Fantastic Beasts
The “Harry Potter Prequel” has some new photos and character details.
His Dark Materials
The BBC is adapting Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy for TV.
The Amazon Bookstore
Continuing to stick it in everyone’s faces, Amazon has opened a physical bookstore in Seattle.
While technically Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is classed as a children’s or young adult series, it has some very adult themes, features large and complex fantastical and alternate worlds, and has been issued with adult covers, since apparently adults can’t bear the thought of another adult seeing them reading a book with a kid on the cover.
The trilogy has been loved and read by many, continues to be a bestseller even though the first book in the series was published in Great Britain under the original title of Northern Lights in 1995.
And at the same time it has gotten a lot of flack and received a lot of criticism from various groups for its content and what it’s supposedly putting in the minds of children reading it.
Regardless of which side one may fall on this series, it still remains one of the most developed and interesting children’s epic fantasy trilogies that goes beyond just telling a good story and leaves the reader thinking on many matters.
The Golden Compass (Northern Lights)
This is the story of a young girl who doesn’t know what to do or what is going to happen with her life, but soon discovers that she is on a specific course of destiny that she is unable to avoid.
While The Golden Compass is considered a children’s book, like the Harry Potter series, it is written with an adult voice in an adult language, with adult themes. It seems that British authors give their young readers a lot more credit that American authors. The result is the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy that is by no means “just a kid’s book.”
Lyra Belacqua is a young girl who spends her days roaming the many hallways and rooms of Jordan College, Oxford, where she makes friends with everyone regardless of class or status. She’s just looking to have a good time and loves taking risks, whether it be climbing the roof of the college, or chasing and attacking the gyptians who show up every once in a while on the river.
This is a different world to ours, where everyday electricity doesn’t exist. This is a world of zeppelins, steam and air powered machinery, gyroscopes and wheels and cogs, essentially a steam punk world. Also in this world every person has what is known as a dæmon, essentially the embodiment of a person’s soul in the form of an animal. When young, children’s dæmons can change form, but when they reach puberty the dæmon settles on a single form for the rest of their lives, giving one an insight into the person’s nature.
But Lyra’s world changes when first she saves her father, Lord Asriel, from being poisoned, and then learns of his work in the distant icy north where work is being done with something called Dust, the northern lights, and something about another world in the sky. Lyra then meets Mrs. Coulter, who she immediately takes a liking to for she is so strong and impressive and knowledgeable, that is until Lyra discovers that she is the one who has been kidnapping children and taking them to the north for experimentation. Managing to escape, Lyra joins with the gyptians who head north to find out what is going on with all this business about kidnapped children and Dust. The rumors are terrible. It is said that experimentation is being on separating children from their dæmons which, considering it is taboo for a person to even touch another’s dæmon, does not bode well for Lyra and the gyptians.
It is in the North that Lyra finally discovers everything that is going and more importantly, why it is happening, as well as a giant armored warrior polar bear, Iorek Byrnison, known as panserbjørne; and a Texan balloon-fighting man called Lee Scoresby.
His Dark Materials, in my opinion, is even better than the Harry Potter series for the subject matter is far more complex with truths that relate to every reader.
The Subtle Knife
The golden compass of the first book was a special future-telling instrument which, when used correctly, can answer any question you ask it.
Lyra happens to be of the chosen variety that has the natural skill to read it. In this book we meet our next hero, Will Parry, who is from our world. He finds and becomes the beholder of the subtle knife, a special knife with one side so sharp it can cut any material object, and the other side so sharp it can cut through the fabric of reality and open a doorway into another world. And so the reader realizes the great complexity of this universe with its many worlds.
Lyra and Will now continue their journey, both in search of their fathers with the help of many unusual characters like giant bears and witches.
The Amber Spyglass
In the final and lengthier conclusion to the trilogy, the full realization of this story is brought to light to such an extent that everything now becomes symbolic in some way, literature quotes begin each chapter, and the depth and complexity of the novel passes far beyond any childhood or young adult fantasy, presenting a complicated plot and moral for even adults to handle.
It is in this final book that the strengths and beliefs of our heroes will be tested to their extent, while our own beliefs will be in danger, when the basis for all religion and faith in all worlds is brought into question and threatened.
Originally published on Forces of Geek.
