“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Monday, December 10, 2007

Rebel Without A Pause

There’s a very nice feature on one-man publishing industry Eoin Colfer over at the Sunday Telegraph, in which Eoin outlines the reasons why people seem to like the unstoppable Artemis Fowl. Like, doesn’t every boy ‘n’ gal love a rebel? Quoth the Telly:
It’s the rule of every successful book, film or play that the leading character must be likeable. Otherwise, we won’t care what happens to them. That’s why author Eoin (pronounced Owen) Colfer was taking such a risk when he chose to make Artemis Fowl, the young hero of our book of the month for December, such an initially unappealing human being. The boy is 12 years old, a brilliant criminal mastermind and possessed of a cold, calculating determination that instantly sets him apart from friendlier fictional contemporaries such as Harry Potter and Alex Rider.
“The idea was to make Artemis a bit of a Huckleberry Finn character, a law unto himself,” says Colfer. “I wanted to make him so confident and outlandish that, in the end, the readers would be won over by his sheer audaciousness.
“It was a bit of a fine line and I confess I was worried because I’d got some criticism in the Irish press over the way in which Benny, the main character in my first book (BENNY AND OMAR) had left his little brother on his own when he should have been baby-sitting him. To me, Benny was basically a good lad who was a bit flawed, like lots of people are. It’s the same with Artemis. He loves his mother, but at the same time he likes to keep this hard face on him.
“To be honest, I wasn’t at all sure I’d got the balance right. I thought I was probably going to get buried.”
Erm, yes, but only in the publishing equivalent of a state funeral. Brace yourself for Colfer’s new departure, people – the standalone AIRMAN will be crash-landing onto a shelf near you on January 3rd …

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Airman has turned into somewhat of a bus problem in the bookwitch house. You know, it doesn't come for ages and then several come all at once. I think I counted five Airmen at one point. Eoin is wonderful, but that just got ridiculous. Good book, though.