‘Somewhere in Texas there’s a dad who hates books and has been forced to read one of mine to his child,’ says Eoin Colfer with the genial humour of a man who has sold more than 25 million copies. ‘So, I like to put in something to mess with his evening. In the last Artemis Fowl book there was a dwarf who was a tunneller and his name is Colin Oscopy. So I’m imagining that a dad reads that name and laughs, and the son says, “What’s funny, Dad?” Then he has to tell his son about colonoscopies.’
The hugely popular Artemis Fowl series began in 2001. Seven more novels followed, charting the adventures of a young Irish criminal mastermind in league with fairies. Even if you are several decades outside the target teenage audience, Colfer’s world – a giddy interaction between folklore and high-tech thrillerdom – played, relentlessly, for laughs – is addictive fun. The Irishman calls his books ‘Die Hard with fairies’, which is true. But they are also immensely readable.
Judi Dench as the fairy police Commander Root in the forthcoming Artemis Fowl movie
We’re meeting at a hotel in London’s Covent Garden. It’s the sort of place where rock stars stay, which is appropriate as Colfer charts his career progression in rock-star terms. ‘My early books were like Take That,’ he says. ‘But I really wanted to be Oasis.’
Now, however, the Irishman is having the sort of late-career surge that eludes most rock bands. This month, his latest adventure, The Fowl Twins, the ninth in the series, is published. It follows the wild and unlikely fortunes of Artemis Fowl’s younger brothers, 11-year-olds Myles and Beckett Fowl, as they do battle with aristocratic assassins on flying machines and rogue nuns. While in 2020, Walt Disney will release the film version of the first book, Artemis Fowl, directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Judi Dench and featuring music by Radiohead.
The movie rights were sold in 2001 but the project initially struggled to get off the ground; the film got made only because Branagh happened to go on holiday with his extended family.
‘His nephew was reading Artemis Fowl,’ says Colfer. ‘Ken asked him what it was and he said, “Oh it’s a magic book.” I think from boredom he read one, and then he found himself reading three. Very shortly after that, Disney called him and said, “We have this Artemis Fowl book, we’ve been trying to get it going for years.” And Ken said, “I know it. I’ve read it and I love it.” It was just total coincidence.’
Coincidences litter Colfer’s books, as do puns and acronyms. For instance, the fairy security service that undertakes high-risk missions to the human world is called LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police reconnaissance squad). ‘I like a good acronym,’ Colfer says. ‘I spend so long thinking of them. One of the nice things about being a children’s writer is that you can really indulge that side of yourself.’
Colfer’s other great joy is daft but deadly technology. In the latest book, villain Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye employs a gun that fires ‘shrink-wrapper bullets’ that encase victims in cellophane and then infect them with a virus. You might find that unlikely but Colfer has a habit of second-guessing future technological innovations. ‘I just look at something and I think, “Where might that be in 50 years?” In about 2003, I invented this amazing device that was like a phone but also could be used as a diagnostic tool, where you could play music and watch movies. And then a year later, the iPhone came out.’
Artemis Fowl began the series as a villain, a member of a mafia family who comes up with an ultimately successful scheme to kidnap a fairy and hold him to ransom in exchange for gold. As the series progresses, he morphs into a good guy, in league with the fairies rather than hunting them. ‘He’s not really bad,’ says Colfer. ‘He’s more of a Dennis the Menace character – the character I always wanted to read in books myself.’
When Colfer was still a teacher and writing in his spare time, he had struggled to find his own voice. ‘I just could never really stop trying to be a junior Roddy Doyle or whatever book I was reading at the time,’ he says. ‘I would just slip into that patois.’ He escaped Doyle by leaving Ireland to work as a teacher in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. His early literary efforts included a version of Tarzan. ‘He was a boy raised in a forest, not a jungle, and by wolves, not gorillas. And I tried a comedy series, but it was awful, I don’t know what I was thinking.’
When Colfer was still a teacher and writing in his spare time, he had struggled to find his own voice. ‘I just could never really stop trying to be a junior Roddy Doyle or whatever book I was reading at the time,’ he says
Inspired by the local children in Tunisia in the late Nineties, he wrote two children’s books, Benny And Omar and sequel Benny And Babe. Both were published and did well in Ireland. ‘They were Christmas number ones,’ he says. ‘I thought my fortunes were made until I got the cheque about two weeks later and I realised I couldn’t even pay off my Visa bill.’
Credit card bills are no longer an issue, however, and Branagh’s movie will put Colfer in the spotlight once again. Second time around, you could say, he is due the attention. When success first came his way it was overshadowed by another author of magical adventures. ‘Every time I was interviewed, I’d be asked, “Were you influenced by J K Rowling?” ’
Nearly 20 years later, he admits a debt to the boy wizard. ‘At the time, there were lots of fantasy books coming out and they were all “the next Harry Potter”. But when my first Artemis came out it was given the label “the anti-Harry Potter”. If you’re “the next Harry Potter” and you don’t sell ten million copies, you are finished. But the anti-Harry Potter can sell four copies and still be fine. So J K did give me a boost – I think.’
‘The Fowl Twins’ by Eoin Colfer is published by HarperCollins Children’s Books on Tuesday. ‘Artemis Fowl’ is due out in May