In the final and lengthier conclusion to the trilogy, the full realization of this story is brought to light to such an extent that everything now becomes symbolic in some way, literature quotes begin each chapter, and the depth and complexity of the novel passes far beyond any childhood or young adult fantasy, presenting a complicated plot and moral for even adults to handle. It is in this final book that the strengths and beliefs of our heroes will be tested to their extent, while our own beliefs will be in danger, when the basis for all religion and faith in all worlds is brought into question and threatened.
CLICK HERE to purchase your copy from Bookshop Santa Cruz and help support BookBanter.
Originally published on May 12th, 2003 ©Alex C. Telander.
Originally published in the Long Beach Union.
The golden compass of the first book was a special future-telling instrument which, when used correctly, can answer any question you ask it. Lyra happens to be of the chosen variety that has the natural skill to read it. In this book we meet our next hero, Will Parry, who is from our world. He finds and becomes the beholder of the subtle knife, a special knife with one side so sharp it can cut any material object, and the other side so sharp it can cut through the fabric of reality and open a doorway into another world. And so the reader realizes the great complexity of this universe with its many worlds. Lyra and Will now continue their journey, both in search of their fathers with the help of many unusual characters like giant bears and witches.
CLICK HERE to purchase your copy from Bookshop Santa Cruz and help support BookBanter.
Originally published on May 12th, 2003 ©Alex C. Telander.
Originally published in the Long Beach Union.
Originally published as Northern Lights in 1995, this is the story of a young girl who doesn’t know what to do or what is going to happen with her life, but soon discovers that she is on a specific course of destiny that she is unable to avoid. While The Golden Compass is considered a children’s book, like the Harry Potter series, it is written with an adult voice in an adult language, with adult themes. It seems that British authors give their young readers a lot more credit that American authors. The result is the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy that is by no means “just a kid’s book.”
Lyra Belacqua is a young girl who spends her days roaming the many hallways and rooms of Jordan College, Oxford, where she makes friends with everyone regardless of class or status. She’s just looking to have a good time and loves taking risks, whether it be climbing the roof of the college, or chasing and attacking the gyptians who show up every once in a while on the river. This is a different world to ours, where everyday electricity doesn’t exist. This is a world of zeppelins, steam and air powered machinery, gyroscopes and wheels and cogs, essentially a steam punk world. Also in this world every person has what is known as a dæmon, essentially the embodiment of a person’s soul in the form of an animal. When young, children’s dæmons can change form, but when they reach puberty the dæmon settles on a single form for the rest of their lives, giving one an insight into the person’s nature.
But Lyra’s world changes when first she saves her father, Lord Asriel, from being poisoned, and then learns of his work in the distant icy north where work is being done with something called Dust, the northern lights, and something about another world in the sky. Lyra then meets Mrs. Coulter, who she immediately takes a liking to for she is so strong and impressive and knowledgeable, that is until Lyra discovers that she is the one who has been kidnapping children and taking them to the north for experimentation. Managing to escape, Lyra joins with the gyptians who head north to find out what is going on with all this business about kidnapped children and Dust. The rumors are terrible. It is said that experimentation is being on separating children from their dæmons which, considering it is taboo for a person to even touch another’s dæmon, does not bode well for Lyra and the gyptians.
It is in the north that Lyra finally discovers everything that is going and more importantly, why it is happening, as well as a giant armored warrior polar bear, Iorek Byrnison, known as panserbjørne; and a Texan balloon-fighting man called Lee Scoresby.
His Dark Materials, in my opinion, is even better than the Harry Potter series for the subject matter is far more complex with truths that relate to every reader. And with a move adaptation of The Golden Compass set for release on December 7th, now is the perfect time to read this magical series for the first time, or simply to reread it again.
It is amusing to see how books branded as “children’s fantasy,” like Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia, once they are nationally and internationally recognized, suddenly become pieces of literature to be read and fully appreciated by adults and the literary world. The Philip Pullman trilogy, His Dark Materials, now released as a boxed set, fits right into this category, to such an extent that it seems the third book, The Amber Spyglass, has such a depth and complexity that it could be fully appreciated by the literati.
The trilogy begins with the hero, Lyra, acting out her strange life in an alternative world which could have been like ours some time in the late medieval period, but is not. There are inventions and technologies here that do not exist in this world; there are also similar articles that have a different or similar name; finally there are objects that have long been ousted as obsolete by our standards, but are still in common use, such as Zeppelins. Lyra, in this strange world, must take a journey to rescue her father who is imprisoned in a distant land. This first book ends with Lyra almost losing her life many times, and having to make a very important decision at the very end.
