The Subtle Knife

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 seconds.

Will has to make some hard choices, and they encounter new and more terrifying dangers. We also start to get glimpses of Lord Asriel’s grand plan, and it is unclear what to root for other than Lyra and Will living to fight another day.

The book ends on a cliffhanger that must have been maddening back when it was first published. On to the final book in the trilogy!

I pointed out in my review of [b:The Golden Compass|119322|The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)|Philip Pullman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1290482272s/119322.jpg|1536771] that the Dark Materials trilogy to me isn't really three books but one book split in three. At first this book seems like a real left hand turn. Will Parry takes centre stage, and he's just as complicated a character as Lyra, but living in what seems to be modern day London. Like Lyra, he seems to be a good person who does bad things for good reasons - with some interesting complete contrasts. For instance, Lyra saves a life early on in book one, Will takes one. I wonder about the chronology here - I see elements of so many other novels in this one. There's shades of [b:Lord of the Flies|7624|Lord of the Flies|William Golding|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165637417s/7624.jpg|2766512] , and the Thomas Covenant series for instance. Who begat who?

This book is shorter, and starts to answer the questions brought up in book one, but leaves each answer incomplete. It's this book that turns the adventure epic, and multiplies the threads of tales. Nobody could read this one and not continue on to book three.

I love the plot, the philosophical and political underpinnings and commentary, and the basic premise of the trilogy. The story alone is enough to get me reading. However, I found it harder to suspend my disbelief with this book than in the first. I am no stranger to speculative fiction and am used to encountering talking animals, magic, strange machinery etc. in my reading. But I have a much harder time swallowing unrealistic human behavior. This was a very minor nag in the back of my mind in the second book of the trilogy, and barely registered when I read the first. In the first book, Lyra was unusually precocious, which I was able to accept. What I have a harder time accepting was the actions of the adults in The Subtle Knife, which seem to be irrationally focused on Lyra, Will, and their respective tools. I understand that as a children's book, the adults are going to be less developed and more cardboardish than the children -- this is true of Harry Potter as well. But it was done in a clumsy enough way that it annoyed me throughout the reading. Yet, despite the wordage I've devoted to it, it is something easily pushed to the back of my mind. I'm partway through The Amber Spyglass now and don't expect I'll be stopping until the very last page, unrealistic portrayals of adults or no.