Eoin Colfer's "Artemis Fowl"

"Stay back, human. You don't know what you're dealing with."

Artemis Fowl is a headstrong, determined young man with a vampire smile and a cutthroat attitude. He's a genius at the head of underground crimes across the globe, having written several papers and novels under various psuedonyms and has accomplished more than any person could ever dream of doing. And to think he's only twelve years old.

Artemis' story begins in a crowded city in Vietnam. Accompanied by his rather large, seemingly brutish bodyguard, known only as Butler, he acquires a copy of something known only as "The Book" from a supposed sprite with a drinking problem and hastily returns to his home in Ireland. From there, he begins decoding the information in this text with one goal in mind: gold. His plan? To kidnap a fairy.

This book, the first of seven in the series, is the start of the tentative truce between genius Artemis Fowl and the Lower Elements Police (LEP). Throughout the course of the series, Artemis finds himself slowly abandoning his criminal ways (albeit very, very slowly...) as he helps Captain Holly Short and the rest of the LEP keep fairies safe from humankind, and save humankind from crazed fairies.

Colfer has done an outstanding job, managing to create a world entirely his own, yet still coexisting with the one we live in. He's created his own language, which can be read at the bottom of each page of the books, and he's succeeded in bringing the age-old fairy idea back entirely as his own. This man deserves a high five and a plate of cookies.

Pros:
-believable characters with very human qualities
-very little romantic side-stories
-magic
-some odd love
-clever humor (including such obscure things as "quarks")
-environmentalist undertones (especially in the last two or three books)

Cons:
-technobabble, and lots of it
-occasional Mary-Sue-esque characters
-mild language (both English and Gnomish)
-slightly unbelievable ratio of criminal and do-gooder in Artemis, though it does even out as the series goes on
-odd love (while its a good thing, its also very, very strange)