Keeping Swashbuckling Alive

With the publication of the kid-lit hit "Artemis Fowl" in 2001, Irishman Eoin Colfer morphed from school teacher to full-time author. The five books in the Artemis Fowl series have sold 8 million copies in the United States alone, and book six comes out in July. Meanwhile, this month Hyperion Books for Children (owned by Disney) comes out with Colfer's latest offering, "Airman,"  about a boy who's wrongly imprisoned--and builds a flying machine to escape. Colfer talks with NEWSWEEK's Karen Springen about "Artemis Fowl" and "Airman," Colfer's personal favorite book so far. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: OK, how do you pronounce your name?
Eoin Colfer: It's just Owen. It's a silent E at the beginning, the old Irish spelling.

Is this your own favorite book yet?
I think it is. I think I stepped it up a notch. I just worked a lot harder on it, and I tried to rein in my natural scatological humor.

"Airman" combines your love of adventure stories like "Treasure Island" and "Robin Hood" with your love of old sci-fi (Jules Vern and H. G. Wells) with your love of superheroes who used their brainpower. And you've said we should imagine "Zorro" crossed with the "Three Musketeers," thrown in with "The Invisible Man," to come up with the idea for the kind of story you were trying to create. How long have you been thinking about creating this kind of book?
Since I was about 12, I've wanted to write something like this. To find that simple idea takes a long time. I always knew I wanted to set a book on the Saltee Islands [in Ireland] because they're very close to where I live, and they really look like something out of a 1940s, 1950s swashbuckling movie. If someone was on that island and they needed to get off, how could they get off? It has to be a way that hasn't been done before in "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "Escape from Alcatraz." The only thing I could think of was they could fly off.

Have you been to those islands?
Oh, yes. It's a very famous bird sanctuary. My daughter told me about this guy who in 1956 bought the islands and declared himself the prince. But in my imagination, there were pirates trying to take over. That's the nice thing about being a writer. Other people can't sit around thinking what would happen if my shoe turned into an elephant.

The sixth "Artemis Fowl" title comes out this July. You've said you may take off a few years. Is that still true?
At the moment, I'm undecided. Definitely I'm going to take a few years away from "Artemis." I'm not going to stop writing. I'm just going to give him a break. I think I will shelve him for a few years and enjoy some of the other ideas I've been dying to get to.