CLICK HERE to purchase your copy from Bookshop Santa Cruz and help support BookBanter.
Originally published on May 12th, 2003 ©Alex C. Telander.
Originally published in the Long Beach Union.
It’s been some time since Philip Pullman has published anything set in the world of His Dark Materials; the last offering was a very short story called Lyra’s Oxford. In Once Upon a Time in the North, Pullman returns with an original tale about Lee Scoresby the aeronaut, weighing in at just under a hundred pages – and while fans would wish for three times as much, it’s certainly much better than nothing.
In a poker game in his native Texas, twenty-four year old Lee Scoresby has just won his very own hot air balloon and half an instruction manual. His first voyage takes him across the world to the Arctic waters where he lands at Novy Odense. Looking for a place to stay and a way to make some money, Scoresby is immediately embroiled in the complex politics of the town. Mayoral candidate Ivan Poliakov hopes to take care of the “bear problem,” supported by the shady Larsen Manganese group. Taking no one’s side, but not wanting the town to be exploited, Lee soon befriends a polar bear by the name of Iorek Byrnison – whom he mistakenly calls York – and finds himself in a fierce gun battle involving a hired killer with a familiar face on the other side.
Once Upon a Time in the North is a great adventure tale with – at first glance – an entertaining and straightforward story. But in Pullman’s usual style, there is a deeper and more complex subplot that is not fully explained or resolved here. So fans can hope that there is more to tell in the world of His Dark Materials. And if that were not enough, Pullman also created a special board game for the book, which is included as an insert to the inside back cover.
If you liked this review and are interested in purchasing this book, click here.
Originally written on April 11th 2008 ©Alex C. Telander.
Originally published as Northern Lights in 1995, this is the story of a young girl who doesn’t know what to do or what is going to happen with her life, but soon discovers that she is on a specific course, a destiny that she is unable to avoid. While The Golden Compass is considered a children’s book, like the Harry Potter series, it is written with an adult voice in an adult language, with adult themes. It seems that British authors give their young readers a lot more credit that American authors. The result is the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy that is by no means “just a kid’s book.”
Lyra Belacqua is a young girl who spends her days roaming the many hallways and rooms of Jordan College, Oxford, where she makes friends with everyone regardless of class or status. She’s just looking to have a good time and loves taking risks, whether it be climbing the roof of the college, or chasing and attacking the gyptians who show up every once in a while on the river. This is a different world to ours, where everyday electricity doesn’t exist. This is a world of zeppelins, steam and air powered machinery, gyroscopes and wheels and cogs, essentially a steampunk world. Also in this world every person has what is known as a dæmon, essentially the embodiment of a person’s soul in the form of an animal. When young, children’s dæmons can change form, but when they reach puberty the dæmon settles on a single form for the rest of their lives, giving one an insight into the person’s nature.
But Lyra’s world changes when first she saves her grandfather, Lord Asriel, from being poisoned, and then learns of his work in the distant icy north where work is being done with something called Dust, the northern lights, and something about another world in the sky. Lyra then meets Mrs. Coulter, who she immediately takes a liking to for she is so strong and impressive and knowledgeable, that is until Lyra discovers that she is the one who has been kidnapping children and taking them to the north for experimentation. Managing to escape, Lyra joins with the gyptians who head north to find out what is going on with all this business about kidnapped children and Dust. The rumors are terrible. It is said that experiments are being done separating children from their dæmons which, considering it is taboo for a person to even touch another’s dæmon, does not bode well for Lyra and the gyptians.
It is in the north that Lyra finally discovers everything that is going and more importantly, why it is happening, as well as a giant armored warrior polar bear, Iorek Byrnison, known as panserbjørne; and a Texan balloon-fighting man called Lee Scoresby.
His Dark Materials, in my opinion, is even better than the Harry Potter series for the subject matter is far more complex with truths that relate to every reader. And with a move adaptation of The Golden Compass set for release on December 7th, now is the perfect time to read this magical series for the first time, or simply to reread it again.
If you liked this review and are interested in purchasing this book, click here.
Originally written on September 13th 2007 ©Alex C. Telander.
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