Judging by some of the things he says in interviews, Philip Pullman can be quite unpleasant. His books – every single one – are brilliant.
“His Dark Materials” is the trilogy he’s best known for. I can’t actually write the kind of epic work that this is, and I rarely read it – but some people do it extremely well. Philip Pullman is unmistakably a master writer.
The rest of this review has been moved to Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
~~~ Very slight spoiler warning ~~~
I’ve only read “The Golden Compass”; I picked it up at a Borders closing sale relatively cheaply, but the subsequent books weren’t available, and nor are they available from my local friendly public library. Perhaps I’m missing something, but I don’t have grand hopes for the next two – it seems that Pullman constructed such a nice world to essentially throw it away at the end of the book.
Jolyon: The second and third books contain multiple worlds. I’ll be reviewing them over the next two weeks. . . including the fatal flaw.
I saw the movie first, and was so intrigued I went and got all the books (eBooks).
And you forgot to mention the polarbear battle warriors!
Stu: I’m glad the movie worked for someone. I liked it, but it didn’t seem to do as well as it should have.
I’ll be interested to see where this goes – I personally find Phillip Pullman a bit obnoxious, but I suspect that’s more to do with my personality than his work. Having said that, the setting of the second book’s a lot of bleak, spooky fun.
Joe: A lot of people classify the “His Dark Materials” trilogy as steampunk, which is rather a stretch (but I’ll allow it, since it’s well written and inventive).
Curtis J allows it. I think it falls into that category of works where people call anything that takes place in the 19th century or in a city steampunk. (Although, when you think about it, the mission statement of the series is pretty punk. Won’t say why, because it’s a major spoiler.)
Joe: That makes sense. I’ll be talking about the purpose of the series with book 3.