Thursday, October 29, 2009

Artemis Fowl and the Opal Deception

This book is about a child called Artemis Fowl, criminal mastermind. After many ordinary criminal exploits he turned to look at the magical kind of crime. After holding an elvish fairy (Captain Holly Short of the lower elements police) hostage in the basement and nearly triggering a cross species war he made a truce with the fairy folk. But after several adventures going around the continents Artemis had his mind wiped by the fairy folk as part of the Spiro affair deal (who had stolen a mixture of fairy technology Artemis had manufactured and called the cube.) and turned back to earliest criminal tendencies.
But now an old enemy is back and wants Artemis dead. Meanwhile Captain Holly Short, a previous friend and ally, is on the run, charged for murdering her own commander, someone who was like a father to her. Every single one of the of the fairy folk depends on Artemis, and Artemis depends on a lowly Dwarf.
Just before Artemis had his mind wiped he gave Mulch Digums, Dwarf fugitive and a helpful yet sometimes unwilling member of Artemis' adventures, a disk that had enough information to create a trigger to restore his and Butler's memory after the wipe. So Mulch must go and give Artemis the disk to restore his memory. But when he gets to Artemis's manor he finds out that Julius was infact not killed by Holly but murded by there old enemy Opal Kobai and that Artemis and Holly were captured by her. Opal tried to start a war between the humans and the faries. They stopped her, blew up her ship but she escaped. Fortunately she was tracked, caught and bought into custody. Artemus and Butler were sent home.

Author: Eoin Colfer

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Percy Jackson And The Battle Of The Labrinth



This book is about a boy called Percy Jackson, who is half Greek God and half human, a Demigod or, as he says it, a half blood. He attends a camp for half bloods, Camp Half Blood. Half bloods live in the real world, disguising themselves as humans and living with their human parents. In the earlier books he made enemies with the traitor Luke, who wanted to betray Camp Half Blood to the Titan Lord, Kronos. The last time he saw Luke was after Luke had had a nasty fall down a six metre cliff on Mount Tampalis, the place where the titans palace once stood and which Luke somehow survived , while Kronos slowly reformed, piece by piece.
During a camp exercise Percy and his friend Annabeth Chase found an entrance to the labyrinth, a huge maze shaped like a web and which they knew Luke had been exploring. To go into the labyrinth was almost sure death or worse but if Luke found a way to navigate it, he would have instant access to Camp Half Blood, which he wanted to destroy. He could with his armies of monsters and renegade half bloods. So Percy, with his friends Annabeth, Grover the Stayr and Tyson the Cyclops, (Percy's half brother) go down to stop Luke and the forces of Kronos.


The maze was designed to fool and trick people and it's riddled with traps and monsters. There is no place in the labyrinth that is safe for a mortal. En route to the center of the labyrinth they get stuck in Alcatraz, San Francisco. They were chased by the ruthless monster Kampe. In the prison they find the hundred handed one Briares, the last of his brothers, they try to escape from Kampe, who was actually a servant of Kronos, the one that kept the Cyclops and the Hundred handed ones locked up in Tutarus. They manage to escape, barely, and Percy loses his shield, hand made by Tyson. After they get out of Alcatraz Briares was ashamed that he couldn't help them Escape Alcatraz he walks away, shameful.


On the way they find Nico son of Hades, who blames Percy for the death of his sister who died at the hands of a defective prototype Talos, sacrificing herself to blow it up from the inside and saved the goddess Artemis. They call a truce to defeat the monster Geryon, but Nico gets injured and drained of energy from the combat, so he stays behind with the Immortal son of Ares, Eurytion who also gave them an Automaton spider to lead them to Hephaestus, the god of the forge and metal working who would know how to get to the workshop of Daedalus.

To get the directions to Daedalus' workshop, he wanted to know who has used his forged. He sent automotor to find out who was using his froge but they never returned. When he went himself, the things using his forge deserted it. He asked Percy and Annabeth to go and check it out themselves as Tyson and Grover had found an entrance to a cave that might hold the God of the Wild Pan. They saw strange figures working at the forge. Annabeth put on her cap of invisibility to find out what the creatures were. Percy meanwhile hid in a wagon of celeastial bronze. He was about to be discovered by Telekhines, sea demonds, that were working on the forge. He jumped out and escaped after exchanging a few blows. He ran to cross a bridge but was prevented from crossing by four Telekines. He engaged them in combat, they used lava, he used the power of the sea. This resulted in a massive explosion where he was thrown into the air. He blacks out.

He wakes up to be looked after by a Kalypso who nursed him to health and sent him on a magical raft back home.

Racheal Elizabeth Dare, Annabeth and Percy then head off and find one of the entrances to the Labarinth. They found their way to Daedulus workshop after they had found Grover Nico and Tyson. Daedulus went with them to Camp Half Blood with his hell hound, Mrs O'Leary. They arrived just in time for the battle of the Labyrinth. Which was gruesome and terriffying but all ended well with the heros triumphant.

This book is full of humour and morales. 9.5 out of ten for experienced readers.

This book was written by Rick Riordan.