The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3)

Rating:
Summary: the amber spyglass
Review: The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman

Synopsis- "Its all up to Will and Lyra now, the fate of the world is in their hands" This is a powerful book is the third in a trilogy known as the "His Dark Materials" trilogy and is based on two children from different realities, Will Parry and Lyra Silvertongue who both have extraordinary gifts. Lyra has an althiometer which she uses to find information out from and its always correct. Will on the other hand has a knife, which is able to cut through anything even worlds enabling him to travel to alternate realities. These two children have a mission to destroy the Authority who is also known as God, by simply surviving and then they must build the republic of heaven. To understand and to be able to read this book you must be open minded about religion because it calls God a Angel who is claiming to be God but he isn't but the authority, it has been prophesised by the witches, will be destroyed by eve or to you and me Lyra! The Author has captured all the splendour of every thing used from people dying in the heat of battle, the consumption of peoples souls by mist-like beings known as spectres and even the talking armoured bears. The tale unfolds into a tragedy of death, love and broken hearts, one to read!

Rating:
Summary: Like his reviews say, this book is destined to be a classic
Review: As with the rest of the series, this book will live on forever. Pullman writes in such a way that in every scene hope seems so lost, but it is found again. But unlike other books where the solution simply stares them in the face, this story is much more complicated, with some strange twists in between it. The whole story is everything you can expect from Pullman, and never have a read such a good book that has been left, cemented in my brain forever. The finish left me with very mixed emotions, and I was in a daze, remembering every detail of the book. I was sad that I had finished such a work of art. The end was so sad for me, it almost felt like it was reality.

Just from a very sensitive reader's point of view.

Rating:
Summary: I HAVE READ A LOT, AND THIS IS THE BEST EVER
Review: The Amber Spyglass was by far the best book I've read in my lifetime. I have read MANY books and none come even close. I seriously doubt I'll ever find a book that is better. Will and Lyra have become better than my best friends and the most believable characters I've ever "met". Two warnings for this book: 1) It is sacreligious 2)It has a VERY deep plot 3)You will cry. Let's just say Mr. Pullman is a genius, 100%. There is absolutely no flaws in this one. It had everything I could ever want in a book. The ending will not be recieved well, I am sure - but it was unevitable. It would have been a sappy ending if everything ended up OK. The reason of this ending was a little odd, I admit, but I would think 0 of the book if it hadn't happened. And if by some freaky chance Mr. Pullman should ever read this: DO NOT WRITE A SEQUEL! Leave it EXACTLY the way it is - you can't go any higher up from here!

Rating:
Summary: I beg to differ
Review: While this series started out with an intriguing theory about the nature of matter and awareness (I honestly loved The Golden Compass), unfortunately the author's underlying hostility to religion in general and the Church in particular intrude, and this results in a story that does not achieve the quality of "trueness" for which it purports to strive. Parents and other people in authority are nearly universally portrayed as venal, obsessive, selfish or self-centered, manipulative and unworthy of trust. There are what can only be deliberate errors of fact in portraying Christian doctrine, and one of the heroines is a former nun who decides there must be no God because she can't have sex. The author is clearly talented and it saddened me to find his message so viciously hostile to many people's genuine experience of truth. If you are a person who has experienced the truth of God you will likely be offended by the book; if you have adolescent children, at the very least you may want to discuss the books carefully with your kids if they read these books. I will say I was sorely disappointed to reach the end and find the book was in no way "true." I have read a lot of books by non-Christians, including atheists, that at least reflected truths of existence, quite profound ones, and I have found them rewarding to read and thought-provoking even when I didn't agree with their conclusions. This author seems determined to deliberately lie to the reader, and the thought that impressionable and instinctively rebellious adolescents might be influenced by this without a chance to "debrief" worries me--and I don't believe in censorship!

Rating:
Summary: He pulled it off . . .
Review: It seemed like it would be impossible to pull off this book, because in the first two he masterfully wove plots that needed finishing. Well, he finished it all right! The long wait was worth it. The third book is much more deep and probes into many mysteries. It is as beautifully descriptive and thought-provoking as the others. The ending is truely unexpected. I won't give it away, but it makes you want to read the whole series again just so that you can spend more time with the characters in their adventures on different worlds.

Rating:
Summary: Buy this book. Read It.
Review: The Amber Spyglass is an exiting finish to the His Dark Materials Series. The story is about two children, a universal war, three mystical artifacts, and a mysterious substance called "Dust". The plot unfolds amazingly, the characters are brilliantly shown, and the world is extremely complex. I suggest anyone older that 10 that has read the others in this series to read this book. The bottom line is: Buy this book. Read it.

