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His Dark Materials (Trilogy)
Lyra soon finds herself at the centre of world shaking events, but unlike so many fantasy books, Philip Pullman has come up with a series of astounding, interlocking adventures, full of wonders, creatures, and worlds that will keep you guessing for the full length of the trilogy. All the main characters in the three books are fully fleshed out, with distinct personalities and motivations. There is a fairly large cast of characters, but the author deftly weaves their stories together, often to great dramatic effect.
This trilogy is marketed as children's literature, but this is a much more intense series than Harry Potter is. Battles are deadly, not glorious; good people that you have come to care about die. Certain unfortunate events unfold with ruthless logic. Organised religion is presented in a very bad light, which will turn off some readers. I wouldn't recommend this series to children under 12, but I enthusiastically recommend His Dark Materials to anyone who enjoys fantasy.
The Golden Compass
Lyra is a resourceful and vivacious young girl who lives at Jordan College -- left there by her rich and powerful Uncle, Lord Asriel. Lyra lives a carefree life doing pretty much as she pleases, but she loves adventure and is continually getting into trouble. Then she overhears a conversation about Dust -- a strange substance mysteriously associated with people. Something about Dust is causing great consternation with the Church and other powerful people. At the same time the gobblers are stealing children. Soon Lyra is propelled into the midst of a great conspiracy that takes her far from the comforting halls of Jordan College, and face to face with terrible danger. Lyra's resourceful optimism makes you want her to succeed, and the world she travels through evokes the wonder of things new, and events unknown.
The action will keep children enthralled, and the imaginative twists and turns will surprise and delight adults and children alike. Various peoples and cultures are met throughout the story, and all find a part to play in the epic battle that builds up over all three books.
The Subtle Knife
The Subtle Knife starts off in our familiar world, and introduces a new character: Will. Will is much more serious than Lyra, but their fates are soon intertwined. Will has lived a much more troubled life looking after his mother after his father's disappearance. Someone badly wants something of his father's, and Will's efforts to protect it quickly lead him from home and entangle him in the events started in the Golden Compass. A great war is brewing and Will is destined to play a key role, along side Lyra, in this conflict. A weapon is discovered that will tilt the balance in this war, and Will's search for his father lands him in the middle of the conflict.
Once again the story pulls you into the believable worlds so artfully drawn by Phillip Pullman. Adventure abounds, betrayal, heroic deeds, and dark conflicts drive the story forward.
The Amber Spyglass
The third book in the series draws the story to a satisfying end. Unlike some series, which seem to never end and leave you hanging at the end of each book in search of another sale, the Amber Spyglass reveals the mysteries alluded to throughout the story, and resolves the final conflict. But not before leading you through another set of breathtaking adventures, unforeseen turns, and an epic battle between good and evil.
I highly recommend this series to anyone over the age of 11 who enjoys excellent fantasy. This is a superior children's series that adults will also enjoy for its well-drawn characters, detailed worlds, and intricate plotting.
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I have a lot of mixed feelings about this series, but I have to say I did enjoy it despite some very upsetting flaws.
Good things: Very well written, beautiful even, in an almost classical sort of way. Strong characters and strong emotions, serious coming of age issues. His compassion for his protaganists is deep.
Bad things: I hate it when people use Everett-Wheeler as a narrative device because EW basically destroys the meaning of human action. Think of it - there is another universe where the characters make all the same choices until suddenly they do something random. Or there is another universe in which the same events happen, except a bee farts in the Andromeda galaxy. Posit parallel universes if you like, but leave EW out of it.
Ugly things: It was mentioned that "organized religion" is presented in a bad light. More accurately, Mr. Pullman appears to be some sort of rabid pagan with a massive chip on his shoulder. But that is his right. What bothered me was how he spent the first book describing a particularly ugly situation created by the church and condemning it, then had one of his protaganists (Asriel) do exactly the same thing (kill innocents for power) and portrayed it as virtue. As ethics, this is hypocricy, pure and simple. I suppose his characters are entitled to be hypocrites, but there is something smug and self-righteous about his presentation that goes beyond that and pissed me off.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
The big thing that pisses me off about most critics is that they hardly ever like anything they review. They will grasp at straws to avoid giving something the good review it deserves. But this review was written by an ordinary human who liked these books enough to write a review for Slashdot. Plus, it's nice to have links to somewhere--preferably somewhere familiar, like amazon.com--where you can buy the books.
