I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK–BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE-Bee Hives (2004).

B-side collections come in a couple of forms: the awesome collection of fantastic rare tracks, the self indulgent crap that only true fans would like, and the middle road.

This collection fits nicely into the middle road.  I’ve enjoyed Broken Social Scene’s two later discs (I haven’t heard their first one).  This collection comes between the second and third.  And it contains remixes of songs from the first two, as well as some instrumental tracks.

The tracks are all dreamy and sort of atmospheric.  It’s definitely the kind of disc that requires the right mood, as the instrumentals are pretty but not exactly pulse-racing.  The highlights are Feist’s rendition of “Lover’s Spit” which is ghostly and haunting.  And “Backyards,” a wonderfully catchy, beautifully sung song that could easily be one of their best.

This collection is not for the casual fan, but if you really like BSS, it’s a worthy addition to their catalog.

[READ: November 1, 2008] Artemis Fowl And The Time Paradox.

Just another example of how the British cover, while not drastically different, is still much cooler than the US cover.

This is the sixth book in the Artemis Fowl series.  Sarah asked me if you could read any of them without having read the previous ones.  Aside from the first, which you should read just for background information (and because it’s a great story), it doesn’t REALLY matter which you read next.  Although references to previous events do crop up in the subsequent stories, the plot events of each book are not dependent on previous knowledge.

Especially this one.  While it obviously helps to know about Artemis’ past relationship with the fairies, and his life as an evil-doer rather than a good-doer, the basic plot of this story stands alone.

In this one, Artemis’ mom contracts a fatal fairy disease called spelltropy.  It is only curable with a special fairy magic–the kind of magic that was once created by evil fairy mastermind Opal Koboi (you could read Artemis Fowl and the Opal Deception for more background on her).  Unfortunately for Artemis’ mom and potentially all of fairly land (who are very susceptible to spelltropy), she used up all of her serum and it has been impossible to clone (and she’s in prison).  It also turns out that the only way to get the remaining ingredient to create the serum is through the brain fluids of a currently extinct lemur.

And, so this story deals with that most fascinating and potentially fraught-with-peril event in fiction: time travel.  Artemis must go back in time and save the lemur from becoming extinct.  The problem is that Artemis himself caused the lemur to become extinct. Young Artemis may have been hard-hearted, but he wasn’t a killer, really.  He has his reasons (which I won’t go into as they are fairly complex) why he sold the last living lemur to a group of Extinctionists.

Thus begins the most unusual subplot I’ve read in a long time.  The Extinctionists are a group of people who despise animals, unless they can prove their worth to humanity.  Once a year they have a banquet in which they serve endangered animals as food, and act as judge and executioner over a soon-to-be-extinct species.  If it is deemed worthy, it lives, but more often than not, the Extinctionists relish in the death of the last animal of its kind.  These bad guys are so over the top as to be fairly ridiculous, yet there is some good storyline (and morality) gained by them.  Plus they are so ruthless, they make for an excellent enemy.

And so, the action is pretty top notch.  Artemis and his posse leave the comforts of Ireland and fly to Fez, where they engage in Mediterranean battles.  There is also a skirmish in Ireland.  They don’t actually travel to fairyland on this trip, but there is plenty of fairy activity.  There’s lots of fun with time travel, and the space-time continuum.  And a lot of young-Artemis vs older-Artemis and younger-Butler trying to figure out who this trespasser is, who knows all of the Fowl’s secrets.

There’s also several kraken involved (which the fairies say get a bad rap as they’re actually very docile).

Like the other Artemis stories, this one was a lot of fun.  Colfer writes in a wonderfully fluid and engaging style.  The action is top notch (even if the villains are over the  top), and he handles the time travel quite well.  There’s one or two moments where you wind up going “Huh?” but he does tend to cover his tracks later on, which is always good.

I won’t compare this to the other books in the series because I don’t think that’s really fair as I read them a pretty long time ago.  I will say that the time travel elements were especially cool and fun and mind bending.   If you’re a fan of the series you won’t be disappointed by this one.  If you’ve not read the series at all, don’t start here, start with the first one.  But I’m sure you’ll get hooked fast enough, and it’ll be nice to know there are so many more books for you to read.

I thought that perhaps this was going to be the end of the series, as what more can you do after doing major time travel.  However, the ending certainly sets us up for more Artemis.  So, Mr Colfer, bring it on.