Rating:
Summary: How could it be any less than 5 stars?
Review: Brilliant. Just brilliant. I have read many books in my 15 years but none have affected me in quite the same way. That's not to say I was comfortable with everything in it. The implied homosexual love between the angels Balthamos and Baruch (I know, I know, it could be brotherly love or deep friendship, but somehow I don't think so), Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter's sudden switch (Asriel's explanation "I lied" didn't quite cut the mustard), and possibly most of all what actually happened between Will and Lyra in the grove - somehow I don't think it was just fruit eating and kissing, that's hardly temptation. I have longed for Will and Lyra to fall in love since they met (contrary to what some have said there were many hints, pay attention!) but the idea of two 12 year olds actually consumating their love makes me squirm a little. However, the relationship and chemistry between them was perfect and I think I may actually have been disappointed if they'd done anything less.

One of my favourite themes in the book was the lack of labels on people. It wasn't all cut and dried - some witches were good, some were bad, some angels were good and some were less than angelic, daemons (pronounced demons) would usually bring to mind evil but these are essential to life. Usual conformities were turned on their heads.

There were many issues left unresolved, but that has just had the effect of not letting me stop thinking about it which I guess was Pullman's intention. I found the end heart wrenching. When I came around from finishing it (after a 5 hour marathon) I found tears streming down my face. I hated the ending and yet I loved it because I can't think of a better, more real ending. What made me most devastated was the image of Will and Lyra sitting on that bench for an hour a year, so, so close, and yet so, so far apart, unable to see or touch or talk to one another. I have re-read the ending several times to try to find a hint that they will find a way back to one another. My best hope is the look of "calm hope" on the face of the angel Xaphania, who can see further into the future than the others, when she sees the anguish of Will and Lyra. Also, a thought occured to me a while ago. They talk of the atoms of the ghosts of dead people finding their daemons and Will and Lyra finding each other after death, which would imply that the atoms retain a little conciousness which would make them Dust. That would mean that the window would generate enough Dust on its own to keep it viable in terms of losing Dust, which in turn would mean that there COULD infact be a window between Will and Lyra's worlds! TA DA! The only thing is, Will destroys the knife, so how would the opening be made? Oh well...

I have so many questions about this book and its predecessors that I would dearly love to ask Philip Pullman. Although I have critised the book quite a lot in this review, that doesn't stop it from being the best book I have ever read. Its message about how to live life and always care for others will hopefully stay with me for a long long time. If I could take ONE book to a desert island with me, it would be this one. It is simply magical. It really drew me in, and I still haven't quite gotten over it, I still find myself day dreaming about it trying to find a way for Will and Lyra to have a happy future together. I'm still working on that one.

Rating:
Summary: Good But Sad
Review: The third installment in Pullman's most recent trilogy does not dissappoint. I read it like a starved animal, loving every minute of it. Until I came to the end. Let me point this out right here and now: if you are very sentimental, or easily distressed by sad endings - Do Not Read This Book. I am fairly sentimental and this book almost had me crying at the end, and I still get depressed whenever I think about it. I'm not saying that it was a bad book - I enjoyed it immensely. But I don't think I'm gona be able to read it again. It's just too sad. I'd also like to point out that this book is not that areligious. Sure, its about a man trying to kill God, but it's an EVIL God. I am a christain and was able to enjoy it. So to sum up, this is an excellent book, definetely worth reading. Just be prepared for a very sad ending.

Rating:
Summary: ¿Our final rest and native home¿ -- magnificent!
Review: As I already have stated in my Amazon.com reviews of "The Golden Compass" and "The Subtle Knife," Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy is a fantastic, amazing, mind-boggling, exciting, moving, heartbreaking, brilliantly written classic at the level of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" (and believe me, I NEVER thought I'd be saying that!). Also, it is important to reiterate that this is NOT a "children's book" in the sense that it is strictly for - or about - children (although certainly, it can be read by intelligent young people!), and it is absolutely not "fantasy" in the usual sense of the word (Phillip Pullman has stated that he can't read "fantasy" books, because they don't "tell [him] anything interesting about being a human being"). Instead, this trilogy is Phillip Pullman's dark take on Biblical Creation and an extended riff on many of the themes raised in John Milton's "Paradise Lost." The bottom line: if Phillip Pullman is mainly "fantasy" for children, than so are John Milton and the Bible! I don't think so....

