Rating: 
Summary: Delectable
Review: A literarey, three course, fast-food feast served-up with a fine red wine.Beyong the insane pace necessary to save the universe from selfishness, I learned again that children's stories are deserved of a speacial place in all our reading. Moral: The adult world of religion, science and politics is never more ritious than a child's selfless act. Try Madeleine L'Engle, "A Wrinkle in Time," another journey only a child can make.
Rating: 
Summary: Angelic
Review: Pullman has scored a masterful conclusion to his trilogy that is fascinating,even though a little slower paced than the previous chapters. Your questions will be answered and your attention rewarded. Well done.
Rating: 
Summary: Captivating, but with some serious flaws
Review: Philip Pullman has written a trilogy that is challenging and exciting and thought-provoking. The first two books in the trilogy were excellent and left me waiting for more. This one was somewhat of a disappointment. There was certainly a rich plot in this book, but Pullman himself seemed to get in the way of the story more than he did in the previous two books. I have really enjoyed his creative and critical view on religion and it's use and abuse in the previous two books - I've found that I was left reflecting on these topics for a long while after I finished each of those books. The key to both of those books, though, was that Pullman had a certain amount of restraint in his writing that challenged the reader to think for him or herself and come to his or her own conclusions about issues. This book felt to me like he suddenly lost the ability to speak through metaphor and had to beat us over the head with his opinion. It was kind of like those books in which a character has to say something like, "Gee Sally, we sure have learned a lot about X today. I learned that ...." The closest parallel that I have for this is Upton Sinclair's book, The Jungle. The Jungle spends about 300 pages spinning out a story that really convinces you that there's something significant you need to think about, and then in the last dozen or so pages it degenerates into a meeting where the author has to preach to you his views. Duh ... we got it. In reading this trilogy I felt like Pullman respected and trusted my intelligence and ability to think for myself as a reader all until the last chapter or so of the last book, at which point he lost faith and couldn't hold himself back from just telling me flat out his views. It felt disloyal to Lyra and disloyal to me, and for me it broke the "frame" of the fantasy he had set up. Bad writing after so much good writing. I LOVED the first two books and much of this one, but show me some respect, please.
Rating:
Summary: Thank you Philip Pullman
Review: If I could say one thing to the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, it would be to say thank you. That is the only way I could put everything I feel about the books into words. Thank you Philip Pullman.
Rating:
Summary: This book deserves more than five stars
Review: The Amber Spyglass not only lived up to the previous book's expectations, it jumped miles over them! From the very start I was hooked. This series is the best fantasy series I have ever read, because it is so unique. I really got into the plot, and I absolutely LOVED it. The entire situation with Dust was a bit confusing at first, but I got the hang of it. One thing that majorly confused me, though, was Mary Malone was supposed to be the temptress. I don't remember any scene where she tempted Lyra. I may have missed it, but this was the only thing that I didn't get about the book. Otherwise, this is a total must-read, and if you think you are not a fantasy fan, read this and then tell me again!
Rating:
Summary: Lovely, Just Lovely
Review: When I finished this book my heart felt really...cold. I thought the conclusion was very sad, and I just wished that there was a way that everything could've worked out. The book is just as adventurous as the rest and it's really very well-written. I think Pullman did a wonderful job of thinking up his stories and putting them so that they made sense. This book really had a lot of people making sacrifices. It was Lyra's parents, Lyra and Will, and I don't remember at the moment, but I am sure there were more. The friends that the two main characters had made were really very essential to the whole story. W/O them Lyra and Will would have still been kids and might've never really grown up. I just loved this book...and could read it again.
