Artemis Fowl - The Arctic Incident
The Arctic Incident is the second book in the Artemis Fowl series. Where the first book was basically a fun fairy heist story, this next installment really amps up the action with real world criminals, a violent goblin rebellion, and an actual villain that needs to be defeated. Artemis and Holly who were once enemies, now begrudgingly find that they need each others help. Artemis is still looking for his supposed lost father, and Holly and her team find themselves falsely accused of arming the goblin rebellion currently overrunning their home, Haven City.
Overall, The Arctic Incident does a great job as a sequel to the original Artemis Fowl book. Like all good sequels should do, it raises the stakes in a major way. It also allows the characters and their relationships to grow, and resolves some plot points left hanging from the previous book. The fact that there is an actual villain here, someone for Artemis and Holly to try and take down, was also a nice change. Instead of being on opposite sides, I liked seeing Holly, Root, and the fairy team have to work with Artemis and Butler so that they could each get what they wanted.
However, I must say that though this is a fantasy story, with fantasy-type violence, it doesn’t change the fact that there is a lot of actual gun violence in this book. You could say that yes, they are magical guns, but with the way things are in our world today, it is a little hard when reading to not think about real world consequences. Another thing to mention is that just like in the first book, this book has creative ways that magic and technology are used together. But, there is so much technical jargon in here, that it even went over my head, so I’m not sure how a younger reader could really connect with those scenes as they sometimes made my eyes glaze over a bit.
While there were parts of this sequel that I loved, and parts that I questioned, I do think that if you are a fan on the first Artemis Fowl book, then you will probably enjoy the sequel. Your enjoyment will really depend on how much you like the characters in this series, and how invested you are in seeing them succeed.
