NationStates Jolt Archive

I just realised that something we've never debated ( :eek: ) is books! So here's your question, which is better, Harry Potter or Artemis Fowl? Have you read both or only one, or none? What was your general opinions on the books?

I tried to get an Alex Rider vs Harry Potter debate going, but to little avail. In this case yes, Artimus Fowl is so much cooler. The new book is comming out soon.

Harry Potter was a page turner, but it didn't have much depth (considering it's a kids book, depth isn't really the aim) but I haven't read any Artemis Fowl books, so I couldn't comment on a vs.

I tried to get an Alex Rider vs Harry Potter debate going, but to little avail. In this case yes, Artimus Fowl is so much cooler. The new book is comming out soon.
Which new book? I just bought The Opal Deception today! I can't keep up with Colfer! He's too quick! *cries*

Which new book? I just bought The Opal Deception today! I can't keep up with Colfer! He's too quick! *cries*

Acording to my info, the Opal Deception isnt out till May 5th same date as the election.

Have you ever read harry potter?
It seems like it was written by a child not for one!

I've never even heard of Atermis Fowl, Harry Potter is awesome though, I couldn't put them down, I stayed up till all hours of the night and didn't eat anything all day reading some of them, and I cryed both when Cedric Diggory and Sirius Black died, it's not often that a book gets to me enough to make me cry but those did. And the books were way better than the films. I might get this Atermis Fowl when i have some money

I just realised that something we've never debated ( :eek: ) is books! So here's your question, which is better, Harry Potter or Artemis Fowl? Have you read both or only one, or none? What was your general opinions on the books?

Artemis Fowl was a much more interesting hero, in my opinion. Harry was fun for the first few books, but now he just annoys me. Artemis is still interesting, somehow. Just my opinion.

(Oh, and I adore Holly. She's awesome =) Hermione, well, she's just not as good with a gun. What can you do.)

Acording to my info, the Opal Deception isnt out till May 5th same date as the election.
In that case, your info is flawed. Sign into MSN and I'll show you the book on webcam!

Artemis Fowl has the wit and depth that Harry Potter doesn't. Colfer manages to tell a good, serious story with staunch morals while not taking himself too seriously.

My two boys are really interested and entertained by Harry Potter-thye are looking foward to the release of the next book and movie later this year. I think the stories are well done and keep children interested.
In looking for the same type of stories, they have picked up Artemis Fowl, The Edge Chronicles among others. They love series of books and are now going through the Series of Unfortunate Events as well.
I love the fact that they are reading. Books often get more attention than the TV in my house and its by their choice.

I've only read Harry Potter, but I voted for it anyway because I LOVE JK ROWLING! :fluffle:

Artemis Fowl beats Harry Potter with a "I'm way smarter than you, so eat my dust" Stick, then dumps him in a vat of pure molten gold.

Fowl wins. He's just.. better.

Artemis Fowl?

Well... what is the premise of those books...?

Harry Potter, although the first Artemis Fowl book was good. Rowling goes into a little more depth than Colfer, though that's not to say the "Fowl" series is superficial by any means.

Personally, comparing Potter to Fowl is a bit of an "apples v. oranges" experiment. However, in my opinion, Garth Nix's "Sabriel" series is better than either of them.

The first and second Artemis Fowl books were great, but the third wasn't quite as good. (and I haven't read the fourth yet) I've liked all of the Harry Potter books about equally, but it's really hard to say which series is better. It's intriguing reading about Fowl, such a clever character, but he doesn't have much depth. (But Holly is awesome!) Harry doesn't really have much of a personality either, but the books in general are real page turners.

I also love Colfer's writing style-it gives the books so much more life.

Artemis Fowl is much better - Colfer does not write pointlessly long books like Rowling and wha he writes is better quality.

I agree with all the ones who said Artemis Fowl is better!
(p.s, just finished the fourth book, absolutely brilliant book. Best book of all four, and thats saying something!)

I must say Harry Potter, for reasons I'm not quite sure of, lol. The first three books were excellent, whereas I enjoyed the fourth and fifth because they possessed a lot more description of the wizarding world that we've grown to love. Agreeably, they are quite long, but a lot of people accept the length as a positive rather than a negative.

That is not to say that Fowl isn't good. I've read the first three, and they were excellent, but for some reason I keep going back to the Harry Potter series as if it's an old friend. J.K Rowling's writing does seem to have declined a bit, but I still love it.

I liked Fowl, though the series is really too short to compare. Interesting premise, though.

I've only read the first four Potter's and I found them comendable entertainment, but not my thing on a "we are not worthy!" level. Good background, obvious story-arc but a little too formulaic for my liking. (Which is Ok, I can watch/read/listen-to forumlaic...)

The works of Pratchett (i.e. Discworld) do it for me.

Why too short? HP has five books, Fowl has four. Plus Eoin Colfer has done three other books, including The Wish List, also really good. Whatever happens next, JK Rowling will always be remembered as the Harry Potter author. Eoin Colfer has done more than one series, and will be remembered as an all round author.

Why too short? HP has five books, Fowl has four. Plus Eoin Colfer has done three other books, including The Wish List, also really good. Whatever happens next, JK Rowling will always be remembered as the Harry Potter author. Eoin Colfer has done more than one series, and will be remembered as an all round author.I think I summarised too much...