Anyway, the third book in Pullman's trilogy, "The Amber Spyglass," is the culmination of Pullman's exploration of themes like courage, love, free will, sin, God, the Church, and, of course, swirling around all of this, the ever-mysterious dark matter, or "dust." Most of the other characters we have become acquainted with in Books 1 and 2 are back (plus some new ones too, especially the Mulefa and the Gallivespians). And just as the "The Golden Compass," can be thought of as being about Lyra (and her beloved daemon, Pantalaimon), and "The Subtle Knife" mainly about Will Parry, "The Amber Spyglass" brings everything (and everyone - especially Adam and Eve, er, Will and Lyra, that is!) together for a heart-stopping, gut-wrenching, tear-jerking finale. Here, we see Will using his "subtle knife" (AKA "Aesahaettr" - the God destroyer) to cut windows through into different universes, and even to the world of the dead. We also learn a LOT more about Dr. Mary Malone, who turns out to be a critically important character. Finally, we discover lots more about dust, the "Authority," angels, Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel, Iorek Byrnison, and much more.

This is a highly complex story, but I think that Pullman manages to hold it all together brilliantly. His characters grow and change in fascinating ways, and undertake incredible, even heartbreaking, acts of courage and self-sacrifice. If you are not brought to tears at various points in "The Amber Sypglass," especially the scene where Lyra and Will board the boat to the world of the dead and leave their daemons behind, and when they realize they love each other but cannot be together, then you should sign up for membership in your local Oblation Board, because you have a heart of stone!!!

To summarize three points I made in my reviews of "The Golden Compass" and "The Subtle Knife": 1) this is far darker and more disturbing material (especially if you have a closed mind towards explorations of God, religion, the Church and the nature of man - all the interesting and important things, in other words) than the perfectly serviceable "Harry Potter" books, to which the Pullman trilogy inevitably is going to be compared (this trilogy is far, far greater than Potter!!); 2) Pullman is a master of language, and his use of names (among other things) is fascinating.. "Lyra," for instance, is a constellation in the NORTHERN Hemiphere, plus of course "Lyra" sounds awfully much like "liar," which is Lyra Belacqua's main skill (besides reading the alethiometer), and one in which she takes great pride (that is, until the brutal encounter with the Harpy at the gates of the city of the dead!) Coincidence? Hmmmm...I don't think so!; and 3) Pullman has borrowed freely from this all-time classic poem by John Milton, "Paradise Lost," in creating his own take on Genesis, God, Satan, free will, the temptation in the Garden of Eden, and the "Fall" of man into "Sin" (among other things). In interviews, Phillip Pullman has confirmed that the biblical Creation story, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and "Paradise Lost" are major sources for "His Dark Materials" trilogy, and that the title itself comes from the following quote: "Unless the almighty maker them ordain / His dark materials to create more worlds." But don't forget that there is real science behind "dark matter" - scientists right now are investigating this as a possible force which could help hold the universe together!

Anyway, I strongly recommend that you read Phillip Pullman's magnificent book, "The Amber Spyglass" (and the other two books in the trilogy) whether you want a great story that you won't be able to put down, or whether you want to be challenged, amazed, intrigued, and deeply moved. And OF COURSE you should read it if you're curious to know more about the ever-enigmatic, but ultimately all-important "dust," our final rest and native home....

Rating:
Summary: The Amber Spyglass
Review: Avid readers have been waiting year after year for the third and final book in Philip PullmanÕs trilogy ÒHis Dark Materials.Ó ItÕs finally out in bookstores - and itÕs no disappointment. Lyra Silvertounge and Will Parry, two young children whose remarkable adventures began in The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife, meet again in the Amber Spyglass. Will carries the Subtle Knife, a mysterious object which can cut into different worlds, while Lyra possesses the Golden Compass, or alethiometer, which can tell the future, past, and present. With the help of the armored bear Iorek Byrnison, two tiny Gallevespian spies and many others, Lyra and Will venture into a world that no living people have been in before and come out alive - the world of the dead. Meanwhile, Dr. Mary Malone is building an Amber Spyglass in the land of mulefa, which allows her to see Dust, a substance that gives the world itÕs life. For some unexplained reason, Dust is draining from the world, and plants and trees are dying. And while all this is happening, assassins are hunting Mary and the children down. The Amber Spyglass is a book that many will find hard to put down. Philip Pullman takes the reader on a journey through the universe, introducing many strange and unusual characters: witches, mulefa, armored bears, tiny people, d¾mons, and angels. Although these are characters that no human being would expect to see here on earth, Philip Pullman made them entirely believable. Even so, I thought The Amber Spyglass was a bit hard to Òget into,Ó or become interested in. However, around chapter four, I became addicted to this book. Overall, I would give this book nine and one half points out of ten. For anyone who needs a good book, The Amber Spyglass is the one to get!