Review – The Time Paradox (Artemis Fowl Book 6) by Eoin Colfer (3/5 stars)

This was the 6th book in the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. Sounds like this is going to be the last Artemis Fowl book for a while. There is mention of Colfer writing a seventh book in a couple years, but right now no more books after that seventh one. This was a pretty good book although I didn’t like it as much as the previous books.

Artemis Fowl’s mother comes down with a mysterious illness that can only be cured with the brain fluid of a specific type of lemur that Artemis himself helped to make extinct four years ago. In order to save his mother Artemis must travel back in time to confront himself and save the lemur. To accomplish this he will need the assistance of many of his old friends; No. 1 and Holly Short are both back to help him.

This book was okay. I didn’t think it was as well put together as some of the previous books. It is interesting to read about Artemis as he tries to grow comfortable in his “good-guy” role. From the description of the book I thought we would be treated to moredialogue where Artemis banters with himself, but that really didn’t happen. There were a number of times where everything was going well and then oops! something went wrong. In fact this happened so many times in the course of the book that it became kind ofpredictable and I thought made the book much lengthier than it needed to be.

I missed Foaly who was absent through most of the book. I also missed Artemis being clever and all the neat gadgets that the faeries usually bring into play. All the characters were a bit mushy and weak throughout and the witty dialogue that usually packs the pages of these books was conspicuously absent.

Although I liked this book and enjoyed reading it; I think it was one of the weakest books of the series. Most things are tied up at the end of this book, but there are a couple large clif hangers that could fuel a plot for another book. Unfortunately I think Colfer is sick of writing this series and it came across in this book; the characters seemed tired and desperate and the plot did not carry me forward and excite me like it usual does.