi was so tiny she wore little kids’ clothes instead of proper outfits for a girl her age. Today’s shirt was pink-purple bearing the picture of a doll stroller, complete with a smiley doll waving its chubby hand and the words “My Doll Is All I Need” printed on top. Needless to say, Naomi never wore the shirt at school.

“What are we gonna do now?” Naomi asked. She stood up on her toes and stretched herself to be able to put her button nose over the rim of the basket. Her face was wet from crying.

“What we’re gonna do?” said Jerick, oblivious to her tears. “I’m gonna land this baby, of course. What else?”

“Yeah, like you can actually do that.”

“Of course I can. I’m a balloon expert.” He put on his best patronizing smirk and stroked his reddish-blond spikes, which were completely unlike Naomi’s straight dark hair. All in all the two looked so different that few people believed they were siblings.

“See, this thing here is called a burner,” Jerick pointed to the metal object underneath the opening of the balloon. “It turns propane into fire and blasts the heat into the mouth of the so-called envelope to make the balloon rise. Now that the thing has finally turned off, all I have to do is pull on this control line here, which opens a flap at the top of the balloon for a moment, and voila!—we’ll start going down.”

“And why couldn’t you have just pulled the line while the burner was still on? Wouldn’t that have worked too?”

“Um.” Jerick opened his mouth like a fish and shut it again. “I, well …”

Before Jerick could come up with a far-fetched explanation, a wet cloud appeared out of nowhere and enveloped the balloon.

“Where on earth did that come from?” Jerick cried. “I thought it was a clear day. Did you see any clouds?”

Naomi said nothing.

“OK, well, I’m gonna pull the line anyway, I’m sure we’ll get out of the cloud then, and—”

A shrill voice echoed through the cloud, and it wasn’t Naomi’s. After a short pause, another voice answered, and then a third joined in. The voices sounded as if they were incantations in a foreign language, half singing, half commanding, like the pronouncement of a spell.

Jerick looked left and right, turned in a circle, bent over the edge of the basket and peered down. Nothing. Nothing but the gray cloud. “You hear that too?”

Naomi nodded.

“Seems like they’re right here in this cloud—whatever they are,” Jerick said.

The incantations grew louder. They moved all around them now, as if a whole choir of invisible witches dwelt in the cloud.

Naomi crawled into a corner of the basket and squatted down.

Jerick held his breath. An icy shiver coursed up and down his spine.

All at once, the cloud rent open and the warmth of the sun engulfed the wet faces of the children.

The voices were gone. The children exhaled.

“What was that?” Naomi asked.

“I don’t know, but we’re out of it now. Time to bring this thing down.”

But when Jerick looked toward the ground to see where to land the balloon, he froze.

“I can’t believe this,” he said. “Nomers!”

○ ○ ○

Ever since Naomi was five, Jerick had been calling her “Nomers,” even though she couldn’t stand the nickname. It sounded too much like a mathematical equation to her, not at all like a reflection of her inner being. She thought things should have names that befitted their character. Like a lullaby, or a golden chalice. Lul-la-by sounded calming, and a golden chalice sounded precious. Or the word lovely. Lovely truly sounded lovely, she thought. And crunchy sounded like you could bite it with a crunch. Nomers, on the other hand, didn’t sound like the person she was at all.

At the moment, though, she was much too afraid to think about that. So all she said was, “Yes?”

“Come here.”

Naomi got up to stand beside Jerick. And then she, too, held her breath. “W-where are we?”

“I don’t know.”

A lump swelled in Naomi’s throat. Down there, far underneath them, as far as the eye could see, shimmered the deep blue of an ocean. There was no land in sight. “There aren’t any oceans close to the festival grounds, are there?”

“No, not for miles around. We’re in the middle of the country, or at least that’s where we should be. I’ve got no idea where we actually are.”

“Oh Jerick!” Naomi began to sob. “How awful! What’s happened to us? Oh, I wish I’d stayed with Mom and Dad. And … and I wish I hadn’t followed you into this stupid balloon!”

Jerick looked as if he was close to tears himself, but he’d of course never cry in front of Naomi. He turned away from her, bent his head over the edge of the basket, and looked straight down. Naomi suspected that he wanted to wipe a few tears from his eyes without her noticing.

He barely had time to do so. “A SHIP! Look! There’s a ship!” he shouted and pointed at the water.

A ship? Naomi pulled herself up on the rim of the basket, her feet dangling in the air. She craned her head forward and peeked down—cautiously, because she was afraid she might fall out. Yes, Jerick was right. Directly underneath the balloon, an old-fashioned sailing ship glided through the water. Her bow cut through the gushing waves and her stern left a trail of white foam behind. Looks like a Viking ship, Naomi thought.

This day was getting more confusing with every minute. What was she to make of a Viking ship in an unknown ocean?

A quick whizzing sound and a thump cut through her musings. After a brief pause, trying to figure out what had happened, she let go of the rim, stumbled onto the bottom of the basket, and screamed. An arrowhead stuck through the cane only a hand’s breadth away from where she had been hanging!

Click here to order to the book.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel: Love or Hate It – Or Both?

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel

by Susanna Clarke

 

With the possible exception of “War and Peace” and the Bible (well, and “Ulysses,” which I still haven’t finished and perhaps never will), no other book has taken me this long to read. 

I picked it up at an airport in London one day and was immediately delighted by the combination of 19th-century storytelling with 20th-century magic, both of which are elements that I love. 