Fowl isn't really a series as such. Apart from the intro book and the last one (where Fowl... well, that'd be a spoiler to those yet to read the works) they are essentially individual books about the premise, and the two end ones are individual but with added intro/outro-ness, though there is a small amount of flow between the succesive ones... I like the ideas, and I like the codes. (I found that I was actually decoding the page-footers as I went, once I worked out the respective coding systems... I had hoped he'd do a code without any Rosetta Stone-like translation, because I was having so much fun with symbol-frequencies, but it is intended for kids so I can't blame him.) Fowl's universe meshes the real world with the mythic in an interesting way (it is self-consistent, within the scope of the book, but it helps that there are methods of mind-alteration available to the 'mythic' inhabitants of the planet and that they have the enforcement abilities...


Harry Potter has, I don't know how, created a tidal-wave of popularity. I admire the fact that a lot of kids who would not have otherwise lifted a book have been encouraged to do so, but I rue the fact that it had to be done with Potter. I wasn't one of those, I lifted books regularly (not shop-lifted, though... ;)) and came across the works of Pratchett who (perhaps with the bias of familiarity) I find to be a far more accomplished author than Potter, and even Colfer (who I would put marginally ahead of Rowling in the measure of skill...) [edit: though the measure of marketing is another thing altogether...]


But this could all turn out to be a shouting match. I've grown up with Discworld and perhaps I'm showing my 'age' (and bias) by groaning about the 'upstart' Hogwarts scenario and about "these Potter-fanatic youngsters who haven't bothered lifting any book other than Rowlings, which is, I know, a huge slur upon those that did go the extra mile and discover (sample at the very least!) Adams, Fford, Simak, Asimov, Clarke and all the rest...

never read alex rider or artemis fowl. my sons love both AR and HP, so since there are so many recommendations for artemis fowl here, i think i might get one out of the library.

BTW, I also read The Wish List and found that to be interesting. I'd have liked to see more of the same (i.e. built within the same universe, based upon someone else's trials and tribulations around the afterlife...)

I'm not a huge fan of any of the newer Fowl books. The first was ok IMO, but it went dowhill from there. Colfer is beating a dead horse at this point. His characters are shallow and simplistic, his plots lack a true absolute "good" or "evil" and in the long run suffer because of that, since Rowling's work is possessed by true examples of evil. That and... Elves shouldn't have handguns.... Even lasers... (Though I'll make an exception for Lackey's Bedlam's Bard series.) Swords? I'm cool with. Magic? I'm all for. But guns? Not really elvish IMO...

Rowling's work has a magic that Colfer's just doesn't manage to attain. People refer to her work as "childish" but only in that they can't see the depth of her story. She is a master of slowly revealing things to her audience, but making everything fit together even better for it. And while Harry as a character is relatively shallow, I will point out that he is supposed to be, since he is almost the steryotipical, self-absorbed, teenager with serious (or perhaps Sirius) angst problems. Some of her other characters (even her anti-heroes) have a great deal more debt. I would also argue that Rowling has done a masterful job of keeping us in suspence, asking questions.

I just realised that something we've never debated ( :eek: ) is books! So here's your question, which is better, Harry Potter or Artemis Fowl? Have you read both or only one, or none? What was your general opinions on the books?

I haven't read any Artemis Fowl books, so I can't discuss that.

The Harry Potter books are neither brilliant, or awful, but are consistently mediocre, and this is the key to their success; they appeal to the lowest common denominator.

They really aren't original in the slightest, or particularly brilliant, but neither are they deficient in any way. Harry Potter is the Volkswagen Beetle of fiction.

KSP- Why shouldn't elves have guns? Just because the stereotype says they're good archers, so what? He takes the entire fantasy idea and makes them an advanced species. I kinda like the idea actually, instead of following the stereotype, he creates his own vision of elves and dwarves.


Also, I'll point out that the Potter books seem to be confused. She originally marketed them as childrens books, but I can't think of many children who would want to read 700 page books. She doesn't seem to know what audience she's going for.
I think the only reason HP has gained such success is because of the marketing, not because of the writing skill of JK Rowling. I don't think she's any better than Michelle Paver, Eoin Colfer and definitely not as good as Pratchett, yet her books are far more well known and more popular. Colfer has released seven books in the last four or five years, whereas in that time Rowling released five in six or seven years unless I'm mistaken, purely as a marketing ploy. Keeping people in suspense.

EDIT: Having checked, the first Harry Potter came out eight years ago, in 1997.

To all the people who condemn Rowling as being unoriginal, uninteresting, appealing to the lowest common denominator, not being as clever as Pratchett, etc., first I must say very little is original these days, or has been for many, many years. The Lord of the Rings, by which standard many posters prefer to gauge Rowling's works (disparagingly), was based on old Saxon stories and other European mythology bases. It was original for the depth with which Tolkien devised his world. The Narnia series by CS Lewis is another series by which the Rowling series has been judged, disparagingly again. The series, to my mind, appeared somewhat based on Alice in Wonderland, although perhaps I'm wrong there. When I was young, I found those Lewis books to be of middling interest, being attracted more by such things as Orwell's 1984. I wasn't an exceptionally bright child or adolescent, it's just that's to what my mind turned.

Pratchett writes, insofar of read of his work, for a different audience than either Colfer or Rowling. Colfer may attempt to write in a similar style as Pratchett -- light but clever, quick but paced -- but Pratchett's writing dwells much more closely on the absurd, which he does remarkably well. Rowling's style isn't particularly cunning, the last book could have received better editing, but it seems trite to say "kids won't read 700 page books" or to react with the typical knee-jerk pseudo-intellectual response of, "Well, if it's popular, it must be crap." Many children and adolescents did read the last book, and in a day, which is far quicker than I can read. Yes, the Rowling works aren't stunningly original, but they aren't as debased as several people have described.

Like I wrote before, Colfer v. Rowling is apples v. oranges.