His Dark Materials (His Dark Materials #1-3)

1088 pages

English language

Published Sept. 13, 2003 by Laurel Leaf.

ISBN:
978-0-440-23860-7
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
187295508
Goodreads:
18116

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4 stars (355 reviews)

Northern Lights (titled The Golden Compass in North America and some other countries) is a young-adult fantasy novel by Philip Pullman, published in 1995 by Scholastic UK. Set in a parallel universe, it follows the journey of Lyra Belacqua to the Arctic in search of her missing friend, Roger Parslow, and her imprisoned uncle, Lord Asriel, who has been conducting experiments with a mysterious substance known as "Dust". Northern Lights is the first book of the trilogy, His Dark Materials (1995 to 2000). Alfred A. Knopf published the first US edition April 1996, under the name The Golden Compass, under which title it was adapted as a 2007 feature film and as a companion video game. The book has also been adapted as a TV series in 2019 under the name His Dark Materials. Pullman won the 1995 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's outstanding British children's …

26 editions

Review of 'The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I've been meaning to read this series for a long time, and finally got the nudge I needed in the form of the upcoming HBO/BBC series. (I saw the Nicole Kidman movie when it was newish but it didn't do much for me.)

Overall, it's hard for me to get past my biggest issue with this book. As we follow Lyra through the story, we're apparently meant to believe Lord Asriel is a "Good Guy," or at least more so than the creepy Mrs. Coulter woman , then be surprised to find out that's not the case. But the name of the series is "HIS Dark Materials," so who tf else's materials are we supposed to think that's referring to? The mystery, the surprise, the very plot twist that the story DEPENDS ON - the climax? The big revelation? - POOF! Gone. Spoiled because of the TITLE.

I enjoyed the …

Review of 'The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

[re-post from my old blog]

I figured any book written by a proud and public atheist was worth trying, especially given the movie hype. It started off badly for me, as it introduced several fantasy memes that I just can't stand, like a child everyone prophesies about and a mistakenly overheard conversation. It got a little better and wasn't awful, I guess. I'm not sure what all the anti-religious brouhaha was all about - it isn't the first fantasy book where the controlling religion is pretty awful.

The milieu was pretty eclectic, to say the least. I was happy he didn't spend pages of exposition explaining every little detail, as I find those mind numbing as well. Talking armored polar bears are a little extreme though! And I surely got tired of the "get captured" plot device, as the girl in question must have gotten grabbed five or six times …

Review of 'The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I was recommended the His Dark Materials series by my sister, and I enjoyed the first of the series a lot, and read it in a day. Pullman crafts an imaginative world with armored talking mercenary bears and animals called daemons that accompany each human. This is just good fun fantasy at it's best, somewhere between the compelling plot-line of Harry Potter and the imaginative descriptiveness of Lord of the Rings.

Review of 'The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

It was slow for me to get into. If I'd followed my 60 page rule, I would have put this down. However, I had heard such good things about it that I did not want to stop just because it was very slow. After such a slow beginning, my reading time contracted to nearly nothing and it took me over one month to read this book. At the time, that was an extraordinarily long time for me to read a book.

In the end, I'm not sure if I liked it that much. Certainly, this is not an easy read. I usually enjoy dark books, and while "violence" to children bothers me, I can tolerate it for the furthering of the plot. Someone is either going to love this book or hate it. I am undecided on which for myself.

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