His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

Consisting of The Golden Compass (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000)


Omnibus Printed 2007, 933 pages
ISBN 978-0-375-84722-6
Read October-December 2012 (Eesh.  I have not been reading much.) at age 34
First time read, though I saw The Golden Compass as a movie first.


What it is:  A trilogy.  Don’t read the books out of order, or leave too much time between them. 

What it’s about:  A little girl grows up during an awesomely epic battle.  There's a talking armoured polar bear, animal familiars, a steampunk vibe, and a whole lot of disregard for authority.

From the back cover (omibus edition):

Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy changed the face of fantasy publishing with its stunning originality.  The complete trilogy went on to become a bestseller in dozens of countries around the world, critically acclaimed and showered with prizes.  Together, these novels – The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass – are renowned for beautiful storytelling, epic scope, and dearly loved characters.

Captivating children and adults alike, it is a tale born of witch clans and armored bears, shining angels and magical devices, haunted otherworlds and the shocking destinies of Lyra and Will, two children at the center of a more than normal battle.  This edition presents Philip Pullman’s entire His Dark Materials trilogy in a single volume – a celebration of this astonishing work, now a beloved classic.

Not much of use, really.  Seven years later, it’s a classic?  Really?  Even cars need to be 25 years old to get that adjective.

It’s really hard to describe anything in subsequent books without completely spoiling the ending of the first and so on, so I’ll just throw in the spoiler warning/break right here:
Overall:

I loved it.  Especially the first book, but it was all good.

Characters:

Lyra, the main character, is one of the best characters that I've read.  In the first book.  Her daemon / external soul Pantalaimon is a joy (and a wonderful mechanic for a look into Lyra’s head without jumping viewpoints).  She’s fantastic to ride along with in the first book, but her strengths as a character get her into all kinds of trouble in book 2, and then she subjugates herself to the other main character of the series, Will.  And then she becomes the “damsel in distress” needing rescue.  While this was believable, it was distasteful.  When this happened, I lost a lot of momentum with the book.  She does get a bit better through the third book, but never reaches back to how fantastic she was in book number one.

Will was more competent and less believable at the same time.  I never really clicked with him, and when he took over the story in book two, it was a turn for the worse.

The rest of the characters were generally very good.  Mrs. Coulter, in particular, is a fantastic villain, especially in the early going.

Iorek, the polar bear king, is also a fantastic character.  There were really a lot of really, really good supporting characters – Lee Scoresby’s another one, for instance. 

For the rest, I'm just going to ramble a bit:

• The only real weakness in the first book that I can point to is that it happened really, really fast.  The epic scope got a bit lost along the way.  I noticed that with various settings, as well as with character interactions.  For instance, I didn’t see enough interaction between Lee Scoresby and Lyra for me to really believe the “she’s like a daughter to me” that came up later. 
• What starts as “find this guy and give him this thing” in the first book becomes “let’s kill God” in the second and third books.  That’s quite the escalation, and is really anti-climactic when it happens.

• Lyra’s a lying liar.  While she’s a great character, I’m not sure that she’s a great role model, that way.  Suspicion of authority, on the other hand… it’s good when people can think for themselves.

• Authority really gets a bad rap in these books – not that it’s undeserved - but we touch on the inquisition, residential schools, bad priests, scary cops, negligence and malignance in heaven, and a whole host of other hot-button topics.  Mom who seems great is really, really not.  Dad who seems great – more of the same.  Another mom who’s incompetent.  It really goes on.  There are some good authorities – Iorek, the polar bear king, for instance, can do no wrong.  But he’s an outcast, and only gets his into his own once they overthrow the sitting monarch. So.. yeah.

• The setting is fantastic.  In all kinds of ways.

…It was a good series.  Read it.

Rating:  5

Other opinions:

Journeyman
So – Christianity isn't portrayed in the most positive light.  If that bothers you, here are some of the issues.  Not surprisingly, there are many reviews like the above posted. I'd argue that it isn't specifically Christianity that the book is against, but all forms of higher authority.

Complete Review 
Thorough dissection of the story – not as positive as some.

Russ’ Book Reviews: The Golden Compass The Subtle Knife The Amber Spyglass

These are the reviews that I wanted to write.