Life after Artemis

What to do now that Artemis Fowl, that loveable rogue, has ‘retired?’ Luckily, the fact that Eoin Colfer writes hardboiled adult crime novels these days, has not prevented him from coming up with more outlandish plot ideas for us younger readers.

In W.A.R.P. The Reluctant Assassin he returns to the Victorian era, with a crime thriller complete with a sci-fi twist. As Eoin warns in his author’s notes, there are neither vampires nor werewolves on offer, but he can give you mutants, murderers, magicians, and other dreadful types. And an ‘Injun princess.’

We have Victorian urchin Riley and 21st century FBI agent Chevron Savano, age 17. (So, totally unrealistic. Or not. How are we to know what those alphabet agents really get up to?) What’s more, we have a wormhole. And Riley and Chevie couldn’t meet without one or other of them travelling through said wormhole.

Other people go through the wormhole, too, and in some cases it doesn’t end so well. W.A.R.P. is the witness relocation scheme with a difference. Witnesses are stashed in 1898, which is so safe.

There is a villain, who – I think – is actually quite charming. The blurb describes Garrick as a terrifying assassin – which he is – but I quite liked him. Not sure if I was meant to.

So, a thriller set in London, now and in 1898. The advantage being that even an FBI agent will recognise the landmarks in the past. They are the same, but smell worse. And Riley’s reaction to television was quite something.

This book has the usual humour that you come to expect and crave from Eoin, and whereas at times I was afraid that it would turn out to be only a Victorian FBI through the wormhole kind of affair, when you get to the end – which is not really an end at all – you understand that there is much more to it. Temptingly so.

Moving tales #2 – the books

The books. Some will simply have to go. About half would be good.

So, one question: Does it make more sense to hang on to old books already read and thoroughly enjoyed, or those not yet read at all? I’m beginning to think that some used ones ought to go, and some new ones should stay, in the hopes they will come into favour at some point. But not too many.

Some books have moved around with me before. A lot. I used to be of the opinion that if I’d liked something, I’d hang on to it. Part of the family and all that. Now that this looks like an impossible ambition, I suspect I can chuck out quite a few books. I look at them and ask myself if I’m at all likely to re-read, even were I not so blessed with new incoming books on a daily basis.

More often than you’d think, the answer is no. And for every 19 books successfully Oxfammed, there is bound to be a 20th I will regret. But there are libraries and secondhand bookshops, and even firsthand bookshops, whence mistakes might be rectified.

Libraries. I must have imagined I actually am a library in the past. Thoughts like ‘that could be handy to have if …’ have confused me. I have hung on to books because I am a snob. It would look impressive – or at least marginally good – to have certain books on my shelves.

And, it’s so useful to have a nice selection if visitors want to read while staying with us. Pah! I don’t like lending books, and we don’t exactly run a hotel here. The only people impressed by our books have been Son’s reception teacher and our former GP. The Grandmother sometimes finds something she will read (which she then takes home with her to finish).

I have been known to feel that if I adore a writer, I must keep all of his or her books, when a few of the best will do. Now that I own a lot of signed books I have felt I can’t part with any of those. But I’ll just have to. (The embarrassing fact is that anything signed to Bookwitch will be rather obvious. Please don’t hate me.)

I can’t get rid of books written by the very nice people I am now reasonably acquainted with. But I will have to. You are still absolutely lovely people. So are your books. Lovely, I mean, not that they are people.

Several copies of the ‘same’ book makes little sense. So does keeping [all of] Offspring’s books. Unless they at least spring clean a little, so we don’t keep every single one. Son could prune his multiple copies of Terry Pratchett and Eoin Colfer. Daughter could decide she won’t bl**dy re-read Cathy Hopkins, again. Actually, no, perhaps she couldn’t.

Some of my fiction is quite easy to decide on. But what about Shakespeare? One collected works is enough, which means the other can go. But the plays we also have separately? What will we want to return to at some point? Which Tom Stoppard play do I like best? Shaw? Do we need two Swedish hymn books?*

*This backfired a little. When the Resident IT Consultant was reminded of Shaw, for instance, he promptly sat down and read one of the plays. He told me off for wanting to deprive him of the poetry of Dylan Thomas. Oh, dear. He claimed the Zen motorbike book was his, and not mine to chuck out. And so it went.

But some books went.

The Big O as an e

It’s his birthday tomorrow. That’s why I’m letting Declan Burke have two reviews in one and the same week.

I’ve already reviewed* The Big O. It was back in 2007, when I didn’t know what to make of this Irishman with his entertaining blog. Could he write crime novels?

He could. And for anyone who is now feeling traumatised after reading Slaughter’s Hound (if you haven’t had time yet; don’t worry. You will feel in need of something lighter), The Big O is just the thing for you.

