Rating: 
Summary: This book rules!
Review: How can people call this book rubbish?! It is so moving yet exciting at the same time. It was definitely worth the wait. Phillip Pullman is so talented but this book and its predecessors will probably be questionned because of the themes and ideas in it. I think that this is incredibly sad because although these themes are there - it is just a story. The writer draws you in and you can't put the book down. Most definitely one of the most amazing books ever!
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Summary: a fitting end to an incredible trilogy
Review: This book has the best opening I have ever read. A beautiful description of the valley where Mrs Coulter is hiding with Lyra, it doesn't get boring like other lengthy descriptive openings, but engages and awes instead. Pullman's mastery is immediatly apparant, as he slowly shifts the viewpoint - "zooms in" - to Mrs Coulter's daemon, all the while using immaculatly beautiful description. The rest of the book, thankfully, lives up to this opening. With astonishing revalations, dramatic events and a superbly touching ending, this is probably the best book I have ever read - the only question mark is whether another comes joint. The beauty of this novel is it is one of the rare ones (like the rest of the trilogy) that has both incredibly good description and a truly engrossing clever story - and great philosphical ideas too! It is only a shame Pullman's work outside of this trilogy isn't as well written - if he writes a few more books at this standard he could be the best living fantasy writer, but this trilogy is more than worth checking out for any fantasy fan anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing conclusion after a strong, strong start
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Philip Pullman's 'Golden Compass' and 'Subtle Knife'. I was just as equally disappointed with 'Amber Spyglass', where Pullman's strong distaste for religion, especially Christianity, gets in the way of his narrative.First and foremost, the final battle with the Authority, which Pullman has been steadily building toward during his last two novels, never materializes, a victim of Pullman's bigoted views of all who believe in a Supreme Being. The Authority's #2 man is more reminiscent of Barney Fife than Beelzebub, and is easily sidetracked by the inexplicably repentant Ms. Coulter. One begins to wonder just how the Authority and his sidekick put together this revolution that everybody else seems to be so in awe of. And, of course, the terribly, terribly hateful beings that guard the gates of Hell suddenly become nice because Lyra is nice to them... ugh. The story is saved (and only to a point) through Pullman's imagination which, despite his theology, manages to envision other universes (allegories of the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics) in which evolution takes different turns, and the 'Dust' that binds them all to a similar fate. For those parents who do believe in Christianity, be warned: daemons are merely a manifestation of what New Age teachers might call "Spirit Guides", and Pullman offers a nice little exercise your kids can engage in to find theirs. It is clear that Pullman fancies his tale on the level of Milton's 'Paradise Lost', and, through the second book, I think he might have given old John M. a run for his money. But his last book draws back the curtain -- way too far -- on his core beliefs, and they are not complimentary at all. You're all victims of a sad mistake, says Pullman. My only sad mistake was that I finished what started out to be a very well written trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: This sequel of the subtle knife was exellent!But I liked the previous one better.Lyra is kidnaped and Will sets of to search her.The final battle with the authorithy and the abbys in the world of the dead are all great.I thought the end was kinda sad.
Great!I know you wil like it.
Just sit back and enjoy...
Rating:
Summary: best book!
Review: This book is my favoprite book ever!
Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment!
Review: I love the first two books in this series and read them both twice before beginning the last volume. I won't be reading it again. It took me forever to finish it. What happened? There is no thru-line and some scenes drag on forever. The scene with Jorek mending the knife seemed to take days. Too much filler, not enough action. Some of it was wonderful (the gay(?) angels), some seemingly thrown away (the disappearance of the being in the crystal coffin) and much more implausibility overall than the first two books. But the worst was the stiff upper lip British ending. I guess Pullman's aim was to write "Brief Encounter" for the kiddie set. I'm glad to put this one down.
Rating: 
Summary: Pullman is the Anti-Lewis...
Review: ...he really is. I'm sure C. S. Lewis would be grieved beyond belief to read these books. They are fairly well written (dispite some pretty obvious plot-holes). I really like how he uses the idea of "daemons." However, there is no way I would recommend this trilogy to any of my students - they're definately not childrens' books. Pullman seems to have a huge axe to grind against the Catholic church, and this might offend some people greatly. However, if sloppy theology doesn't bother you, you might like these books.
