Rating: 
Summary: A Fabulous Book!
Review: The Golden Compass is a wonderful book! Being the first in a three book series written by Philip Pullman, it starts the series off with a bang! Lyra, the main character lives in a world much different from our own. In this world every human has a daemon (pronounced demon). A daemon is what you may call one's soul in an animal form. As you can tell from many events in this book, destiny and fate play a large role in all of the series, and it is fun to see how each event leads up to one another, much like in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, if you have ever read that. For a reader of my age group, some parts were hard to grasp at first, but in the end it was all pretty clear. This imaginative adventure will surely have readers of all ages entranced by the clever wording, the amazing creatures that rome the earth, and the mystical places that make up Lyra's world. The second one in the series, The Subtle Knife, was also a superb book and I'm sure the third, and last, in the series (The Amber Spyglass) will be as well, though, I myself have not read it yet.
Rating: 
Summary: Imaginative but dull
Review: The world of The Golden Compass reminds me most of the Chronicles of Narnia. Because of this I'll make some comparisons with it. The Golden Compass is fantastic in a way akin to that of Narnia. In the main it departs from the cliched dwarfs and elves theme. Like the Chronicles of Narnia, the His Dark Materials trilogy is a fantasy with a serious bent and moralistic subcurrent. In all though I found His Dark Materials to be inferior. It was duller and at many points simply implausible even granting the flexibility due a fantasy and the rules laid out by the author in his fantasy world. This first book is comparable to Voyage of the Dawn Treader or The Magician's Nephew in terms of tedium. The Subtle Knife, the second book in the trilogy, is much more engaging and the most readable of the three by far. Coming across as much as a sci-fi book as a fantasy, the story drew me in to the relationships and internal conflicts of the characters and exuded a spirit of mystery and adventure. The Amber Spyglass though was a big disappointment after the adventure and drama of The Subtle Knife. It read like The Last Battle. The "story" should have been interesting but read more like a sequence of events of existentially bent morality. One more thing, the first two books of the trilogy can be read by young children but The Amber Spyglass I think should first be read by a parent. I definitely do not think it can be construed as an innocent childrens' story.
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Summary: The review on the Golden Compass by Ben Howe
Review: This book is set in a parallel world which is quite simular to our world as it was a century ago. In this world everyone has a demon, a sort of friend, advisor and protector, and no-one could even imagine living without them. The demon of a child can change to any animal form as often as it likes but once a person becomes grown-up it stays as one creature. A girl called Lyra also lives in this world and her demon is called Pantalailmon. She lives in an Oxford college and has never seen her parents. But more and more chldren are dissapearing in the local area and Lyra hears of the horrible rumours: the kidnappers are seperating the children from their demons! So Lyra makes her way into the north to save her friend Robert, with the aid of the golden compass, a magical insrument. On the way she meets dangerous armour-polarbears and flying witches which help her in her fight against the kidnappers and in the end she comes closer to the secret of the mysterious northern lights. This book is a mixture of adventure, thriller and fantasy genres. The part I liked best about this book was the amazing use of imagery on both charecters and settings. The only thing I disliked was that it took quite a long time to get into the story. I would reccomend this book to both adults and older children who like fiction.
Rating:
Summary: 'The Golden Compass' or 'Northern Lights'
Review: The magical story of Lyra Bevilacqua, a young girl who has grown up in a colledge, surrounded by people much older than herself, apart from the kitchen boy Roger. This is a FANTASTIC read as Lyra sets out on an epic journey, to find Roger once he has been taken by the, 'gobblers', you are immediately entranced. Roccomended for ages 10 - 13
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Summary: Think you don't like fantasy? Read this!
Review: I always said to people that I didn't like fantasy or science fiction novels. Then I bought this at a bookstore, and I couldn't put it down. The plot is so unique and original, and the world is so believable that you find yourself wishing that you too had a daemon companion. This is a great introduction to a fantastic series.