As good, but less bloody. The characters swear, and they commit crimes, but the tale is more humorous than brutal.

The paper version of The Big O is long gone. And Declan found it was hard to interest people in its sequel when there was no way of reading the first book. Hence the move to a new ebook. I think it’s an opportunity you should take. If only because it will then ease your way to reading Crime Always Pays. The sequel. Which is even better. And funnier.

I know what you are thinking. That witch is besotted. But then, so is Eoin Colfer. I’m in good company. Join us?

*Please note. Back then I didn’t imagine there would be much more Irish crime for me to read. Hah!

Bookwitch bites #95

I have rearranged my reading lists again. These days I put books into a pleasing colour order, and try and keep track of chronology by writing stuff on a piece of paper. Lately I’ve surprised myself by grabbing ‘old’ books to read. I also have a Kindle ready and raring to go, because I’ve ignored the ebooks for so long I can’t even remember how long it’s been.

It seems Eoin Colfer has an e-short coming this week. It’s lucky I came across Eoin’s own tale about this in the Guardian, since I’d not heard anything about it elsewhere. I have no idea if his is the only Doctor Who e-short, or if there are a whole bunch of them.*

This might not be the right place to admit I’ve never read one, but I haven’t. Someone close to me who has, was recently persuaded to prune a little on the shelves, so there are now not quite as many. They sound fun, but then a lot of things sound fun. Eoin’s introduction to the Doctor was very amusing. But he does have a cousin called Kevin.

Someone sent me a word manuscript of their latest crime novel, which has also gone on the Kindle. Unfortunately I am not allowed to tell anyone about it, so won’t be able to report back when I’ve read it… (Just thought you’d like to know.) There is that list from paragraph one to deal with first, though.

The Branford Boase longlist was made public this week. It’s really tricky when you like several books so much that you just dont feel it’s possible to have a preference. I suppose it will be easier once the shortlist is here? Maybe just one really good book will get through. Except that would mean the other great stories didn’t make it. Gah.

Something which didn’t make it this week was my interview on Monday. I’ll kill that iPod! Or perhaps just tell it off for slacking. Luckily the Resident It Consultant had bought another recorder thingy, which I’d decided to test run side by side with something old and trusted. To see if it worked. Hah.

From now on I will be known as Old Two-Recorder Witch. How can I ever go places with just one? (I’m not paranoid. Just cautious.)

*Now I have checked this, and there are 11. Apparently the old Doctor is 50 and they are celebrating.

The Gaiman effect

WordPress sent me their cheery stats for 2012. There really does not seem to be much one can do about Neil Gaiman. His fans create havoc when they land here, and very welcome havoc it is too.

At least the post about Neil – and Chris Riddell, actually – was written during 2012. As WordPress pointed out, some of my most popular ones are oldies, which means my writing has staying power. Apparently. They suggest I should write more about these topics. Which, apart from Mr Gaiman, seem to have been me (cough), Terry Pratchett, the Barrowmans and Cats with Asperger Syndrome.

Sort of a varied selection, then?

You came here from 162 countries, and Twitter sent you. Or Eoin Colfer, or John Barrowman. But funnily enough you were mostly interested in me (again), Oliver Jeffers, Liz Kessler, Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Faraday.

Stats are weird, but then, so am I.

Here’s to 2013 when I will not be taking things quite as easy as I ought to. You can see how the W – for witch – wobbles above the fireworks. Tired already.

Bookwitch bites #92

Thank goodness for these bites where I can complain on a variety of subjects almost every week. Occasionally I have lovely news as well. Let’s see if I can find some.

I don’t often (like never, obviously) receive invitations from the Canadian High Commission in London, but this week I had to make myself say ‘no thanks’ to them. But as Disney’s Cinderella says, what could possibly be nice about a visit to Canada House? (Only all of it…)

Came across the programme for Book Week Scotland at the end of November. Can’t go, even though I can be found north of the border that very week. So no Frank Cottrell Boyce. No Debi Gliori and no Steve Cole. Nobody.

Offspring are my reasons for travelling, and Son had some news this week, relating to the literal translation he did earlier this year. We are finally able to say it was Strindberg, for the Donmar at Trafalgar Studios. The Dance of Death. Will get back to you on that.

Before leaving Scotland, let me just mention the Grampian Children’s Book Award 2013. Apart from Patrick Ness who is on every single shortlist these days, the shortlisted authors are Barry Hutchison, Cathy MacPhail, Mark Lowery, Dave Cousins and Annabel Pitcher. Tough competition.

South to Newcastle, where the good news is that Seven Stories can call themselves National Centre for Children’s Books, as the only ‘national’ place in the Northeast. Well done to a special place!

