3 or 4 stars for the story, a dozen stars for Nathaniel Parker’s reading of it. Remarkable.

“i was a broken boy, and you fixed me” please, excuse me while i sob my eyes out.

and our little arty is a hero!!!!!! i’m so proud of my boy!!!!

Loved the whole series. This was not the best book in the series, but a wonderfully funny and entertaining end.

The ending really hit me out of nowhere. I'm going to miss it...

This one was hard to finish, not that it wasn't a great read, but the fact that the series would be over.

I’m not quite sure how to begin this review of the final book in the Artemis Fowl series. There were moments I loved, to be sure.

Spoiler

Artemis’ ultimate sacrifice, how Holly tries to prevent him, how Artemis tricks Opal and manages to close the gate, and, finally, how Artemis is brought back and the series loops round on itself as Holly tells him about how they first met.

I loved all that. The opening chapter was a relief too, with Artemis’ razor wit sharpened back to its familiar keen edge, and this book separates itself from the oddball Atlantis Complex (#7) by getting back to the series’ staple; Artemis navigating his way through complex schemes and plenty of action. The Atlantis Complex was strangely short and truncated too, whilst The Last Guardian (#8) is back to full length magnificence. All good stuff. However, in other aspects of the book I just felt unimpressed, or worse, disappointed.

Like The Atlantis Complex, The Last Guardian just didn’t feel like an Artemis Fowl book. The series has always been marked out for its unique blend of high technology with just a touch of fairy magic. Sure, the fairies can heal, shield, and mesmerise, but the focus has always been on the cool gadgetry and the problem solving required to utilise and/or outfox the high tech. With The Last Guardian it feels backwards. The plot largely revolves around magical material such as the berserkers, spirit possession, and the magic of the gate seal, with a few minor techie bits thrown in. The problem is this is boring. Artemis and co. spend most of the book trying to elude creatures magically possessed by berserkers. Oh. So… these berserker spirits just magically were bound to this gate and then they just magically have to obey Opal and then they’re able to just magically possess hosts? It’s just not as exciting. It’s too arbitrary and deus ex machina. Instead of a well thought out explanation or problem solving I felt like I was just presented with “and then magic did this” too often. And then, there isn’t a great choice of hosts on offer, so the spirits are forced to take control of woodland animals, dead pirate corpses, and Artemis’ four year old brothers. Let’s just say this motley crew was more laughable than concerning. I just couldn’t take them seriously as a threat, and as a result the story felt like it lacked tension. Compare it with the edge-of-the-seat heart of The Opal Deception (#4) where Artemis and Holly are pursued by a pack of hormone fuelled trolls blind with rage, and The Last Guardian just doesn’t measure up.

Speaking of deus ex machinae, there was far too much of it here. There are a couple of moments where the story goes back on itself to provide an explanation in order to get the characters out of a tight situation. For example, Holly attempts to pilot a shuttle through a closed dome, but instead of just writing that the shuttle smashes through the dome Colfer does a “many weeks ago” thing where Foaly stuck some experimental bio-bots up there and programmed them to recognise that one particular shuttle’s signature so that they dissolve the dome and let the shuttle through. It’s too damned convenient! It’s not good writing. If you’re going to do that you have set it up properly and do the whole Chekhov’s gun where you mention it offhand earlier in the book or series and then have it come in useful later on. You can’t get to the actual event and then retrospectively do a “sometime earlier” bit because it just stretches readers’ credulity too much. You can get away with it maybe once, but twice in the same book? Nuh uh.

Another problem, though this one is minor by comparison, is Artemis’ four year old twin brothers. I didn’t mind when Artemis returned from his Lost Colony (#5) adventures to discover he now had brothers – it was a twist that further served to shunt him towards a normal family life after the series begins with his family life very much in disarray with Artemis basically the only one looking out for himself and his family’s interests. It was even funny in The Time Paradox (#6) when Artemis attempts to give his two year old brothers a genius level education in hopes of them being as brilliant as he is. But in subsequent books (#7 and here, #8), one of his brothers is actually of the same genius level as Artemis. Again, what made Artemis a unique character was his astonishing level of genius at such a young age. It’s his defining trait. The problem with Artemis’ brother Myles also being a genius is that firstly it detracts from the uniqueness of Artemis himself, and secondly, Myles’ level of intelligence approaches Artemis’ and he’s only four years old. It’s just too unbelievable quite that young. Artemis a teenage whizzkid? Unusual, but we've all seen the news segments of some teen training to become doctor and working on a cure for cancer or teaching a university IT seminar. A four year old? Eh... not so much.

A word must be said about Artemis/Holly too. It doesn’t go anywhere. At very best, it returns to being subtext. It didn't evolve in The Atlantis Complex either, although that was understandable since Artemis was having an incapacitating psychotic episode and at the very least the dynamic was openly spoken of and acknowledged. But I would have thought that here, with Artemis back to his usual self and being the last book in the series to boot, the door would be reopened to Artemis/Holly and it would at the very least end with an open acknowledgement and the door open to the future. But it’s like the whole thing has just been stone cold dropped. As a reader I feel disappointed. I thought Colfer did a great job of gradually, over the course of several books, slowly evolving Artemis and Holly’s dynamic. I bought into that. It felt natural and well done. Colfer won me over into believing in and wanting to see where Artemis/Holly would go. I feel more than a little irate that the past two books have all but pretended it never existed. What was the point of dropping all those subtext hints, of making it an open ship in The Time Paradox, only to drop the whole thing like a hot cake in the final two books?!

In conclusion, the final book in the Artemis Fowl series isn’t its best. It suffers in comparison to the series’ high points – The Opal Deception (#4) being my personal favourite, with The Arctic Incident (#2) and The Time Paradox (#6) jostling for second place – and this is exacerbated by the fact that this is the final book in the series. I wanted, and expected, this book to deliver a truly great conclusion to a much beloved series. It has its moments, but it wasn’t the great book I so wanted the series to end on, which is a bit of a disappointment.

7 out of 10