The Fowl Twins

By: Eoin Colfer

Narrated by: Nathaniel Parker

Criminal genius runs in the family…

Myles and Beckett Fowl are twins but the two boys are wildly different. Beckett is blonde, messy and sulks whenever he has to wear clothes. Myles is impeccably neat, has an IQ of 170, and 3D prints a fresh suit every day – just like his older brother, Artemis Fowl.

A week after their eleventh birthday the twins are left in the care of house security system, NANNI, for a single night. In that time, they befriend a troll on the run from a nefarious nobleman and an interrogating nun both of whom need the magical creature for their own gain . . .

Prepare for an epic adventure in which The Fowl Twins and their new troll friend escape, get shot at, kidnapped, buried, arrested, threatened, killed (temporarily) . . . and discover that the strongest bond in the world is not the one forged by covalent electrons in adjacent atoms, but the one that exists between a pair of twins.

The first book in the blockbusting new series from global bestseller Eoin Colfer.

©2019 Eoin Colfer (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

THE BOOKSELLER – Fiona Noble
“It’s a wildly entertaining ride with all the high-adrenalin action, whip-smart dialogue, and ingenious gadgets you could hope for, filling something of a gap in the market.”

THE GUARDIAN – Kitty Empire
“Colfer’s playfulness is in full swing…”

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH – Emily Bearn
“Colfer is a hugely entertaining writer who unravels his plot at breakneck speed while never stinting on the detail.”

flashback to childhood!

this book has the same charm as the first series, it was a wonderful reliving of the joy i got from reading about artemis fowl. nathanial parker is a great performer and all his characters bring their own life to the story. colfer does it again and im delighted that this series is coming now to give the adventures of fairies and fowls to a new generation!

Just As Good As The Original Series

The Fowl Twins occurs seamlessly as a continuation of the Fowl series, just with a new set of protagonists (though I'd argue that Myles is the sole protagonist here). So the question many will ask is this: do I need to have read the other Artemis Fowl books to understand this book? My answer would be no - we have the same set up here where the twins have to learn of the fairy people and so can lead the readers in as well. of course, you'll enjoy the story even more when you have a prior understanding but characters from previous books make VERY brief appearances so it really is a whole new ball game here.

The next question would likely be this: is it is as good as the Artemis Fowl series books? And I have to say that yes, definitely, even with new protagonists this is just as amusing and fun to read. Colfer gave the twins diametrically different personalities that fill a lot of holes that their age would create as weaknesses. Meaning, it takes both twins to get out of situations that only one could not. But all the rollicking fun, magic, and imagination is on display here and this does not feel derivative at all.

Story: While Artemis has used fairy-tech to build a self propulsion engine to take him to Mars and the Fowl parents are away on humanitarian endeavors, the twins are left at the family's newest mansion under the care of an AI nanny. What could go wrong? Add a pocket-sized troll escaping Haven, a British aristocrat seeking the fountain of youth, an AI drunk on its own self evolution, and a young fairy with no powers on a training mission. When the twins (and troll) are kidnapped, it's up to their ingenuity and the fairy (trying to free the troll, not help the twins, natch!) to get them out of their predicament.

Colfer has made some clever decisions in this story to separate it from Artemis Fowl yet also maintain the same flavor and plot structures. We still have a fowl protagonist, a fairy who gets embroiled with the Fowl family, a caretaker/guardian of the young Fowl, a Fowl family member who needs saving from a kidnapping, and an eccentric villain. But the changes are: the protagonist is doubled, the fairy is a pixel (pixie x elf offspring) with no magic, the caretaker is a VERY quirky AI, the family member who needs rescuing from a kidnapping are the twins themselves, and the villain is a human this time rather than a fairy.

Since the twins are the same age as Artemis when the first series started, we are going to get the same progression from selfish thinking to caring more about others. Just as Artemis went from being a villain who kidnaps a fairy and does illegal things so he can fund an expedition to save his father, the Fowl twins go from being fairy self centered and sheltered to learning there is a bigger world out there. The twins each have a unique character skillset: Miles is the complex brains while Beckett is the rather simplistic muscle (although also a polyglot).

The charm in the series is that Colfer has a great way of making fun of each situation and then turning things on their head. From the beginning, you'll wait with baited breath to see how the twins and fairy get out of each of their predicaments as the situation slowly becomes more dire. Along the way, you have toy trolls, evacuation seats, a sinister organization named "cypher" (because naming an org after a cypher is so last year), a hungry shark, mysterious island homes, and lots of fairies.

I listened to the Audible version and it was the same excellent narrator as with the Artemis series. He does a great job with all the accents and I can't imagine listening to any other narrator as a result.

The fowls

I have read all the Artimes Fowl books, 3 times over! And so naturally I wanted to read these ASAP.

There is one problem. I’m ADD, so the story has to be interesting and not too confusing or I’ll loose interest and I constantly found my mind straying and the plot sometimes confusing, not for very young readers, but a very good book

Smart storytelling

Excellent vocabulary and word play. Smart book. Our 9 year old twins loved it. I recommend this action packed story.