Rating:
Summary: I personaly loved it
Review: This book is one of my favorites. Many people have objections to it, but my responses to these are: 1)The whole anti-Christain thing. Well, first of all, I'm not really Christain, so it didn't affect me as much. People, remember, this is a fiction book, for the enjoyment of teens and other YA readers. It helps teens take on a different look on beliefs, which I encourage, because I find that many people's other ideas and beliefs are sometimes better than my own (not saying that God should be banned or anything). 2) To all those people that saying the two angels being homosexual is "yucky", I say there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. It is a thing present in our world and they should learn to deal with it. I congratulate Mr. Pullman for introducing ideas in his book that other people may disapprove of because it is different. 3) (trying to think) Oh! I agree with everyone that says it has flaws, because nothing is perfect. But the overall effect of the book is so wonderful and enchanting, that I tended to forget about the mistakes pretty soon. BTW, I loved the ending so much. I burst into tears and read it again and again. Overall, this is a terrific book and is defiently (I can not spell!)one of my all time favorite books. (I'm a teenager by the way)
Rating:
Summary: Breathless
Review: Having read the other two books in the series, I, like so many others, wondered how Pullman was going to match them in the writing of this third book. Far from match them, it surpassed them amazingly. Even as i write this review, it is only about 30 minutes since I finished the book. Even now though, i am filled with emotion, especially grief, and an open-eyed new way of thinking than I possessed before reading it. Moving as the others were, this book truly touched me in a very profound way. I feel intense sadness over the ending, and I cried throughout most of the last two chapters. This is a wonderful book, and every one, no matter how skeptical or down to earth they may be, should read it. However, before you read this book, read the first two, or you may be unprepared for the emotional level, and depth of thought in this book
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful but flawed
Review: Let's start off with a simple statement - I love this book. Everything else I say should be taken in that context. Love, they say, is blind. Well, so it may be to begin with, but as it matures it begins to see the beloved more clearly, warts and all. So, if I seem to be picking on the flaws in TAS, it's only because I care. That's why I'm giving it five stars, despite its problems. Oh, and skip this review now if you hate spoilers. It's impossible to review this book, or indeed the whole series, without either divulging at least some plot details or else being so oblique as to make little sense. In fact, look away now - don't read any of the reviews here. I didn't even read the cover blurb, let alone any reviews, and I think I had a richer experience as a result. Adverse criticism of TAS seems to fall into three categories: - Direct attacks on Philip Pullman's theology. - Indirect attacks on Philip Pullman's theology, disguised as literary criticism. - Other objections. I guess I fall into the third category. The first category is honest, but misguided. If your faith isn't strong enough to withstand reading a piece of fiction, what's going to happen when it meets real life? The second form is merely dishonest. That notorious ending first. Gosh, it's beautifully done. I'm 48 and I found it hauntingly nostalgic and very moving. I don't think my 10-year-old son felt quite the same way. Which is a clue to the first problem: The whole story has been driving towards the second Fall. And when it happens - it doesn't. Where is the "subtil", conscious Tempter? The Temptation happens unconsciously, by accident. Where is the Disobedience? Nobody told Lyra not to fall in love. And - where are the consequences? The Dust-flow into the Abyss is diverted, fine, but the angels were going to sort that out pretty soon anyway. The dead had already been freed. It looks as if all along PP intended Will and Lyra to have a tragic love story, but found that the plot he had set up had intentions too. This seems to have left him with a lot of patching up to do to try to tie things together and unfortunately the seams show. Will and Lyra are tempted at the end, but the plot mechanics back them into a corner where their choice becomes inevitable. There's just a hint of emotional exploitation in this ending - hence my son's muted response. If he'd been 15 rather than 10 when he read it, I'm sure he'd have been far more affected. Next: PP writes very well, but he tends to overuse some words. Who can remember reading the Thomas Covenant books of Stephen R. Donaldson and waiting for the next instance of "clench" or "incarnadine"? It's a bit like that here, with "profound", "passionate", "breast" and "flesh" making regular and not always welcome appearances. Then, there's a certain inconsistency in the way the worlds work. Lyra's world seems too technologically advanced - only 50 years behind ours - for a place where the Magisterium regularly excommunicates scientists. And how the heck does the decayed world of Ci'gazze get to have electric light, gas cookers, refrigerators and canned drinks without a stable adult population to run the necessary industries? I won't go on, though, because any work on this scale is bound to have lots of points you can pick out and there's a law of diminishing returns. As I said at the start, it's love, and you can't argue with that.
Rating:
Summary: The best
Review: As a school librarian I have read scads of children's books, not to mention adult ones. Without hesitation I would say the three novels in the Dark Materials Trilogy are my all time favorite books. They are wonderful. Pullman is a master at his craft, every detail is there from characterization to plotting. I wish that he would write another saga set in Lyra's world of humans and daemons. If not, I will always have the books to reread. I read the Golden Compass when it first came out some six years ago. I have read it three times now and I never tire of it. Highly recommended.
| 
