Artemis Fowl Confidential The Ultimate Artemis Fowl Fan Site
Guest post by Jeffery Francis
In a matter of weeks, The Fowl Twins sequel, Deny All Charges, will be unleashed upon the world. We can’t wait! To pass the time until then, we thought we’d take a look back at the incredible first globe-trotting Beckett and Myles adventure.
The Fowl Twins was released on November 5, 2019, published by Disney-Hyperion in the US and HarperCollins in the UK. As it turns out, the two versions have quite a few little differences! No big plot points, anything regarding story flow or pacing, or other major details was changed. But there are dozens of small alterations. Almost all of them are localization-related or little punctuation edits, but there’s a few notable ones that are a little more significant in terms of content. After many hours spent meticulously comparing the two versions side by side, line by line, listed here are the ten most notable differences for the most detail-oriented fans among us.
Caution: contains spoilers for The Fowl Twins
2. Different continuity errors are corrected in each version
These are cases where a small flaw in the lore or continuity is present in one version, but correct in the other. It’s hard to keep 400 pages of facts straight and clear in your head while you’re writing a story, so it’s completely understandable that a few things slip through the cracks. Especially when the aim of the novel is to make us laugh, not to outline a historically accurate account of events. None of this is meant as criticism, it’s simply academically interesting for some die-hard fans.
On page 7 in both versions, Brother Colman claims to be almost 500 years old. The US version then says that Brother Colman was a monk on Dalkey Island in the fifteenth century. The UK says instead that he was a monk there in the sixteenth century. This novel definitely takes place well after the year 2000, and the fifteenth century ended in the year 1499, so Brother Colman would have to be considerably older than 500 years old to have been a monk in the fifteenth century. Since he himself says he is younger than 500, he had to have been a monk in the sixteenth century, some time from 1500-1599. The UK version is correct.
On UK page 53, LEP Specialist Lazuli Heitz is mistakenly referred to by the narrator as “Specialist Lane,” an error that, to be fair, is hard to catch while reading the novel normally, since it’s in the middle of the action. It only becomes obvious that it even says anything wrong at all in a side-by-side reading because the US has it correct on page 43, referring to her as “Specialist Heitz.” Could this be the last surviving remnant of a time when the character’s name was Lane, which slipped by the editors after her name was changed to Heitz?
On US page 55, Beckett says into the intercom “This is Myles Fowl speaking… My brother Beckett is here too.” In the UK, falling on page 67, Beckett instead correctly says “This is Beckett Fowl speaking… My brother Myles is here too.” This seems to be a clear case of the UK version having fixed an accidental reversal which happens to still be present in the US, since there’s nothing at all in the novel to indicate that Beckett said the wrong names on purpose. It may have been that at one point, he said the opposite names as some sort of deceptive tactic, but if so, this is all that remains of that thread at this point of the novel.
It becomes known that Myles has a powerful laser beam weapon in his spectacles, despite Artemis originally installing only a very weak laser pointer on the spectacles. Myles had hacked the pointer to effectively weaponize it. That upgrade happens well before Myles learns Artemis’ stories about fairies are true. On page 225 in the UK, there is therefore a continuity error. It says “Myles had thought it hilarious that his fairy-kidnapping, gold-thieving, criminal-mastermind big brother was attempting to police him.” Myles didn’t yet believe that the fairy stuff had happened at the time he hacked the spectacles, so the US rightly changes the line, page 185, to simply “Myles had thought it hilarious that his criminal-mastermind big brother was attempting to police him.”
On UK page 235, it says “from the sheath on her belt she drew a small knife.” That line in the US falls on page 193 and instead says “from her boot she drew a small knife.” The US version is correct, because both versions later say that her knife is kept in her boot, when they’re trapped in the net, on UK page 285 / US page 236.
On UK page 273, it is said that Sister Jeronima’s church “had actually lobbied for ACRONYM’s formation following the Big Dark.” This would be a totally fine sentence, except that it contradicts an earlier plot point. In both versions, in an earlier line which is on UK page 135 / US page 111, Jeronima explains that ACRONYM has child-size hazmat suits on hand because, several years ago, an Italian industrialist’s daughter was suspected to not be human, though she was never captured. This is an excellent reference to book 4 of the Artemis Fowl series, The Opal Deception. This reference definitively placed ACRONYM as existing at least as far back as the events of that book. So, it doesn’t add up to then say that the church lobbied for ACRONYM’s formation following the Big Dark, an event that happened in book 8, The Last Guardian. The US version expertly fixes this. The “lobbied for ACRONYM’s formation” line in the US, falling on page 226, instead says that the church “had actually lobbied for ACRONYM’s formal incorporation following the Big Dark.” By changing “formation” to “formal incorporation,” the effect of the line remains the same, while also now staying consistent with the series timeline. In the US version, it’s now clear that ACRONYM existed in some form circa The Opal Deception, but became more legally legitimate after the events of The Last Guardian.
