Eoin Colfer – The Eternity Code

137. The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer (2003)
Artemis Fowl, Book 3

Read my review of book:
1. Artemis Fowl
2. The Arctic Incident

Read By: Nathaniel Parker
Length: 6h 54min (336 pages)

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Started: 29 October 2010
Finished: 03 November 2010

Where did it come from? The library.
Why do I have it? I’ve been enjoying the Artemis Fowl audiobooks thus far.

This is why the sign
says: Don’t Tease the Billionaire
Corporate Moguls.

Summary: Artemis is pleased to have both of his parents alive and well (or at least on the mend), but he realizes that parental supervision will likely cut short his criminal extra-curricular activities. So, he plans one last big operation: He’s taken some fairy technology and used it to create a computing device that is decades beyond anything humans currently have. His plan is to dangle this technology in front of Jon Spiro, the CEO of one of the world’s largest computing and communication companies, and then extort Spiro for large amounts of cash in exchange for keeping the cube off the market. However, things start going wrong – deadly wrong – when Spiro manages to outsmart Artemis and steals the cube. Once again, Artemis and the fairy folk must work together to recover the stolen cube or risk losing everything.

Review: I’ve been listening to the Artemis Fowl books as a fun, light break from other reading, and thus far I’ve been enjoying them. However, I didn’t feel like The Eternity Code lived up to the precedent set by the first two books. There was still plenty of action and adventure and cracking wise, which was good, but I didn’t feel like the danger was as dangerous or the criminal mastermind plans so mastermind-y. The characters admit that it will take Spiro’s people a while to crack the cube’s code, so there isn’t really a sense of urgency about Artemis’s attempt to steal the cube back from Spiro’s clutches. Similarly, there was barely a facet/twist of either Spiro’s or Artemis’s various schemes that I didn’t see coming from a mile away. There were some nice character moments, and it’s interesting to watch how Artemis has changed since a few books ago… but I want my heist stories to feel slick, and this one didn’t quite make it there.

Also, a note to authors setting a book primarily in a city with which they are not personally acquainted: have a local read your story *before* it goes to press, or else face the wrath of local readers who will undoubtedly catch your errors *after* it’s gone to press. Most crime lords don’t have lairs on the East Side of Chicago, because the “East Side” of Chicago is Lake Michigan, and referring to “Chicago state law” is enough to make geography teachers weep. Similarly, while I generally like Nathaniel Parker’s narration – he’s good with the various voices and the UK accents (at least to my uncultured ear) – his attempt at a Chicago mobster accent was almost laughably bad. 3 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: The Eternity Code was still an entertaining read, despite being the weakest of the series so far… but it did at least leave me curious to see how Colfer would carry on in the next book.

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First Line: EXERPT FROM ARTEMIS FOWL’S DIARY. DISK 2. ENCRYPTED. For the past two years my business enterprises have thrived without parental interference.

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