Scholastic His Dark Materials: His Dark Materials bind-up HB
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Price: £12.99
Brand: Scholastic
Description: Philip Pullman's classic trilogy is now available as a stunning bind-up edition. Since the first volume was published in 1995, the trilogy has been acclaimed as a modern masterpiece, and has won the UK's top awards for children's literature. Today, the story of Lyra and her daemon is read and loved by adults and children alike. Scholastic His Dark Materials: His Dark Materials bind-up HB - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Scholastic
Product ID: 117400
ISBN: 9781407188164
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Author: Ken Theakston
Rating: 5
Review: I had watched the series on TV, but then decided to read the books, I'm glad I did. A very nice fantasy novel. I am now reading The Book of Dust, starting with La Belle Sauvage, then I'll continue with the Secret Commonwealth, this will tie up Lyra's adventures, until i find something else.
Author: Barry Mulvany
Rating: 3
Review: Northern Lights: I wish I had read this a lot earlier as I imagine I would have enjoyed it even more. This is a very popular book but I was in my teens when it came out so that's why I probably missed it. It tells the story of Lyra and her quest to rescue her friend Roger when he is kidnapped by a group called the Gobblers who have been kidnapping children throughout England. This leads her to the Artic and she meets witches, armoured bears and other strange phenomena. At the heart of it all seems to be a mystery about something called 'dust'. I'd heard that this is a not so subtle attack on the Church and only one book in I can see why. They are certainly not portrayed in a great way, though they have evolved into the Magisterium in this world. To be honest none of the powerful adults come off well here, only the more 'down to earth' ones. Lyra herself is a portrayed pretty well I think, and though she can be annoying I think that's what the author was going for. The story is very well done, straight-forward enough for younger readers to follow but there's plenty of enough depth for older readers as well. The scene with Lyra and her daemon on the table was surprisingly emotional. The concepts of daemons as a kind of external soul was interesting and I am looking forward to learning more about this in the future volumes as it seems like it's going to be quite important. I really feel that this is a YA book as it ought to be done, like a good Pixar movie it's aimed for kids but has enough depth and emotion for whatever age you are. Looking forward to the next. 4 stars The Subtle Knife: I struggled with this one a bit. It definitely suffers from middle book syndrome. Unlike the first which was pretty much all Lyra's POV we have a major new POV here, that of Will, a boy from our world. We also have some POV's from Lee Scoresby and Serafina the witch. Will accidentally finds a portal into a another world, a world where adults are hunted by specters which basically suck the soul out of them (I wonder where JK Rowling got her dementors idea from!!??) but kids can't see them and are not affected. It means that there are groups of kids running riot under no supervision and it's here that he meets Lyra and together they set out to find Will's dad who went missing when he was a baby. Honestly it feels like nothing much happened in this book. There are events of course but it basically seems to be a set up for the final book. There were parts I enjoyed. I liked the tie between Dust and Dark Matter, and the parts in our world with the physicist were very interesting. Lee Scoresby's chapters were good with the end very good. The problem is I was bored for decent chunks of it. It wasn't bad, hence the 3 stars, but it was just ok. Maybe reading it as an adult is a problem but I did enjoy the first one so it can't be just that. Anyway I will move on to the third as hopefully the set up of this will have the pay off in the next one. Here's hoping anyway. 3 stars The Amber Spyglass: This was just a mess. The story begins straight after the last one but takes the problems I had from the second book and dials them up. Characters go places for no real reason except for 'plot'. Honestly what was the whole point of going to the land of the dead? And the reason for such came from nowhere and was never explained. I was bored for most of it. Even the exciting bits were fairly blah and made not much sense either. Mrs Coulter was the strangest. She went from the genuinely scary character in the first book to being besotted about Lyra and changing her whole viewpoint. Now this could be good and interesting but it felt unearned and jarring. Lyra and Will weren't bad, and some of their emotional moments were quite good but were let down by the meandering plot. I actually quite liked Mary's story but again it didn't really do anything except give us a bit more detail about Dust but it took up like a quarter of the book. And the end. Oh my god the end. Still makes no sense to me. I'm not quite sure what the author was on about. The whole series got more like a sledgehammer to the head in relation to his feelings about organised religion but I have no idea what he was trying to say with the end. So two thirteen(?) year olds have sex and then the universe is suddenly put right again? Did I read that part correct? I don't know, that was pretty messed up when you think on it. Maybe if I'd read this when I was young I would be seeing this series very differently but I thought it got worse as it continued. Don't get me wrong, there were some great moments here but they were lost in a stew of a plot. Not sure now if I'll bother with the new series. 2 stars
