The Golden Compass Deluxe Edition (His Dark Materials) Rough Cut

The first book in a trilogy. About to be released as the film "The Golden Compass" on Boxing Day this year (2007). Fantasy story about an 11 year old girl, Lyra who is fated to make a big difference in not only this world, but all the other connected worlds in the universe. She inherits a magical "altheiometer" which lets her ask questions of present and future events, and gives her the answers....more

The first book in a trilogy. About to be released as the film "The Golden Compass" on Boxing Day this year (2007). Fantasy story about an 11 year old girl, Lyra who is fated to make a big difference in not only this world, but all the other connected worlds in the universe. She inherits a magical "altheiometer" which lets her ask questions of present and future events, and gives her the answers. On a mission to rescue her friend, Roger and her father, she befriends a group of Gyptians and an armoured bear who accompany and assist her along the way. The most interesting thing about this story is that all humans have their own pet animal "daemon" which are a part of you, though not physically atached. Somewhat of a best friend for life. A story of good triumphing over evil, an interesting and different read. I enjoyed it and will be interested to see how the book is adapted to the screen.   hide

I don't intend to say I was disappointed but I was very much less impressed then I was hoping to be. I suppose that's the terrible price to pay for expectations.Daemons are fascinating and a wonderful idea and makes me feel a kid again, wanting a daemon for my own.But otherwise, much of the book left my head tilting sideways. The cast feels a mite bloated, the concept of Dust seemed too...more

I don't intend to say I was disappointed but I was very much less impressed then I was hoping to be. I suppose that's the terrible price to pay for expectations.Daemons are fascinating and a wonderful idea and makes me feel a kid again, wanting a daemon for my own.But otherwise, much of the book left my head tilting sideways. The cast feels a mite bloated, the concept of Dust seemed too ambiguous and revelations don't come as revelations but more of "WHAT?" exclaimations. I suppose... there was too much traveling? Touring the alternate daemon-filled universe seemed to take precedence over the human element. You have a lot of action happening but not so much of getting closer to the characters. Not that I want to say I'd prefer things to be reduced to a soap opera but the construction feels too emotionally distant. I don't really feel as if I like or dislike Lyra and the rest of the epic-sized cast. Perhaps the tale is something focused on events, not people? Is that putting it too badly?   hide

i picked this up years ago but never got around to reading it. finally did after i finished reading HP 7 and needed something to ease the break-up pain of no more HP ever. and while i still love the harry potter series, pullman's 'golden compass' already blows it out of the water. the daemon scheme is incredible, and the religious/scientific conflict in the book is (in my opinion) subtle...more

i picked this up years ago but never got around to reading it. finally did after i finished reading HP 7 and needed something to ease the break-up pain of no more HP ever. and while i still love the harry potter series, pullman's 'golden compass' already blows it out of the water. the daemon scheme is incredible, and the religious/scientific conflict in the book is (in my opinion) subtle enough for academic investigation. it's not a dense or difficult book to understand by any means -- the action is so swift and well-crafted i read it through like a movie and will definitely need to go back and re-read for extra details. this appears to be the next big series, particularly with the movie (starring nicole kidman as, i assume, mrs. coulter) coming out this winter. i was reading this in a pub in downtown chicago, and two of the waitstaff stopped their busy day to come over and tell me what an amazing series this was and how much i was going to LOVE it.   hide

"Gripping!" What a great, classic, unoriginal blurb. But it is so true. As many of you will understand, I read this book trying to fill my void of Harry Potter that will be no more. Well, not to my surprise that void is still gaping. But alas! a new, and hungry, insatiable interest was born! Pullman's "The Golden Compass" is a fairy tale written for children, but has a whole level hidden...more

"Gripping!" What a great, classic, unoriginal blurb. But it is so true. As many of you will understand, I read this book trying to fill my void of Harry Potter that will be no more. Well, not to my surprise that void is still gaping. But alas! a new, and hungry, insatiable interest was born! Pullman's "The Golden Compass" is a fairy tale written for children, but has a whole level hidden for adults (comparable to Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia"). The initial force behind my picking up of this book was to know the story before the movie version opened in theaters this December. I am still in shock of how caught up I became in this whole magical world (comparable to the Harry Potter series....which is saying a lot!). With great patience I will not allow myself to plow through the rest of the series. I will distance them so I can savor them as I did the Harry Potter books. Even though, unlike Rowling, I have them all published and reading for reading on my shelf (something my future children will no appreciate when I force them to read Harry Potter the third day of kindergarden). Really, go read it; no regrets except "Why didn't I read this sooner?"   hide