Rating:
Summary: The Golden Book
Review: This was an astounding book for many reasons. At first, it seemed to be a non-fiction book and I was almost turned away from it but my instincts told me to read on. What I found, was that the main character, Lyra, lived in a world that was in fact much different than the world in which we live. In Lyra's world, science, theology, and magic intertwine completely. All the children in Lyra's world are being kidnapped by "Gobblers" who follow Dust, a mysterious entity. Lyra and her friend Roger end up foiling the assassination of Lord Asriel, her uncle. As the book goes on, an interesting feeling comes over the reader. He actually gets lost and confused as to what is going on. Many would say this is bad, however, it adds to the atmosphere the book creates. Though the reader feels slightly lost, he knows that something bad is going on and this feeling coupled with the confusion makes the reader become entangled in this book very quickly. It is, in fact, this feeling of confusion and desperation that makes the reader actually know what Lyra must be going through. The simple theme of the fact that there are many different worlds, such as Lyra's compared to our own, makes those with any bit of an imagination ask the question, "What if this is all real?" The end makes the reader want to go out to the nearest book store and read the next two parts of the series.
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Fantasy Book ever!
Review: This book makes you happy or sad! It is so well written! I love it! I have read all 3 books!
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Summary: Waiting for Harry Potter? Want something great to read?
Review: You get hooked on this series like you get hooked on Harry Potter. It is just as good or better!
Rating:
Summary: A Modern Classic
Review: This review inevitably contains spoilers, although I've tried to avoid giving too much away. Please don't read this review, or any other for that matter, if you wish to enjoy The Golden Compass (TGC) to the full. In particular, there is a summary in the Booklist entry in the Editorial Reviews section of Amazon's US site which shamefully and without warning betrays a vital plot element. Amazon - please remove or edit this entry. It's not fair to your readers. TGC is not the first volume of a trilogy; it's the first published part of a three-volume novel, His Dark Materials (HDM). As such it can stand alone, but it leaves the reader so suspended at the end that it's hard to imagine him or her not wanting to move straight on to The Subtle Knife. I did, and with all three parts now available there's really no reason not to do so. Treated as a stand-alone book, though, TGC would have benefited from a less sharply cut-off ending. It's not at all uncommon for storytellers to fall for their lead characters and there's no doubt that Philip Pullman (PP) has fallen for Lyra Belacqua, his 12-year-old heroine. PP follows the traditional structure of fantasy fiction by starting with the small-scale and domestic and gradually widening the scope to take in the wider world. This allows him lovingly to sketch Lyra's Oxford and the academic world of Jordan College, as well as the brave, thoughtless, mendacious tomboy herself. World-building - and character-building - takes time and some readers may find the first 50 pages of TGC a bit slow. However, once this vital groundwork has been done, the action takes off and continues pell-mell right through to the splendid climax on Svalbard. The story remains tightly focussed on Lyra and her dæmon Pantalaimon pretty much all the way though, which is one reason why many readers prefer TGC to the other parts of HDM. The wider story that develops in the rest of HDM is only hinted at here. PP is a grand storyteller, but perhaps not quite so good a plotter. Once or twice the hand of the omnipotent author intervenes to move the story along. Despite this the plot is generally well managed, especially with respect to the spoiled point I mentioned at the beginning of this review. The point of a successful dénouement is that it should surprise the reader - who should then realise its rightness and inevitability. Perhaps I don't pay enough attention when I read, but when I discovered exactly what it was that the General Oblation Board were doing in Bolvangar I was shocked and revolted - a considerable achievement when you consider that their crime is an invention of the author's - but also delighted by the way that his craft had led the story to that point. Much has been made of comparisons with, and PP's dislike of, the Narnian Chronicles of CS Lewis. I'll just remark that PP gleefully fillets elements of the Narnian stories (and the Interplanetary Trilogy) throughout HDM. Sometimes this happens because HDM and the Narnian Chronicles share common origins; sometimes it's just for fun. Unlike Lewis, who borrowed ideas from HG Wells only to satirise him in a very personal and snobbish manner in That Hideous Strength, PP confines his criticism to the work, not the author. In summary, then, The Golden Compass is a genuine modern classic - a thoughtful, exciting adventure, brilliantly imagined and beautifully written, that works on many levels. How could I not give it five stars?
Rating:
Summary: imagery is delightful, world is strong, POV is scattered
Review: That pretty much covers it. I really enjoyed this book, and the depth of detail of this very different world was incredibly wonderful. But the way he jumped from one point of view to another, sometimes even in the middle of an event and often without clear demarcations, was frustrating & sometimes a little confusing.
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