Rating: 
Summary: BEST SERIES EVER
Review: i LOVED this series. Even though i'm still on the second book [The Subtle Knife] i still absolutely love it and i know the Amber spyglass will be just as awesome as well. The book sequences everything very well just so that you can even picture it yourself and a lot of the stuff is just very clever like you would never have known that would happen. It's sort of like a movie [I WISH THEY MADE A MOVIE OF THIS]. I swear you can't even put this book down. I read this book whenever i had the chance because it was just that good. I know it might be a surprise but i think this series is better than the Harry POtter series because it was more advanced. I mean Harry Potter was awesome too but i dunno just different. But either way, i recommend this book to anyone who wants a really good fantasy book that will keep them coming for more!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, haunting, and exciting
Review: The Golden Compass is a story abot Lyra, a young girl who lives in a world similar to ours but different in many ways. She is content to live free among of the scholars of Jordon College in Oxford. However, she gets caught up in a journey filled with ice and snow in the frigid Northern reaches of Svalbard. With the golden compass quiding her the way, she meets witches, armoured bears, severed children, the King, and even finds the mystery to a special paricle called Dust. This all leads to it's wonderful climax and the setup for the next two books The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. This book was an absolute rollar coaster to read and has many twists and turns. However, what bothers me is not the book itself but what the publishers advertise it for. This is NOT a children's book. The plot can be extremely dark and often very violent. (The battle between Iorek and Iofur made my jaw drop) I'm 15 and I was thinking to myself, "Wow, a 8-10 year old kid couldn't handle this. This is waaaaay above their heads." I'm behind this book 100%. If you love the books, hold on to your hats because the His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass THE MOVIE will be out in 2005. Buy this book. You won't regret it.
Rating: 
Summary: Uninspired.
Review: "Start with a character, and you'll find you've got a type. Start with a type, and you'll find you've got nothing." In "The Golden Compass" Philip Pullman writes 'types', not characters. I struggled through hundreds of pages wondering why in the world I was supposed to like Lyra. I didn't, and I still don't. Why? She's a type, not a character. She's an icon of childhood ideals of sorts. A spritely, lively, free-spirited, exuberant thing. ie.) Moderately uninteresting caricature of childlike innocence. Pullman writes children like somebody who's studied them in psychology texts in order to write for them, but has never spoken to one. The writing otherwise is solid, and locales are nicely rendered, but I got bored fast with the use of his characters as nothing but wooden puppets to hang his pseudo-spiritual/metaphysical ideas and gadgets on. His personal philosophies are the real star of these stories, and it quickly becomes tiresome. Good essay material, yes. Compelling storytelling? Not really. Too much is arbitrary or unexplained besides. Why are there talking bears in a world otherwise grounded in realism, when other animals are just that? What IS dust anyway? You'll be three hundred pages in before you realize not a compelling word of explanation has been offered yet. String a reader along long enough, and he'll just stop caring. I was waist-deep in this story when I just stopped caring. The longer it got, the more acutely, annoyingly aware I became that this story was subdivided to cover three books for commercial reasons. The Golden Compass is, putting it simply, chock full of filler meant to spread the narrative thin enough to sell two more episodes. What ARE daemons? What about Iorek and the bears? Dust? Mrs Coulter? Ultimately, a lot more questions are raised than answered, but I simply stopped caring about the outcome. I don't think I'll be purchasing the next two books. Pullman is popular because his themes appeal to the present social/philosophical prejudices of the literary establishment. But that really doesn't change the fact that it's all pretty hamfisted, archetypical, and just plain uninteresting as a story. Neat ideas (though admittedly, blatant propaganda) marred by very average storytelling and one-dimensional characters. Stick to Rowling, Tolkien, and Lewis, not necessarily in that order.
Rating:
Summary: Deamons armored bears and more
Review: Philip Pullman's Golden compass is one of the best books I have ever read. The golden compass is extremly detailed. You can feel he charicters emotions. Lyra starts out in a humble beging one desision starts of the whole book. The Golden Compass is slow in the [begining] but it realy gets going in a little bit.
Rating: 
Summary: the first of the fantastic fantasy series
Review: The Golden Compass is a book that is meant for young readers, and with good reason. The moment I started reading the book I was enwrapped in the talk of war, a mysterious death plot, and the barbarian-like nature of the main character Lyra Belacqua. Lyra finds herself climbing about the rooftops and meandering down into the streets of Oxford with her friend Roger, in a parallel world that is not unlike our own. After being orphaned, she is brought up among the scholars in the prestigious corridors of Jordan College.
