His Dark Materials are my favorite book series which I imagine is true of many twenty somethings who grew up in England. I fell in love with the world of daemons, the travel across the globe to familiar yet magical places and I loved even more in the second and third books when the adventure spanned worlds based on the beautiful idea of the subtle knife and it's bearer the secretive Will.
The new book of series surprised me initially. Volume one of the book of dust felt more like spy novel, and Phillip Pullman is quick to point this out in the intro of his new book. That's not to say it was a bad thing, it just felt texturelly different from the original series.
Volume 2 however returns us to Lyra, the alethiometer and more importantly to travel in distant lands. There's talk of witches, dalliances with gyptians and my new favorite addition, the hidden world of alchemists and card readers. I loved this book dearly and I'm so sad it's over. The world is rich and delicious and even exciting. A bit like Harry Potter you feel almost like the chance to experience it would be wonderful, but the story is so grown up that the reality is Lyra's world is just as corrupt and terrifying as ours.
Which actually brings up the point that Pullman brings up a lot of our world in the books. There's migrants finding themselves turned into slaves, refugees from the middle east travelling on tiny boats, and sadly perishing. There's also conglomerates so powerful that their hidden tendrils extend in unlikely ways, and there's religion allowing people to make terrible decisions in the name of their faith. It feels very familiar and for that reason I'm even more interested in how it all ends.