Actually, I am coping with the happy business, after all. We’ll finish with a decisive jump across the water to Ireland, where they have The Irish Book Awards. You can vote, but you might want to follow my example and only vote in categories (they have so many!) where you have read the books. Luckily I didn’t have to choose between Declan Burke and Adrian McKinty. Not quite so lucky with Eoin Colfer and Derek Landy, though.

A witch can always flip a coin.

Artemis Fowl and the Last Guardian

Well, wow! That’s one grand finale to a pretty grand series of books. (I gather you should use the word ‘grand’ to make it sound more Irish. Genuine, like.)

Eoin said on Tuesday that he wanted to put everything into his last Artemis Fowl story, and he certainly has. We’re back to an – almost – compos mentis Artemis. Sometimes I believe we never got back the Artemis we started with, on account of his encounter with the fairies did something to him. He became nicer. More human. At the beginning, even the fairies were more human than Artemis.

He’s got over his fear of four, just about. Things are looking promising, and then quite suddenly things are looking anything but. The destruction of everything, Haven and Earth, looks set to happen imminently.

What to do? Well, some reckless behaviour never hurt. It did, actually. But they engage in it all the same. They are the usual bunch of people we know and love, and we know – or hope – that between them, Artemis and Holly, Butler and Foaly might come up with something.

As always, there is very little time. What to do, when you only have seconds to think of a solution?

The minor Fowls get to play a not inconsiderable part, and enough to make the reader fall in love with Beckett, and even with Myles.

The problem, as always, is Opal Koboi. You have to admire the woman. She can come up with the most fiendish plans under the worst conditions. This being the last book, might Eoin let her succeed? And will he kill off one or several characters?

The Last Guardian feels more tightly written than some of the Artemis books, and the humour is second to none. I’d love to quote you a few choice lines, but can’t. It’d give it away. (In fact, the only hints you’ll get can be found in the report on Eoin’s talk in Preston three days ago.)

Speaking of love; there is romance in this book. I almost wondered why Eoin spoke at such length about finding love, but I think I know now. He was referring back to the great Foaly. I didn’t know he had it in him, to be honest. Foaly, not Eoin.

Thank you, Mr Colfer, for years of fun with the intelligent child villain and your adorable fairies. Just as you mentioned that children can read adult books and enjoy them, we oldies can read Artemis Fowl. You don’t grow out of him. Admittedly, I had my doubts after the first book. I wasn’t sure I could continue reading about such an immoral and cold, cruel boy. But now, now I feel ready to go back to the beginning and start all over again…

When Eoin Colfer asked Opal Koboi to dance

Our last gasp before some well earned rest took us to Preston for – I think – Eoin Colfer’s first UK event for his new and last (sob) Artemis book. Artemis Fowl and the Last Guardian was published yesterday and has been so fiercely guarded that I only set eyes on it 24 hours earlier. Eoin told the audience that for this last book he put everything in, to make it special.

It was the wonderful SilverDell bookshop who hosted the event along with the local library service, and it took place in the grand County Hall. When Eoin arrived he was taken aback by the size of the venue and I suggested he’d have thought of a better talk if he’d known.

We were able to recognise him, even though he tries to disguise himself with a beard. Venerable, was the word Eoin used to describe it. He pulled his hat off to show a full head of hair. It’s greyer than it was, but it’s all there. So is Eoin, and there was absolutely nothing the matter with his talk.

He did the ‘talking to a cardboard box’ routine, which never fails to make us laugh. But mostly Eoin told us about his family, starting with brother Donal who disgraced himself in his confirmation photo, but lived to be the model for Artemis, on account of looking like a small James Bond villain in his confirmation suit. Donal boasts about this in pubs, but funnily enough the brother who’s the inspiration for Mulch Diggums never mentions his ties with the farting dwarf.

We have Irish education to thank for Artemis. They teach children about fairies as though it’s fact and history. (Of course it is!) And had it not been for that fateful first night at a dance for young Eoin, we might have had to go without the deliciously bad Opal Koboi. She wore pink converses with dolphins (he’s making this up, isn’t he?) and it’s her face that he still remembers when he writes. ‘I only dance with humans,’ she said to his bumbling efforts of asking.

Eoin’s other little brothers are goblins, and his sons are Myles and Beckett. If pushed, Eoin will admit to being Foaly. Sort of. And you can just see Foaly with his head in that cardboard box, can’t you? Julius Root was based on a teacher. And none of this would have happened without an early James Bond experience. They were deprived in those days.

Nowadays Eoin can only write in his own room with the right music from the 1980s and with the coffee in its precise spot. He likes battles won with brains, and quite fancies Midsomer style crime without the murders. Nothing too violent.

He finished by reading a short excerpt from the book where Juliet is holding the fort. Literally. Myles and Beckett are a challenge, even for Juliet. Both boys are lovely, though, and I can quite see why Eoin feels he will probably write a book about them at some point. The world is screaming out for more calculating little Fowls. Myles is a worthy successor to Artemis (should one be needed…) and Beckett’s underwear is unmentionable.

