I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MATES OF STATE-“Palomino” (2011).

I don’t know Mates of State, although I have heard about them a lot.  This is their new song and it is immediately infectious.  It starts out with a falsettoed “Whoo oo oo ooo oo oo” that is immediate and catchy as heck. 

I just read about them on the NPR page and it makes me want to like them even more:

Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel speak a shared language in Mates of State, the effervescent pop band they share as a married couple with children. Alternately sung and chanted, often in unison, their words represent the sound of infectious joy — the irony-free expression of a love that’s as true as it is hard-won.

Sometimes a good pop song can really make you day.  Even if you’re more into noise rock or heavy metal a pop song that’s neither cloying nor stupid just warms your heart. And this one sure does that. 

Looks like it’s time to check out their past releases.

[READ: November 10, 2011] Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex

For some reason, it took me a long time to start reading this book.  I just recently learned that there will be only one more book in the series.  For some reason even if I like a series, I’m happy to see it come to a conclusion even if, as in this case, I don’t feel that the series has run its course yet.  But the strangest thing about this book is that the cover is completely different from the rest of the series.  I find this bizarre for a couple of reasons.  If you have established a cover style for a series of books, why suddenly change it in the 7th book?  And even weirder, if there is only one more book in the series, why change it now?  When it came out, I didn’t even realize it was an Artemis Fowl book.  Very strange.

The only reason I can imagine is because in the book Artemis himself is a very different person (but really, that’s pushing it, designwise).  For in this book, Artemis has contracted the deadly Atlantis Complex.  Essentially, since he has been feeling guilty for his past transgressions and because he has ingested a lot of magic, his system is trying to cope.  And it manifests in the Atlantis Complex. 

The Atlantis Complex begins with a sense of paranoia and crazy compulsions (in Artemis’ case, he trusts no one, not even his family, and he suddenly gets obsessive about numbers–5 is good, 4 is death).  And for Artemis, who is usually a steady, logical thinker, not only is superstition very noticeable (all of his sentences have words in multiples of 5), it is quite dangerous.

The story itself starts with Artemis calling for a meeting on the surface.  He invites Holly Short, elf policewoman and trusted confidant; Foaly, centaur and massive IT guy and Raine Vinyáya, elf wing commander.  Notice that Butler, his ever-present bodyguard is not present.  Artemis has created a machine that he claims will halt global warming.  In what I thought was a funny gibe, the Fairy people (who live underground) don’t really care about global warming because if all the humans die, the Fairies can come back on land.  Artemis points out that all of the animals will die as well, and that changes their mind.  His solution is fairly simple and yet also elegant.  But he needs the help of the fairies.

As he’s explaining this to them, a probe comes down from the sky.   The Fairies notice it immediately but Artemis believes it is a delusion–part of his paranoia.  He ignores it, despite the fact that it is headed right for him.  At the last second, Holly has to blast him out of the way.  This blast triggers the Atlantis Complex in full.  And Artemis’ alter ego is unleashed. 

His other personality’s name is Orion and he is dorky and not very helpful.  It turns out that everything that Artemis has repressed over the years comes out in Orion (so he hits on Holly like crazy, which is very funny).  Orion has been living in Artemis’ brain, so he has vague ideas about what Artemis knows, but there’s nothing terribly useful coming out.  His solution to any problem is to bivouac down and wait for help.  Great.  This is especially useless since they simply cannot figure out who is behind this probe and they could really use his help.  Even more especially when they realize that the probe and the droids that are on the probe were created by Foaly.  And they have been hacked into and have been turned against them.

Meanwhile, poor Butler has been sent to Mexico.  His sister, Juliet, is a masked wrestler there and Artemis told Butler she was in danger (Artemis was paranoid even about Butler).  She wasn’t in danger.  But once Butler showed up, she became endangered.  The mastermind behind the probe plot is also the mastermind behind the destruction of Butler.  And he is able to mesmerize an entire audience of wrestling fans and instructs them to kill Butler and Juliet.

The mastermind behind the plot is Turnball Root.  This isn’t really a spoiler because he hasn’t appeared in any of the books before, so we don’t really know much about him.  Suffice it to say he is an evil genius with just enough magic to be able to sway the prison guards to do his bidding.  He has been hatching a plot for his escape from prison for a long time.  Ultimately, his goal is to help his wife.  His wife is human and he had magicked her into falling in love with him (odds are she would have anyway, but a little magic helped).   But the more time they are apart (he’s been in jail for years) the more the magic loses its hold and the older she gets.  Fairies lives for hundreds of years, but his wife is aging like a human, and will soon be dead.  He needs magic  to keep her and to keep her alive.  It’s a fairly touching plot point, although it’s amazing what evil masterminds will do to get help to those they love.

There are some wonderful plans afoot–escape from prison, use of a medical ship to help the escape, and the employment of No 1, a warlock demon who has very powerful magic.  No 1 has been useful to Artemis before and it’s unlikely that he would turn against him.  But if Turnbull’s magic is strong enough, what could he do?

It’s funny to write such a simple explanation of the plot of this story.  Typically the Artemis stories are convoluted with lots of different twists and turns.  In this one, the story is fairly r. Without the machinations of Artemis (because Orion is present through much of the book), the twists are few.  Nevertheless, the dangers are real and (since Artemis is out of much of it), the scenes are very suspenseful as we wonder how they can possibly escape.

The other unusual thing about this story is that is that there is very little time spent among the Fairy people (except for the prisoners).  We don’t see any of Foaly’s workstation and we barely even see Holly’s commanders.  Much of this story is spent in a ship (or two) as they remotely try to fix the problem.  And the end is brought about primarily by Turnbull’s wife.

While I enjoyed this book (and could hardly put it down towards the end), I missed the cleverness of past books.  True, the addition of Orion was inspired and caused for a lot of humor, but seeing our hero down and out was a little less than fun.  I’ve noticed that many series end with a very dark chapter before the brightness of the end, and maybe that’s what this is.  I’m certainly looking forward to seeing how he’s going to wrap this all up.  And I wonder if Artmesi will be able to save the world from itself.