Second of the Artemis Fowl books, and I think it would be a bad move not to have read the other one first; there's minimal background information provided here about Artemis and the fairy heirarchy.

In fact although Artemis is involved in this story, he doesn't take centre stage in the same way as the first book, since the story mainly concerns an internal struggle between various fairy factions. And when he does appear, he doesn't seem quite so invincible as he was in the first book. Also there's not enough about Butler, the bodyguard.

But it's still a good read, and contains a fair number of chuckles - e.g. "They headed down the corridor. Two hundred goblins versus our three virtually unarmed heroes. It was going to be close."

Completed : 14-Jun-2003