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‘The Amulet of Samarkand’ is a rather long name and I never took interest in it (I know, you can’t tell a book by its name but it never caught my attention) until I just took a look at it out of boredom. When I read the synopsis at the back of the book, I was hooked. This book is a creation of Jonathan Stroud. Jonathan creatively mixed the world of magic and modern society in one book smoothly.

The story is placed in modern London, with magicians who control 'Djinnis' or powerful magical beings, ruling Britain, which is the world's strongest nation. Each magician is supposed to select an apprentice, from among young children forfeited by the 'commoners' or those without magical abilities.

Nathaniel, a young child is adopted by a not-so-powerful magician. He is slowly taught the various magical procedures by his master. Nathaniel happens to be very bright child, which his master fails to see, and proceed with his education extremely slowly. A frustrated Nathaniel, summons a djinn without his master's knowledge. He decides to take revenge on 'Simon Lovelace', a magician who had humiliated him and his arts tecaher. He decides to do that by stealing an 'Amulet" called the "Amulet of Samarkand" from him, without realizing the implications of it. He fails to realize the power and the gravity of what he was about to do and summons an extremely sarcastic but honest djinn called "Bartimaeus" to do his work.

Bartimaeus, with certain difficulties, and unwillingly obtains the Amulet. Bartmaeus, is told to place the amulet in his master's room. Nathaniel, unwittingly places his master in danger, and Simon Lovelace traces the amulet to his house and demands that he returns it. Nathaniel's master denies it and Simon Lovelace, decides to use force and torchjes the whoel house, killing his master and his wife, who Nathaneil was fond of.

Nathaniel, vows to take revenge (typical) and with the help of Bartimaeus ( who is forced to help him as Nathaniel places a spell that would imprison him in a can placed at the bottom of the Thames river until someone opens the can) he gets into a hall where Simon is holding a conference for the parliament ministers. As soon as Nsthaneil gets in, and is captured (unfortunately), he realizes that he is in a greater mess than he ever thought as Simon planned to kill all the ministers and to take control over Britain. (Again, typical power crazed bad guy) He planned to do this by summoning an incredibly poweful being, that would consume anything.

Bartimaeus and Nathaniel, outsmart Simon, when the being was wreaking havoc and manage to control the being, send it back home and save the day. Nathaniel, saves the day, is heralded the hero (After narrating his story with 'minor' tweaks, to the Prime Minister).

He is made the apperentice of a much better master and Bartmaeus is thanked and dismissed.
The book is written with intwo ways, with chapter alternating between Bartimaeus narrating the story and the author narrating Nathaniel's story.
As Bartimaeus narrates the stroy, it is filled with sarcasm and his hilarious. The book is filled with actioa and is fun to read. Jonathan has written a trilogy and it has been an instant success.

Do read it as I highly recommend it.

When people just didn’t have enough of Artemis when the second book was released that Eoin Colfer had to end up writing three more. The third book in this hugely popular series, Artemis Fowl and The Eternity Code focuses on the disastrous events that follow Artemis’ attempt to sell a device that he managed to piece together from the equipment that Butler salvaged from the fairy retrieval team that came to rescue Holly.

He creates a small device the size of a paperweight that can read DVDs a few meters away in amazing quality. He tries to sell it to a notorious businessman called John Spiro, who refuses Artemis’ offer to not put the device in the market for a year if John gave Artemis a whole load of gold (Yes, he just can’t resist gold). And while Artemis is demonstrating the device’s capabilities, he accidentally almost reveals the existence of fairies. John, who becomes the first person to outsmart Artemis by planting an ambush in the restaurant where they meet, takes the device from him and his bodyguard attempts to kill Artemis but is saved by Butler who dies in the attempt. (Shocking, I know but wait till the end).

Artemis is devastated and showing his true brilliance, he puts Butler in the freezer of the restaurant and makes a few calls to ensure the police don’t touch Butler. He puts Butler in a proper cryogenic chamber and makes a call coded with phrases only fairies would know. Meanwhile, when Artemis almost exposes the fairies, havoc breaks loose in the fairy world. Holly is sent to investigate and Artemis’ call alerts Foaly who send her to investigate it too. Artemis, who is relieved to find Holly, convinces Holly to heal Butler as he is frozen only a few minutes after his death. Holly does it, but Butler ends up growing 10 years older in few minutes.

Artemis explains about his mistake to Holly and Artemis convinces Commander Root to let him and Holly to retrieve the device, as it would expose the fairy world. As this is happening, John Spiro, who has connections with the Chicago mob, is told that his scientists would not be able to do anything with the device as it was encrypted with an “Eternity Code”. Root agrees, with a condition that Artemis would have to be mind wiped. John sends for a mob team to fetch Artemis.

The team just happens to consist of the very hilarious Mulch, who is working for the mob. Mulch warns Artemis and Artemis decides to play along and he is taken to John. Artemis, with the help of Butler’s sister Juliet, Holly and Mulch, through one of his ingenious plans, retrieves the devices only to be foiled by John who had anticipated it.

John forces Artemis to remove the encryption and Artemis meddles with the device and John is convinced that Artemis had really done it when what Artemis really does is to allow Foaly to connect with the device. Artemis convinces John to steal some product designs from his competitors, and John falls for it and takes Artemis along. Foaly, through some manipulation convinces John that he is really stealing the plans while the police are summoned. Artemis is whisked away from there by Holy and John is left trapped by the Police.

The best part comes when Artemis, in the fraction of a second when he is being flown away from the place, uses his device to hack into the LEP’s police site and to make Mulch a free bird. The crowning moment comes when Artemis gives Mulch a computer disk disguised as a gold coin with a hole in it, which was given to Artemis by Holly. Artemis hands Mulch a note telling him what to do and to come back to him with the disk to help him get back his memories. Whether he gets them back or not is revealed only in the next book. Eoin Colfer is brilliant with his remarkable style and plots.

The snappy humour, sarcasm and Artemis’ plans never fail to entertain. Artemis Fowl books are now coming to be compared with Harry Potter. It certainly deserves that distinction. So, go and read it and have your laughs.

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