Artemis Fowl and the Opal Deception (Artemis Fowl, #4)

by Eoin Colfer

Evil pixie, Opal Koboi, is back and she's more dangerous than ever. This time she doesn't just want power over the fairy People - this time she wants the humans too. Captain Holly Short is the only fairy with a hope of stopping her, but as Holly knows, it takes one genius criminal mastermind to fight another. But the 14-year-old genius that Holly is thinking of doesn't even remember that fairies exist. How is she going to convince Artemis Fowl to help her stop Opal? Gold usually does the trick, and this time is should be no different. Or is Artemis changing?

• ISBN10: 0141315490
• ISBN13: 9780141315492
• Publish Date: 6 April 2006 (first published 1 January 2000)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 31 March 2011
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Puffin
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

“Once upon a time, Artemis Fowl would have vowed revenge.” (Captain Holly Short)

In Artemis Fowl and the Opal Deception, Opal Koboi has escaped and is taking revenge on the people who destroyed her. She also plans to expose the Fairy world to the humans. Unfortunately, the only person who has a chance at stopping Opal, Artemis Fowl, has been mindwiped and has no knowledge of the Fairy world.

The Artemis Fowl series is about a child genius who straddles the line between villain and hero. I especially enjoyed witnessing Artemis's character development in Artemis Fowl and the Opal Deception.

The characters have become friends through their shared adventures in previous Artemis Fowl books and I love their interactions. They are always so happy to see each other even when the circumstances are less than stellar. Holly is a badass and I love her defiant nature. Her relationship with Artemis has developed into friendship. There's also Mulch, the disgusting dwarf, who's really good at what he does, and who could forget Butler, the best bodyguard in the world and Foaly, the tech guy with a big head.

Opal Koboi is a formidable villain. She's smart, crazy, narcissistic and evil. Her plans might be downright atrocious, but I enjoyed reading about how her mind works. The same goes for the way I felt when witnessing the fruition of Artemis's ideas and plans.

I'm excited to see Artemis become more heroic in Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony now that he's gotten his memories back and has become a sort of Robin Hood along with the fact that he's become a consultant for Holly and Mulch's private investigation business.

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I still love this book.

When I read the Artemis Fowl series as a kid, The Opal Deception stood out as my favorite. I just LOVE Opal as a villain. She’s cheesy and incompetent and overstuffed and I love it. In many ways, she reminds me of Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove – filled with evil plots and intentions, but surrounded by unhelpful minions and plans that exceed her abilities. Basically, someone who is too smart for her own good and makes a mess of things.

The Opal Deception excels in other ways for me – for one, we get a partnership between Butler and Mulch, which just seems so unlikely and hilarious to me. These two characters could not be more different. This is something Eoin Colfer really excels at – his characters will usually split into teams, and they are always entertaining.

The other pairing, of course, is Artemis and Holly. Colfer manages to keep these two fresh by inserting outside elements in each book that affect their relationship. In The Eternity Code, Artemis and Holly were a well-polished team, but through most of The Opal Deception, Artemis is struggling to recover his memories of the faeries. We have two parallel plots here – Artemis’s struggle to realign himself and decide what path he is going to follow, and of course the whole stopping the villain thing. I like them both, and I think they go hand-in-hand very well, with Opal serving as a mirror to what Artemis may become.

It is also in The Opal Deception that we start to see the story growing up a little. The first three novels in this serious are middle grade, but here, we begin the slow descent into YA. The series takes the reader into Artemis’s late teens, and choices he makes in The Opal Deception and its following The Lost Colony shape the rest of the series.

Personally, I still really liked this one, but I can see why others may remain generally unimpressed. Taking a middle grade series into the YA world isn’t easy, and the transformative years can be particularly difficult to maintain. I appreciate the way Colfer took the plot a step up for this novel, and all the possibility implied to come at the ending.

[wyvernfriend]

Artemis has decided to steal a painting, he can't remember any of his past dealings with faerie, but strangely enough, this paining has faeries. Meanwhile Holly is dealing with promotion, the only way she knows how and almsot pining for the days when Artemis made her life interesting.

And then Opal Koboi breaks free with a cunning plan to destroy faerie lands and to gain a lot of power, Artemis will have to be reminded, and faerie is never going to be the same.

I found it interesting but it did lag a bit in places, Artemis is becomming more of a rounded person in this story and there's a bit of introspection going on which is all good. I'm looking forward to the next installment.