Then, however, the story seemed to get stuck in all the telling. More and more was told, less and less was shown. About Mr. Norrel, the introvert magician who is the main focus of the first part of the book, it says, “He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him.” That, I must confess, also seemed to be a fit description of the book at times. 

Thus I put it aside and turned to other literature. 

After a few months, I picked it up again and gave it another try. And slowly – sometimes too slowly – I was pulled in. The more work I put into the book, the more it grew on me, so that by the time I reached the riveting finale, I had come to love the book. 

Now I feel like I might re-read it one day. It’s a book that requires patience, and definitely a love for 19th-century storytelling. But if you give it the time of a 19th-century reader spending long afternoons in his library, then it can become a dear companion. 

Shall I give it five stars? I’m torn. At times I hated it. I’ve come to love it. Maybe four stars will serve it best.

Do You Like Narnia or Harry Potter? This Might Be For You!

What Do I Think of “Twilight”?

This week, the movie Twilight will hit theaters. It’s based on the first book of the best-selling series by the same name, written by Mormon mom Stephenie Meyer.

I read part of the saga a while ago, although, due to circumstances that involved my local library, I only happened to read the second book in the series, New Moon.

It’s a Young Adult Fantasy novel, which is a genre that I love even though I don’t belong to its target audience anymore. And I liked New Moon well enough.

The book starts with Bella Swan, the protagonist, spending her eighteenth birthday with her vampire boyfriend Edward and his family, but because of an unhappy accident during the party, Edward decides that Bella is not safe in his family and they ought to move far away. Which they do.

Left without her boyfriend, Bella struggles with depression and meets someone else …

The story goes on from there.

What I liked about the book was not the love story as such, but fascinating concepts such as Bella having hallucinations of Edward’s voice when under an adrenaline rush and consequently seeking ever more dangerous situations in order to keep hearing Edward’s voice – a quest that eventually puts both her and Edward into great peril.

That twist and the ending of the book added the necessary zest to what might have otherwise been a fairly bland and overly (female) teenage-pleasing story.

I can’t say that this has been my favorite Young Adults novel I’ve ever read, but it was worth the read. And who knows? Maybe, if the situation at my local library had been different and I’d read the first book in the saga first, I would have enjoyed the second book even more than I did. I certainly do not recommend starting with this book, as I did.

One of the Longest Novels Ever …

At the moment, I’m reading one of the longest novels ever: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Here are a few quotes. More about the book later.

• “HONESTY is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud.”
• “INDEPENDENCE is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it.”
• “INTEGRITY is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence.”
• “LOVE is our response to our highest values. Love is self-enjoyment. The noblest love is born out of admiration of another’s values.”
• “PRIDE is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned.”
• “RATIONALITY is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.”

“The Martian Chronicles” – Timeless!

 

The Martian Chronicles

by Ray Bradbury

 

I first heard about “The Martian Chronicles” when I read Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451″ a number of years ago. Back then, I was under the impression that the “Chronicles” was actually a series of books, or at least a very long book. This is not so. The “Chronicles” is a fairly brief collection of short stories that fit into an overarching fictional history, starting in 1999 and ending in 2026. 

The book was initially published in 1946 – right after WWII – a time in which the year 2000 must have still seemed a long way off. Due to the specific time frame of the book, it is somewhat dated and less convincing than it must have been in the 1940s. After all, we live in the time Bradbury depicts, and the world is of course not the same as in his fiction. 

But the dates in the book are the only thing that’s dated, because the stories themselves are timeless. And I don’t say this lightly. For me, the predicate “timeless” is one of the highest praises I can bestow on a book. This one deserves it. 

It is most emphatically not a science-fiction book per se, and it is not even remotely about technological gadgets. Bradbury himself has likened the book to mythology rather than science-fiction, and I think he’s right. 

Not technology, but human identity and the experience of the ironic – this is the golden thread that runs through the book. From the beginning when men first arrive on Mars and do not at all experience the kind of welcome they expected, to the very end when – well, but let me not tell you how the book ends. Suffice it to say that is full of the ironic. Often it is tragic irony, but always thought-provoking and delightful. 

Bradbury touches on other themes too: religion, the effect of science on humanity, racism, illusions vs. reality, etc. 

It’s only the second book by Bradbury I’ve read, so I can’t compare it to his other works. But for all those who crave the timeless, this is the real thing.

A Juvenile James Bond in Fairy Land

Artemis Fowl Book 1 (Promotional Edition) (Artemis Fowl)

by Eoin Colfer

 

Think of a juvenile James Bond with an IQ beyond Einstein’s. Then throw him in a world of technologically superior fairies, and the fun can begin. And this is really what Artemis Fowl is about, first and foremost: FUN. 

Some might say it reverts too easily to stereotypes, but I am not sure whether this is actually a bad thing. Too much depth, too much complexity in character development, might have taken the umpf out of the sheer fun ride I’ve had in reading Artemis. 

The basic idea of the book–for those new to Fowl’s world–is that there is an underground world of fairies who go to great pains to keep their existence a secret from the human upper world. Until Artemis, a young criminal master mind, tracks down the fairies and upsets the whole balance of the worlds above and below ground. 

In summary: Don’t expect the symbolism of Narnia, the metaphysics of His Dark Materials, or the detail of Harry Potter. Artemis Fowl doesn’t have any of those. Instead, expect to be blasted away by the explosive energy of a fun novel. 

(By the way, if you enjoy Juvenile Fantasy, you might want to check out my novel The Crack Beneath the Worlds.)