Readers meet Artemis Fowl and his righthand man, Butler, in early twenty-first century Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This setting establishes a mysterious mood by contrasting the pale Caucasians with their exotic Asian counterparts. Informant Nguyen Xuan's reaction of horror to Artemis's appearance and behavior foreshadow the sinister events that will occur. The narrow Vietnamese streets suggest Artemis's single-minded purpose to find a copy of the fairy manual which contains all of their secrets. Petty thieves and drunken vagrants littering the streets foreshadow the violence which Artemis and Butler will later experience.

The omniscient narrator, understood to be the psychiatrist documenting Artemis's atrocities, tells readers that Ho Chi Minh City was also known as Saigon, as a historic reminder of the fall of that city to communist forces in the Vietnam War. Artemis is seeking a similar collapse of power by obtaining the fairy book so he can...