THE SOLARIUM

10 Words: Less than the sum of its parts. Good parts, though.

Or More: The Opal Deception was never one of my favorite Artemis Fowl books, and, after my latest reread, it remained solidly in the middle of the pack.

Most of it is probably due to my my inability to make peace with the mind wipe at the end of The Eternity Code. Book 3 concludes Artemis’s character arc, which would have made it a natural conclusion for the series. Instead, most of that development is temporarily erased so Artemis can spend this book speed running it. This also undermines the relationship he spent the last three books developing with the fairies, just as their rapport was reaching peak hilarity.

However, if Artemis Fowl remained a trilogy, my favorite book in the series never would have been written, so I won’t waste any more time complaining about that. 

Opal’s encore performance as an antagonist is definitely more memorable in the first. Here, she’s the active, malicious force driving the plot as opposed to simply being the main villain’s sugar mommy, the way she was in Book 2.

She pursues her quest for vengeance with delightfully vicious enthusiasm and ever-increasing self-obsession and paranoia, making every scene she’s in dynamic and entertaining. Not to mention she succeeds in bringing about the only real main character death in the series, raising the stakes for the series as a whole.

Commander Root’s death really stands out for me. Holly’s lasting grief makes sure the impact doesn’t end after the explosion. We even get a scene in The Time Paradox where Artemis gives her one last chance to say goodbye, showing how much Root meant to her and that she’s still missing him a year later (or a few years earlier, whatever.) Commander Root wasn’t a character I ever had much attachment to, but his touching goodbye to Holly and her anguish over failing to save him still get me emotional. 

Holly and Artemis’s stand against the trolls is also a favorite scene of mine. There’s the obvious primal threat—barely sentient beasts wanting to eat and/or mate with them—as well as the chilling cerebral menace projected by Opal, even in her absence. The scene is filled with all kinds of different tension, including the emotional tension between Holly and Artemis, who still doesn’t quite remember her, but is willing to lie to comfort her anyway.

The Wonders of the World amusement park set piece also strikes me as really cinematic. It’s a shame that Disney Plus adaptation basically killed off any chance of ever seeing The Opal Deception onscreen. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a Disney Plus miniseries in a decade or so—it seems to be working out pretty well for Percy Jackson.

Unfortunately, the Wonders of the World scene so good it leads to the rest of the book feeling a little goofy and anticlimactic by comparison. Goofiness is one of the things the Artemis Fowl series does best, so that’s not the worst thing in the world. It’s just that the truffle-switching antics seem a little lightweight compared to what came before.

Then again, I might be judging this book too harshly because I know what comes next, and, in my opinion, there’s not a single Artemis Fowl book with a more climactic ending than The Lost Colony. It’s a decent entry in the series, but I’m mostly grateful for it for acting as a gateway to better things to come.