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Summary: I have never felt more deeply into a book
Review: then Phillip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass. It was not that I felt like I had some sort of relation to the characters, for I have almost nothing in common with Lyra or Will, the two main characters. It was Pullman's writing, pulling me deeper and deeper into the story, making me want to be there; feeling the sorrow, joy, love, and the many other wonderful feelings and emotions that have been packed into this amazing book. The Amber Spyglass is the sequel to The Golden Compass (my favorite book of last year) and The Subtle Knife, the other two books in Pullman's His Dark Materials series. The Amber Spyglass cannot be read or understood without reading the first two books. In the first book, The Golden Compass, Lyra Belaqua (later renamed Lyra Silvertongue) discovers that she is more than what she seems, for she can read the mysterious alethiometer, or truth meter. She turns knobs and hands to ask a question, and it replies to her by pointing to a number of various symbols that compile into an answer. In the second book, The Subtle Knife, she meets up with Will in a world called Citagazze, and he comes into the possession of the Subtle Knife, which is a blade so powerful on one side that it will cut through anything with one easy swipe- rock, stone, anything. The other side is so subtle that it cuts through the film between worlds: ours, Lyra's, and the thousands of other worlds parallel to each other. In The Amber Spyglass, Lyra and Will travel to the world of the dead so that Lyra can speak to her friend Roger, whose death she blames on herself. To go there, a part of themselves was torn out of their hearts. For Lyra, it was her daemon that she left on shore, who shares her thoughts, her desires and her personality. As for Will, he comes from our world, so his daemon is inside, but his trip to the land of the dead formed his daemon to a real animal, like Lyra's. When they got to the silent, endless plain where the terrified ghosts were huddled, Lyra realized that her destiny is to free all of these souls into a world, where they will float, as atoms, and be part of a real world again. Will opens a window into a world where Dr. Mary Malone, a scientist from our world has been living with a race called the mulefa, who look somewhat like antelope, but instead of a central spine, they have a diamond shaped structure. What is most odd about the mulefa is that they travel by using wheels. A strange pod grows on a species of tree that is vital to this world, and it is this that the mulefa use as their wheels. The trees are dying, and they must be saved. The entrance of the ghosts' atoms into this world balanced it out. The Amber Spyglass is definitely the best book I've ever read. This series is said to rival Harry Potter and I wholeheartedly agree. The Harry Potter books just don't have the same mysterious air to them, or the seriousness and depth of the plots of these books. There are so many stories involved within this book; Lyra and Will's, Mary Malone and the mulefa (before Will and Lyra met up with them), Lyra's parents, and quite a few others that I won't go into. I would have been quite pleased even if the only story here was that of Mary and the mulefa, or likewise Lyra and Will's story. But Pullman's way of blending them all into one perfectly mixed concoction of wonder and amazement makes reading this book a pure joy. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone, all ages, everywhere, for it truly is a marvelous masterpiece.
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Summary: HIS DARK MATERIALS
Review: I HAVE READ the two first books and i am waiting for the third`and i am sure that the spyglass is going to be one incredible and fantastic book.There are many expressions about the book and i think that the people that dont like these books are conservative and no openmind and they criticize badly because they abhor a story where two male angels fall in love and the true image of the catholic church uncovered(its a fact that pope emasculated the children because he wanted to keep a boyish voice and i am not saying that because i live in an orthodox country!)I also believe that HIS DARK MATERIALS books are better than TOLKIEN'S BOOKS and of course than Harry Poter and its too touching that in the end the love is going to keep everything together.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding (At least, I think so)
Review: I fit into the right catagory for this, and I thought that this was absolutely breathtaking. I'd like to see other people try to whisk up a whole book with all the ends that were left from the first two, and still manage to get the same amount of depth. Some people have critiscised it for thrusting too vigourously the author's views into the storyline. I think that's great. You have all the undercurrents to form ideas based on your own views from the other books, and Pullman's views served (for me) to allow me to deciede whether I agreed and could use what he said, or to disagree and wonder why and where I think he went wrong. I loved the character of Lyra in 'Northern Lights' (I read it as Northern Lights, and I'm sticking to it) but I thought she was a bit muted in the second book. But in the third she came back into her own, changed but recognizable. And I thought that a great touch was that the characters, instead of falling so neatly like other childrens books (Potter for instance) into black and white / bad or good, fell into different shades of gray material in the middle. As for people who hate this book for it's religious views: I was brought up Christian by my parents, and it didn't bother me. Children can't be crushed into believing because the parents do. They have to figure it out for themselves, and often turn out to be more capable than adults believe. Writing must be able to explore, and people have to realise that there are thousands of views out there, and in all probibility none of them are totally correct in all accounts. I think this offers a chance to talk over with your children your own personal beliefs and give them a chance to think about theirs'.
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