In answer to the question how he pitches his books at the right age, Eoin said he used to like not understanding all the words in a book. It made him feel more grown-up, and he wants his readers to have to look words up. Glad to see Eoin read and liked the same books as a child as I did. So thank you to Ivanhoe and the Scarlet Pimpernel and Huckleberry Finn. And brother Donal, naturally!

There was a massive queue for signing afterwards, and we would have loved to stop and chat but exhaustion won, and we caught a more civilised timed train home.

Who ‘fired’ first

Two of my most treasured books as a ten-year-old were a couple of Reader’s Digest children’s annuals. I am not blushing all that much admitting to this, because they meant a lot to me. I read them over and over again, and there was plenty of interesting stuff to find.

In one there was a puzzle to solve. It was the picture of a saloon mirror which had lots of bullet holes, and the clever marshall who went there to decide in which order the shots had been fired, could immediately work out the correct answer, based on how the cracks on the mirror were hemmed in by each other.

That’s pretty much the technique I used to decide which author had signed an anthology of mine.

Some years ago I had this crazy idea that I’d get my anthologies signed by as many of the participating authors as I could. What I hadn’t worked out was that I’d be getting more and more of them, so my task would simply grow too big.

I still cart collections of short stories around, especially when I know I’m likely to run into more than one potential signer. But generally speaking it’s a lost cause.

The volume I had in mind when I mentioned the shooting above, was one I looked at a while ago, several years after I’d done my carting around. Melvin Burgess was obvious. He signed first, so had taken up a lot of the available space. Tim Bowler was next, so there was plenty of room for him as well.

Then came Alan Gibbons, who also did all right. And after him I collared… Yeah, who did I find? I tried deciphering the signature and failed abyssmally. It was more a doodle than anything. In the end I needed to look at the index to see which of the authors I had met, and thereby might have signed. There was only one possibility.

With that thought I peeped at some of his other signed books, and I’d been right. How could I have forgotten Eoin Colfer’s autograph? And what did he (or anyone else) think of being offered only a tiny space in which to doodle?

It’s a weird hobby, but one I suspect I will continue pursuing, on and off. I once made up a list of my books and which authors, and which ones I’d had signed, in order to make my planning easier. I gave that up pretty swiftly. It was as hard to keep up with as my card system for knowing what’s in my large freezer.

Better to take pot luck in both cases.

Bookwitch bites #81

If you fancy listening to Eoin Colfer swear and curse you shouldn’t click on this video from the launch of Paul O’Brien’s debut adult crime novel Blood Red Turns Dollar Green. (No, I don’t know what that means.) It seems Eoin was looking forward to having left the children’s world behind (why?), when he discovered there were children present, so he had to clean up his act in praising his fellow Wexford author. Or he might have made that up. He’s also shorter than the first presenter in this clip.

The sound quality isn’t marvellous, and it sounds like it’s raining (it’s Ireland, after all), but you have to admire an author who uses his speech at someone else’s launch to talk about himself… Just joking. I still have to get over the beard.

Mentioning Eoin some more, I see the last Artemis Fowl is almost with us. July can’t get here soon enough. Artemis Fowl and the Last Guardian. It sounds like a newspaper advert, but that’s OK.

Being Irish could be enough to enter the multilingual poetry competition run by the Manchester Children’s Book Festival. If you are lucky enough to be aged under 19, and you have a first language other than English you can enter this competition with a poem in your own language. English native speakers learning a foreign language can also enter by writing a poem in the other  language.

I have no poetry writing skills, so it’s just as well I’m old. For anyone else who is interested, go to Mother Tongue Other Tongue for more information. And write fast. The deadline is 28th May. The Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy will present the prizes to winners on 30th June.

That other award – the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award – will be presented on the 28th May, and I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I thought it was going to be on the 22nd (for some obscure reason, not known even to me) and worried in case Crown Princess Victoria had double-booked herself, forgetting she has a baby that needs Christening. On the 22nd. But all is well, and Guus Kuijer will presumably be able to shake the royal hand after all.

Last year when I was searching for foreign reads I believed it’d be both easy and logical for me to read something Finnish. Not actually in Finnish. Obviously. Failed in my research and gave up. Then the other day the Resident IT Consultant (who clearly had nothing better to do than surf the net) sent me a link to an article about Finnish books (which had been translated – into Swedish).

Sinikka and Tiina Nopola are sisters writing books about a Finnish rapper by the name of Risto. I love the original title, Risto Räppääjä. You really can’t have too many äs in a word. Expecting great things I went in search of Risto in a more manageable shape. He’s out of print… So that’s that.

Räppääjä, Räppääjä!