Rating: 
Summary: Keeps you begging for more!
Review: As soon as I started to read this trilogy, I couldn't put it down! I recently finished the last installment, The Amber Spyglass, which I spent all of my free time reading. I highly suggest this book to any reader who likes mystery and fantasy books. My English teacher even suggested this book to my class for a project we will be doing, and she herself said she enjoyed Philip Pullmans other published works. So this book isn't just for young readers, but adults as well. However, these books do contain violence and the details are described in great detail, so very young readers should not pick this book up.
Rating:
Summary: Dark Materials Trilogy
Review: Having received a recommendation from a Terry Brooks site for this trilogy, I followed it and found this set of books to be excellent. You travel through many locations, situations, and fantasies while touching on many sujects, which may surprise you. In the end you are allowed to experience a sensation that each of us have had at some point in our lives. By doing so your focus is provided with a sense of understanding and melancholy, which cements these books in your mind. I highly recommed them, but they should be read in order so that you do not lose the ebb and flow.
Rating:
Summary: SUPERB NOVEL
Review: Whilst Tolkien presents an excellent Roman Catholic view of mythology in Lord of the Rings, and Rowling provides an exciting introduction to the world of imagination and classical literature. Phillip Pullman on a darker tangent writes a book that I recommended to five parents pre Christmas all teenagers plus parents have all got hooked. This is exciting writing. Not for under 12 year olds but satisfying page turning adventure with mythical and classical undertones. I have read LOR over 50 times and potter books 2-3 times, Pullman will be a yearly read for me.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for children
Review: "His Dark Materials" is well-written, but since its target audience is pre-adolescent children, it deserves two stars at best. This is NOT a book for children. It is staunchly anti-Christian, and the author has spoken at length about his disdain for Christianity. His motivation for writing this trilogy was to create an atheist version of C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia." Characters include a homosexual angel, and the books are suffused with pointless violence and sexuality. God, of course, is portrayed as a sadistic kill-joy who wants to ruin everyone's sex life. If you're a recaltricant atheist who idolizes the ACLU, hates the pledge of allegiance, and thinks that the United States is a "Christian fundamentalist theocracy" on par with Afganistan, then I suppose these books are great for your children. If you're sane, stay away from them.On the plus side, these books show an interesting shift in our culture. In the mid-20th century, Atheism had such a firm lock on intellectual culture that Christians were reduced to promoting their faith through fairy stories like the Narnia Chronicles and protecting themselves from the scientific mainstream through pseudo-scientific enterprises like Creation Science. Now, with the intellectual revolutions that have rocked Physics, Cosmology, Politics, Psychiatry, and even evolutionary biology (it'll take just another nudge to assign Darwin to the ash heap of history), it is the atheists who feel a need to comfort themselves with fairy stories and pseudo-science, like Richard Dawkins' books and PBS' Evolution series.
Rating:
Summary: I loved them
Review: I loved all three of these wonderful novels. I owned The Golden Compass for a number of years before I actually read it. When I picked it up, I inhaled it. I couldn't put it down. It was the same with the other two books in the series. Just because Phillup Pullman writes about the possible dark side to god, doesn't mean that he advocates his downfall. In fact, God was old and feeble, and being controled by an evil angel. The whole trilogy goes on the same shelf as Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I just want to say that I think this is a very good trilogy, it deals with religion and what ifs, and makes you think. I'm a Christian and believe in God, but I think those of you who won't read Harry Potter, or these books because they have something even remotely against God are narrow-minded, I respect your strong faith, but I think you should at least look at it as a chance to think about or discuss religion. Also, if you don't think your child should read these books, I think you're missing out, these books could provoke good discussions about God. You might learn that your child is even more fiercly religious than you after they read this so-called "blasphemy," then again, maybe Christianity in't the right road for them, God gave all of us free will, for good or bad, you need to allow your child(ren) to excercise that free will, and chose God or another path. I hope I won't be hunted down for writing this, but this is what I believe, and will continue to believe until someone shows me why I should believe otherwise. And, once again, please keep an open about books, and give these a try, you might just surprise yourself with questions you never thought about before.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful and Disturbing
Review: Pullman's trilogy is beautiful, immensely imaginative, and profoundly disappointing. The first two books are wonderful works of fantasy fiction that adults and young people alike can easily enjoy. On that basis alone, I recommend reading it. Unfortunately, the last book winds up being a dogmatic condemnation of religion, the organized church, and the idea of a loving, wise, or powerful God. For someone from a European society, with a closer connection to the history of a single and too-frequently abusive church authority (in Pullman's work, the "Authority" obviously stands for the Catholic church), this work may be more acceptable and understandable, but for American readers growing up in a more pluralistic society with greater respect for (and less arrogance about) other people's beliefs, Pullman's ultimate thrust is as dogmatic and insulting as the church he fantastically creates and criticizes. The religious figures in this book are mean, distorted characters, fanatics who only want to control or, failing that, exterminate their foes. For people wise enough to recognize they have no singular purchase on the ultimate truth, Pullman's attempted rendering of a more sophisticated, adult truth in which there is no real God comes across as an ugly and uneducated piece of propaganda. It's unfortunate that an otherwise spectacular story could get bogged down in such inappropriate sermonizing. If you like science fiction or fantasy and couldn't care less about religious and spiritual matters, you might love this trilogy. If you have any respect for Christianity or other religious traditions, you may find this work disturbing, despite its beauty and inventiveness.
Rating:
Summary: His Dark Materials
Review: These books are beautifully written, thoughtful and, in the end, hopeful. The story will hold the imagination of children that have enjoyed Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and the like. I suppose if you are a staunch Christian, you should stay away. But for the rest of us, these books present the universe in all its wondrous, mysterious, magical complexity.
Rating:
Summary: 10000000 stars!
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read. It is not light reading, whatever adults might say. 1. First of all, people shouldn't say that this book is only for children 16 and up. I am an eleven year old, and sometimes I am insulted because a book says it is only for children 16 and up. Just because I am young does not mean that I cannot understand heavy things! 2. This book has well-developed characters, and gives you depth and perception into the characters feelings (esp. Lyra). 3. I would recomend this book to everyone.
If you haven't read The Golden Compass(GASP,GASP), you really NEED TO!
Rating: 
Summary: Bias? Heck, it's just a good read!
Review: Sorry people, I don't buy it. Pullman has written an engaging series, full of intrigue, sci-fi, fantasy, suspense heroics, love and anger. Hate? Nope... it's just a good read, pure and simple. Why do we always have to dig down into a book for its hidden meaning, or a hidden agenda? Isn't it possible... just possible?... that an author simply wrote down a good story and made it into a book? Just my humble opinion, having been an avid reader of fantasy and sci-fi for almost 40 years. This is a simple story about good vs evil, like most other books it has its hero's, heroine's and evil mongers. I believe this is a bit complicated for a juvenile, but certainly nothing offensive. It's in the Harry Potter mode, but darker (as suggested by another reviewer), and perhaps more somber. Still, I would recommend it as a good read.
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