Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

This was a fun book, it makes me eager to read the rest of the series. Although many of the main characters are fairies and such creatures, this is not a fairytale. Now a highly advanced, underground civilization they are bound by their own laws. It's a fun twist to see these magical beings worry about how they have to use an older model of machine.
The fairies and motley company were interesting, my attention went most (as it should) to Artemis. He is a complicated hero because the entire book he is in it only for the gain of himself and his family. But it was obvious a few pages into him that he is not an evil kid. Not completely. The fact that he is a genius makes him respectable even if he's only twelve. Then the fact that his family has been theives and him being so young gives me great hope for his rehabilitation.
In greek mythology Artemis is a girl's name, so I had to keep reminding myself that this Artemis is a boy. Dwarves are traditionally small human size, but fairies are either the size of flowers or the size of humans. In this book they are about three feet, I also had to keep reminding myself about that.
A great book even for techies I think, except that there was no romance, not yet anyway.