[SPOILER] the point was that lord asrael's anti-church AND the established Church were BOTH evil. they were mirror images of each other. both strove to enslave all creation for their tyranny.[/SPOILER]
Pullman is condeming THOSE THAT SEEK POWER, and those who seek to subjugate others.
this is a fantastic and complex trilogy, miles beyond harry potter. it's more violent and far, far more intellectually stimulating. there's some heavy shit that goes down.
i can see how the first book might be mistaken for just another teen novel. although i enjoyed it immensely, it is lighter fare than the other two. the trilogy gets increasingly darker and stranger as it goes. i can also see how christians would get pissed at the portrayal of god and many of the forces of Heaven and Hell, but see my comment above - he's not condemning christianity per-se, he's using christianity to condemn tyranny.
i could live a little longer in this prison
Perhaps this review isn't all that relevant to Slashdot. I actually found that this trilogy covers the same theological ground as many of the D.C. horror comics such as Hellbazer and Preacher in which the God of the Bible is not necessarily the creator of the universe but actually one political faction pushing its own laws, and fighting against another political faction with a different agenda. In other words, what happens if you read the Bible as divine propaganda rather than as divine truth. While The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a revision in Gospels, Dark Materials starts with Milton and touches on Dante. In the process Pullman tackles some of the more difficult problems in theology such as the nature of sin, and what really triggered "the fall from grace."
In a way, the Dark Materials trilogy is related to the Lord of the Rings in that the Lord of the Rings is basically the results of a writer playing with language and history, while the Dark Materials trilogy is the results of a writer playing around with theology. At any rate, it surprises me that Dark Materials has not received the same level of hostility as Harry Potter which never gets political beyond vague mumblings about anti-muggle prejudice.
I think that shoving this trilogy into the "young adults" category is rather a misnomer. In fact, I find a disappointing that the best works of fantasy writing including the Earthsea series and a fair number of works by Ray Bradbury get shoved into the "young adults" shelves and never get taken seriously. Granted there are some serious flaws. The entire talking companion animal idea has become a personal pet peeve of mine, but Pullman does manage to do something different with it.
While these three books are targeted at the juvenile audience, it is likely that they'll get additional attention from older F&SF readers because of the success of Harry Potter.
I must say that I thought "The Golden Compass" was quite well done. It's original, dark (so much so that I kept the book for a few years before giving it to my Harry Potter-loving niece), and inventive.
The two sequels, however, I found very disappointing. Rather than inventing a parallel universe with it's own rules and logic, Pullman succumbs to the same draw that ruins much of science fiction on TV - he want's his world to be "real," and starts throwing in concepts from particle physics to "explain" his universe.
If you cringe every time they say things like "his DNA is reconfiguring" on Star Trek, you'll probably have the same reaction to the "explanations" in Pullman's last two books.
Better choices for fantasy: the "Earthsea" books by Ursula LeGuin (especially for kids), and for older readers, Stephen R. Donaldson's two "Thomas Covenant" trilogies.
An atheist doesn't believe in the existence of any gods. They are quite aware that Churches exist and have influence in the real world whether or not any gods exist. So, to answer your question, it is perfectly consistent for an atheist to care about the actions of a Church.Pullman was offended by the theology of Lewis. Theology causes people to act in the real world regardless of the actual existence of the object of that theology. Criticizing the theology from with (as was done by Twain in _Letters From Earth_) is a valid way of criticizing the theology, and possibly changing the way people behave.It's fiction. Lot's of authors who don't believe in ghosts write ghost stories. OK, he has a purpose here -- to illustrate the flaws in one particular theology which he viewed as "life hating."
-Craig
Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
In a certain kind of literature, including most of the Dead White Guy canon, plot is kind of beside the point. The stories are taken from folklore, popular history, and religious tradition, so everybody already knows the story. It's all about the presentation.
That being said, I didn't care for this trilogy either. Not because it was written for kids -- given the kind of "grown up" fiction most Slashdotters read, we're in no position to be snobbish. Just wasn't a very imaginative telling.
But tell me this. If unoriginal stories badly told are Uncool, why is that idiot Harry Turtledove so popular?