His Dark Materials

[sadie_sabot]

has anyone read these books, by Phillip Pullman? It's a trilogy...sooo good. I'm wondering if anyone's read anything else by him.

[jempd]

Yes--recommended to me by my 14-year-old neice and you can't get a better one than that. I loved the first one--liked the next two but not as much as the first. My only criticism is that they got a little bogged down with the idealism and theory that began to show through more and more toward the end. But still, what a good writer and this trilogy was really substantial. I have to give him a lot of points for sheer ambition and gutsiness--taking on organized religion, no less. You're probably going to get some replies along the lines of outrage about this. He has really upset a lot of people. In my opinion it is not God per se he's against, but, see above, organized religion. In fact I think the books are really very pro-religion, but in a mystical sense.

[Moon]

I read them cause they were on my ten yo's school list and I wanted to see what was up.......liked the first, but enjoyed them less in the second and third volumes. Still, lots of discussion between my daughter and I as we read, so, that part was nice.

[kimbalicious]

My DH & I have read the trilogy (ds is a bit young @ 20 months We really enjoyed it -- DH loved Lee Scorsby. I, too, preferred the first to the latter two, but enjoyed the series as a whole. I haven't read any of his other works, but I look forward to doing so.

[owensmom]

I read these too, and the third one I bawled for hours. Thank goodness I was home alone when I read it.

[journeymom]

I read the first one, enjoyed it, but not enough to go on to the next. He really doesn't hold any punches, does he, referring to the children that are murdered.

It seemed a bit like a very dark, cynical version of "Chronicles of Narnia". Or, like Pullmans response to C.S. Lewis in general.

[daylily]

My ds and I loved this series, but a friend of mine who is a conservative Catholic was outraged by them. (I'm Catholic too, but I saw the criticism of organized religion to be justified.)

Pullman has written other books. His Sally Lockhart series is excellent, but definitely for mature readers, say, 14 and up. I saw somewhere that he has a more recent book called Ratboy or similar.

[sadie_sabot]

Sally Lockhart. Excellent, I'll look for those.

I agree, they are weirdly reminiscent of the Narnia chronicles.

[journeymom]

You know, I read a lot of the reviews for the Golden Compass at Amazon.com and noted that many of the reviews "warned" about his anti-Christianity bent, as if that was a bad thing. Well, it's -his- book. He can have any opinion about anything he wants, and get it published if he can. I am a Christian but was not offended.