Lyra always has a taste for adventure and can easily lie her way out of any trouble she could possibly get into. This does not mean however that she is a morally corrupt and dishonest person. With the help of Pantalaimon her dæmon( small creatures who take the form of various animals and are physical embodiments of their human owners soul), Lyra is guided through every moment of her life with his close consent.
Lyra's complex adventure starts with the very simple act of going into a room that is forbidden to her. She overhears her powerful uncle, Lord Asriel, talking among the scholars about things that completely bewilder her. Among the mystifying talk of armored bears, cities in the sky and severed children, are the magical elementary particles found in the North known as Dust. Lyra has truly never been to school in the eleven years of her life, but passing scholars would agree to teach her the basics along with their current area of work. This led to her having large gaps of knowledge, but she came to learn a great deal about experimental theology and physics.
However, Lyra does not completely depend on the scholars for information. All throughout Oxford is the talk of a mysterious group who capture children, never to bring them back. The Gobblers or General Oblation Board, perform terrible experiments that involve the children, their dæmons and Dust. A sudden halt in Lyra's fun and games comes about when Roger is taken away by the Gobblers. Lyra embarks on her journey with the intoxicating Mrs. Coulter who adopts her into her busy lifestyle, promising to take her North so she can find her friend.
Before Mrs. Coulter brings Lyra to her new home, the Master of Jordan College gives Lyra a strange object that must be kept secret and safe from all others. The alethiometer ( which means truth measurer ), or golden compass, is a mysteriously powered trinket that takes years and years to master and requires the use of complicated books in order to understand how it works. But in fact, Lyra learns very quickly that the instrument tells you the truth to any question that you ask it and she begins to use it with flawless ease. Lyra begins to love her new ladylike lifestyle with Mrs. Coulter, but there is always a threatening undertone that comes along with it.
As Lyra realizes this, she breaks away on her grand adventure into the vast expanses of the North with the aid of witches, gyptians, and the powerful armored bears. In the end, all of the worlds' fates are in the hands of Lyra and the question becomes whether or not she will betray the one she set out to save. Philip Pullman gives an astounding performance in writing this book and leaves you with a cliffhanger at the end which makes you want to go straight into the next book of the series. He really hooks his readers in with his enticing blend of science, magic and religion.
I would recommend this book and the rest of the His Dark Materials series to fantasy lovers of all ages.
Rating:
Summary: Better than harry potter!
Review: A rare gem in the science fiction/fantasy genre, this series has a female heroine, Lyra. We follow Lyra throughout the series as she encounters intense mysteries and drama. Although this is a fantasy book series, it is superbly written and is excellent in making the reader become so engrossed that they nearly forget where they are. I would use these books with high school, reluctant reader girls, since it's an excellent story about a girl who saves the world. They would learn from this book that girls are also craft, witty, and brilliant. Another group that I would recommend this series to are advanced high school readers as I believe these books have direct references to Paradise Lost and also make general remarks on religion. In fact by the final book, your idea of religion is completely obscured. I think it would be interesting for them to do a compare/contrast with Paradise lost of perhaps how the series develops a theme of religion.
Rating:
Summary: ABSOLUTLEY STUNNING
Review: This book is probably one of the best that I have ever read. It is not a little kid's book; I think that teenagers and adults would enjoy it the most. I myself am thirteen years old, and my sister and dad have both read it. The Golden Compass is absolutley riveting. From the very beginning, it pulls you into the mind of Lyra Belaqua, a young and reckless girl who is living in Oxford. Suddenly, she must move in with Mrs. Coulter, a beautiful explorer of the dangerous North, where she begins her quest about Dust-- a newly discovered elementary particle that is making even the most respectable scholars shiver.
Rating:
Summary: GO LYRA!!!!!!
Review: This boook is one of my favorite books. If you like action, well i promise you this book has LOTS of action. This book starts out with a girl named Lyra form Jorden College, her home. Her uncle Lord Asrial, studies dust and is currently trying to find a way to get to another world. Later Lyra runs into a woman named Mrs.Coulter, a bad BAD woman. Lyra doesn't know two things at first about this woman, one, she is her mother, and two, she cuts children away from their demons. Lyra really likes this woman at first, and so Mrs.Coulter adopts Lyra. When Lyra is about to leave, a professor gives her this althiometer. The althiometer tells her the the truth. Her adventure starts here. Her mission is to stop whatever Mrs.Coulter is doing and also stop Lord Asrial from opening that path to another world. Can she do it? Read more to find out!