In the UK version, page 418, in the final scene between the twins and Lazuli, Myles addresses Lazuli by her first name at one point, instead of addressing her by her rank of Ambassador. This happens a couple of pages before she asks him to stop referring to her by her rank and instead call her Lazuli. The US version on page 348 correctly changes it and makes him address her as Ambassador, since she hadn’t yet asked him to switch to Lazuli: “You wouldn’t be trying to spy on us, would you, Ambassador?”
This makes 5 times the US has something correct the UK doesn’t, and 2 times the UK has it correct and the US doesn’t. Again, these things are hard to catch while reading the book in a linear fashion. The editors and the author did a fantastic job with this novel, in spite of any tiny mistakes. There may even still be continuity errors present in both versions that neither editor/publisher caught before publication, that also weren’t caught in this side-by-side reading.
1. Inner monologues
This is the biggest, most impactful difference between the two versions. Readers of the UK version have an objective, pretty large advantage in terms of clarity of reading. Whenever a character has specific internal thought “dialogue” (which is very often, almost constant), in the UK, their thoughts are italicized. There is never any question as to whether something is from a character’s head or is from the narrator narrating. But in the US, for whatever reason, everything is plain text. It’s up to the reader to quickly get to the “he thought” kind of tag and realize they’re reading inner thoughts before they get confused. You may have noticed that under #7 on this list, the part about Myles thinking the interjection aha!, the UK excerpt had italics and the US didn’t. This was intentional.
UK 10
Rumours, he told himself. Rumours, hearsay and balderdash.
US 9
Rumors, he told himself. Rumors, hearsay, and balderdash.
UK 248
The duke is like Myles Fowl: vain, thought Jeronima. A chink in his armour.
US 204
The duke is like Myles Fowl: vain, thought Jeronima. A chink in his armor.
Usually, those “he thought” sorts of tags come pretty early after they start thinking, and thoughts usually come in new paragraphs, so there’s never a big real actual problem reading the US version if you’re sharp, but it’s objectively easier and more clear to read the UK version because there isn’t even the possibility of momentary confusion. The same thing also applies every time Sister Jeronima says something in Spanish: in the UK, Spanish words are italicized, not so in the US.
Looking back through the other Artemis Fowl books, it appears that this has been a constant thing: thoughts are italicized in the UK, but are plain text in the US. If this is a consistent style choice in novels published in the US in general, it might be advisable to begin choosing to read the UK editions of novels you want to read, especially if you’re a slower reader or often have trouble following things. Research into what each individual novel chooses to do in each region can’t hurt.
Sometimes, it’s a little more problematic than others, because sometimes, characters think something and then a new paragraph is begun that has even more of their thoughts. Also, the way the US uses plain text simply looks less interesting, less flavorful.
UK 334
I’m a little bit goblin, thought Lazuli as the mud closed over them.
And also: I think I broke my nose.
US 276
I’m a little bit goblin, thought Lazuli as the mud closed over them.
And also: I think I broke my nose.
Lastly, this only happens a few times, but sometimes a character’s thought is in a paragraph all on its own, with no “he thought” tag or anything. For cases that are that extreme, the US actually makes an exception and uses italics:
US 66 / UK 80
This confirms my growing certainty that Brother Colman’s lead was sound.
Bonus: the Waterstones-exclusive short story in the UK edition
It hasn’t been talked about enough: there’s an exclusive short story starring Artemis Fowl included at the end of the UK edition of The Fowl Twins! But it’s not in the ordinary UK edition: to get the short story “Luna Minor,” which is in essence a brief snapshot of Artemis’ life in space, you have to get a special version of the UK edition exclusive to the UK retailer Waterstones, a version which also has orange sprayed page edges and an author’s signature page. This short story has not yet been published in the US in any capacity.
Final Thoughts
And there you have it. The US clears up more continuity issues than it includes, is more consistent with Highfire, Jeronima address people in a more realistic way, Holly is slightly less in favor of mind-wipes, and it has a couple extra gags, while the UK has a Madam Ko reference, more commas in sentences, and all the UK regional spellings are probably more authentic since the author is Irish. In these respects, the versions are about even in “pros and cons.” But because of the italicized thoughts, and the bonus short story, you can’t go wrong getting the UK Waterstones edition. Even if you can’t get that specific edition, the ordinary UK version published by HarperCollins (hardcover or paperback) is still probably the better way to go if you have to choose between US and UK, because of the italicized thoughts. This style choice will almost certainly hold true in The Fowl Twins: Deny All Charges, which releases October 20, 2020.
You can find the author of this piece on Twitter @JasonBall34 and/or @AFappreciation
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