Hardcover, 326 pages

English language

Published July 22, 1997 by Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers.

ISBN:
978-0-679-87925-1
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4 stars (165 reviews)

Lost in a new world, Lyra finds Will—a boy on the run, a murderer—a worthy and welcome ally. For this is a world where soul-eating Specters stalk the streets and witches share the skies with troops of angels.

Each is searching—Lyra for the meaning of Dark Matter, Will for his missing father—but what they find instead is a deadly secret, a knife of untold power. And neither Lyra nor Will suspects how tightly their lives, their loves, and their destinies are bound together... until they are split apart.

32 editions

Review of 'The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2)' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This was not at all what I was expecting from a sequel to The Golden Compass. The end of the first book in the trilogy pulls the rug out from under the reader, revealing that Lyra’s father is just as dangerous as her mother, if only with different methods and conflicting alliances.

The second book resets the playing field when we meet Will Parry, who comes from a world much like our own and who lives in modern times, not the early part of the Twentieth Century like you might imagine from Lyra’s version of Oxford.

The Subtle Knife is deeper and weirder, and much more disturbing than the first book. Lyra and Will discover a third world that serves as a way station between their respective worlds, but it has fallen into disrepair and been overrun with invisible specters who can suck the life out of an adult in …

Review of 'The Subtle Knife' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This series is definitely dark. There are a lot of dark themes weaved into the plot which twists and turns unrelentingly. I can see how the book is unsettling to some people, much more than The Golden Compass. I'm sure my imagination is only scratching the surface of where the next book will end up.

Review of 'The Subtle Knife' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The sequel to Golden Compass is not as immediately engaging as the first of the series, I think perhaps because it begins in a world that we already know. But as the mesh of different worlds begins to occur, we are plunged back into the wonderful fantasy world of the first book. However, I still didn't feel the same wonder that I felt with the first book, which may be because now the overarching plot seemed to be overtaking the flow of the narrative.
That said, however, still thoroughly enjoyable, and am looking forward to finishing the series.

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