Rating:
Summary: Lyra's First Journey
Review: Lyra is an eleven year old girl who seems unaware of the world around her. She lives in a world full of daemons (life companions attached to the very soul of every human), an alethiometer (an instrument used by only the enlightened that can tell no lies and answer any question), witches, gyptians, panserbjornes (armored bears), and of course the infamous Dust (an elementary particle found only in the North that has many people worried). However, Lyra is pleasantly oblivious to this until her eyes are opened when she views pictures from her "Uncle" Asriel trip to the North. She then begins to yearn for the North. She feels almost a duty to go to the North and find out the meaning of Dust. But, while Lyra is feeling this obligation to the North, the Gobblers (or the Obligation Board to the few who are informed) are stealing children and performing horrible experiments with the child, their daemons, and Dust. The laboratory where they perform these experiments is far to the North as well. Then, one day Lyra's best friend Roger, a kitchen boy from the college where she lives, is taken by the Gobblers. Lyra then leaves the college where she was previously spending her life, to live with an enchanting woman by the name of Mrs. Coulter. Lyra idolizes Mrs. Coulter and her sophisticated way of life. After all, Mrs. Coulter has even been to the North, where she did important research on Dust! Things seem to be too good to be true, which they are. Lyra soon discovers that Mrs. Coulter is the founding member of the obligation board and was responsible for the loss of her dearest Roger. Lyra then decides to run away from Mrs. Coulter's up-scale apartment and try to make sense of her world. Lyra is then taken in by a gyptian family, whom she had had a long past with. The gyptians took her on their boat to the North where they planned to find the lost children and rescue them from further harm. However, Mrs. Coulter had everyone on the look out for Lyra, so Lyra couldn't be seen outside of the boat, for fear of being turned back in to Mrs. Coulter. Lyra meets many new and interesting people, animals, and things. Lyra is lead on a journey to find out what this mysterious Dust is, where her friend Roger has been taken, and to rescue her "Uncle" from the grasp of the panserbjornes. Will Lyra be able to succeed with the help from her alethiometer and her newly found friends? Or, will the world perish from Lyra's failing? Only time can tell.
Rating:
Summary: Great for younger readers, but I was not swept away
Review: I picked up The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman because I'd heard a lot of great reviews about it, and that it was recommended as a book for younger readers. It quickly became clear to me that, like the Potter series, this book is targeted at younger readers. The language and tone of the text are straightforward and have that compelling pull that draws the younger reader in, as if the author is sharing a secret story. The story is that of a young orphan-of-sorts girl, Lyra, who has been allowed to mostly run wild and free in Oxford, among a bunch of dusty scholars. It begins with Lyra's unstoppable curiosity to see one of the "forbidden" rooms, where she finds herself trapped in a closet sneaking peaks and hearing tidbits of information that don't make a whole lot of sense to her. When playing with Roger and their gyptian friends, Lyra starts to hear stories about Gobblers that kidnap children. Not much later, she is suddenly taken away from Oxford by Mrs Coulter, a beautiful lady unknown to Lyra. She enjoys staying with Mrs Coulter in London for a while, but all the beautiful surroundings have a dark undertone. It is up to Lyra to discover the secret behind the Gobblers and save the missing children - or that's what she thinks, anyway. There is a dark twist to the story at the end. And of course there is the rest of the series to read if you want to know what happened after the cliffhanger left by Pullman. The book is certainly compelling and unique in it storyline. It is a children's story in that it features mainly children and Lyra, a child, is the heroine. That's not to say that many adults won't enjoy the series (many adults also read Harry Potter). Personnally, I was not entirely swept away by the book, in spite of all the positive points above. Maybe it's because the story is meant to be told to children. For example, Lyra often has the tendency to fall asleep, which I found somewhat annoying and thought could have been edited more thoughtfully. The overall tone and approach of the book did not sit well with me, but I think that's a matter of personal taste. I would certainly recommend this book to younger readers, especially those with a passion for fantasy. As with all good stories, there are dark corners in this book, but I think that makes it stand out. Life isn't all roses, so why should books be? A good story requires danger and obstacles to overcome, and if Lyra fell asleep a little less often she might actually make a convincing heroine.
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