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The Fowl Twins, by Eoin Colfer, is about 11-year old twin boys, Beckett and Myles, who are

brothers of Artemis Fowl, and are very different from each other. Beckett is blonde, messy and

sulks whenever he must wear actual clothes. Myles is incredibly neat, has an IQ of 170, and

wears a fresh suit every day. These twins are members of the Fowl book family which is filled

with unusual individuals. One is an immortal duke, another a miniature troll, one a nunterrogator

and the last a Police Specialist. It is not necessary to have read the Artemis Fowl series to

appreciate this book, although it is helpful.

This book has lots of humor, adventures, villains, and the introduction of a new blue fairy, a pixel

(pixie and elf hybrid) named Lazuli Heitz. Lazuli is a Lower Elements Police (LEP) specialist with

an ambitious personality but no magical powers.

Myles is a suit wearing, intellectual genius, scientist, fastidious, smug, know it all, and enjoys

lecturing others. His brother, Beckett, is nothing like him other than in appearance. Beckett does

not even want to wear clothes, takes delight in poking fun at Myles, is disorderly, is keen on

learning languages spoken by animals and it is not certain what his intelligence levels are. The

twins live on the well fortified Fowl Irish Dalkey Island, under the protective eye of NANNI (The

Nano Artificial Neural Network Intelligence). This is an AI system devised by Artemis himself,

with input from Myles.

Beckett found a miniature troll, who he assumed at first was a toy, and he named it Whistle

Blower. The troll is actively being sought by the monstrous 150-year-old Lord Teddy Bleedham-

Drye, who is looking for ways to live forever. Lord Teddy wants the troll's venom. Consequently,

he has the Fowls under constant surveillance. He does not care what he has to do to lay his

hands on Whistle Blower, including murdering the Fowl twins. Besides Lord Teddy, the Fowl

twins have another villain after them. This villain is a secret international intelligence agency

called ACRONYM. The person in charge of the operation of capturing the Fowl twins, torturing,

and interrogating them is a nun, Sister Jeronima, the nunterrogator. She speaks English and

Spanish, has plenty of resources and is backed by various governments. Eventually the twins

find themselves detained in Amsterdam and then are taken to the well defended island of St

George, in the Scilly Isles. They have to face death and danger and ultimately join forces with

Lazuli and Whistler Blower in order to save themselves. They refer to their group as The

Regrettables.

This is the kind of book that is likely to appeal to many children and adults. It is an ideal book for

parents to consider reading to children because this is a highly entertaining read. It is inventive,

comic, witty and a page turner. The story if fast paced and the fancy technology talk is exciting

and is not dumbed down for the younger audience. The polar opposite twins bounce off each

other’s personalities with their snarky comments.

While this is a fun book it is hard to get over the absence of Artemis. He had such a big

personality in the other stories and his absence is acute. It seems like the character of Myles is

supposed to be like a discount Artemis. Beckett is like a discount Butler from the original series.

Luzuli is like a discount Holly from the original series. It is hard to believe these twins do not

have a Butler watching over them. The writing style was annoying at times. Overall, it does not

have the finesse and tightness of the original series. Too many thing ‘just happen’ because of

magic or superior fairy technology.

I would give this book an 8 out of 10. It is fun to read but the plot and characters are not as well

thought out and believable as the ones in the original Artemis Fowl series.

Check out The Fowl Twins from the Newport Beach Public Library.