His Dark Materials Trade Paper Boxed Set (Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, Amber Spyglass)

A soap opera whose plot slowly becomes incoherent, yet an enjoyable reading journey alongside Lyra Belaqua and her increasingly confusing entourage of supporting characters. The first book starts out strong and leads us on an adventure in a world with daemons and truth-telling devices and the infamous armored bears (and witches etc.). A fun trip with lots of drama, a gripping read for teenaged and older readers alike.

After the first book, however, I started losing interest. The plot becomes increasingly convoluted with more and more layers of supposed epicness, threats and side plots, characters with unheard-of abilities, and ever stranger worlds.
Characters and plot points that seem highly relevant disappear for hundreds of pages at a time, only to re-appear at exactly the right moment to save the day. Conversely, seemingly irrelevant bits of information turn out to be crucial -- with the unfortunate effect that I found myself furiously browsing back to earlier chapters to remind myself what is going on.

It was particularly this last point start bugged me while reading this trilogy: Characters or their relationship to Lyra are introduced in a few paragraphs -- and suddenly, hundreds of pages later, they seem to be the focal point of our protagonist's attention (even though they were not mentioned in between). I did not feel "taken along for the ride".
The most disappointing part was the ending - underwhelming, almost boring. If you want to save yourself the trouble, do not read the last five chapters.

Unfortunately not my favorite. Nevertheless a recommended read for those who want to join the discussions of this popular series.

The Golden Compass: 4 stars
The Subtle Knife: 3 stars
The Amber Spyglass: 2 stars

The first two-thirds or so of The Amber Spyglass were at least as strong, creative, and engaging as the previous two books [which I thoroughly enjoyed], but I cannot escape the feeling that the ending just wasn't as satisfying as I'd hoped it would be. The final chapters of this substantial trilogy were occasionally [not to mention ironically] tainted by deus ex machinas instead of further thoughtful plot development. If anything the ending felt premature. What seemed to be the promise of further adventures was stunted and ultimately foiled by deus ex machina and declarations that felt brittle and hollow to me when compared with the substance of the rest of the journey.

I am sincerely looking forward to the eventual release of The Book of Dust but, based on what I've read about it so far, I don't think it will do anything to rectify the untimely ending and resolution that took place in The Amber Spyglass, which is a pity. It almost felt like there could've been a fourth book that began in the last fifth of The Amber Spyglass. It would've told more of the story that was simply hinted at before being abruptly glossed over and truncated at the end of the trilogy. This fourth book could even ultimately have ended in the same manner that The Amber Spyglass did. That would've been marvelous. Perhaps I'm over-eager and jumping to conclusions and this is precisely the sort of thing that The Book of Dust will do. We'll see.

All things considered, this was a very enjoyable and captivating journey. I'm just sorry that it ended leaving me feeling a bit bewildered and cheated rather than pleasantly exhausted and fulfilled. Perhaps my expectations were too high.