I saw the movie based on the book a few months ago and enjoyed it. Having now read the book, I realize all they left out and grieve for the type of movie it could've been. But I guess New Line was afraid a children's fantasy film about taking down the church and killing god would more than raise a few eyebrows from America's well-organized Christian community. Pity. I really...more

I saw the movie based on the book a few months ago and enjoyed it. Having now read the book, I realize all they left out and grieve for the type of movie it could've been. But I guess New Line was afraid a children's fantasy film about taking down the church and killing god would more than raise a few eyebrows from America's well-organized Christian community. Pity. I really connected with Lyra, the precocious 12-year-old orphan and main character. Ten or so years ago, she would've been my favorite character Of All Time – a child who rarely listens to her elders, prefers dirty clothes to dressing up, and spends most of her time playing with a gang of similar ruffians? My hero! And Pullman's word choice shines throughout. He takes words we relate to evil and redefines them. A deamon is no longer a creature of the devil – it's a human's soul, which takes physical form in the shape of animals. Zombies aren't undead creatures of the night; they're humans who've been separated – the invisible connection between a man and his soul cut – from their daemons. They're technically alive but are indifferent to everything around them and incapable of thinking for themselves. In Lyra's world, which is similar to ours, deamons are dear creatures, and men without them are considered grotesque, pitiable, and less-than human. During adolescence, these deamons change shape – from birds to cats, cats to fish, etc. – coming to a fixed form only after their human has, in essence, grown up. One of my favorite groups from the book were the Gyptians, who are like our gypsies. They played a much smaller part in the movie, but their people and rituals made for some of the best characters, and helped explain a little bit about Lyra's past. The Magesterium (church) has discovered elementary particles, called dust, which they believe to be the physical manifestation of original sin. This dust is only attracted to adults – because children haven't matured, they're free of dust, free of sin. So to preserve this innocence, the church begins operating on children – by separating them from their daemons (making them into zombies), the children will remain dust-free. Dust seems to represent knowledge, wisdom, consciousness itself - things that come with maturity. You become more aware of yourself, the world, and your place in it with knowledge, and knowledge comes with age. I won't give away the "ah-ha!" moments in the book, but I will say I felt very comfortable with the message from this first book. The Magesterium cuts humans from their deamons by elimating dust, the same way churches can separate men from their souls. Some people need the church, need the structure, the guidance – they need to be zombies. But there are some who are more whole, more knowledgeable, more aware without its interference. I definitely thrive with the connections to both my daemon and dust intact.   hide

Maybe I expected too much, but my first read through, I wasn't that impressed by this book, despite the raves from many friends and critics. While it definitely invents a new fantasy world, the world didn't really "come alive" for me. It seemed narrowly constructed around the main characters, and I had trouble imagining the "extras" having independent lives outside...more

Maybe I expected too much, but my first read through, I wasn't that impressed by this book, despite the raves from many friends and critics. While it definitely invents a new fantasy world, the world didn't really "come alive" for me. It seemed narrowly constructed around the main characters, and I had trouble imagining the "extras" having independent lives outside of the pages we were reading; they seemed to be missing a certain depth or inner life that would make them full supporting characters. I don't know if they are missing something, or if my internal comparisons to G.R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan, and Tolkien are unfair. (To be sure, Pullman DOES however avoid many of the pitfalls of the three, especially Jordan's lush but repetitive descriptions and execrable padding.) The nations didn't seem as real as Jordan's exhaustively detailed cultures do (much less the near-anthropological depth and inventiveness of Orson Scott Card's fictional civilizations). And I just found the protagonist largely uninteresting -- she was acted upon by much of the plot, and her "destined to be great"-ness didn't draw me past her general immature-little-girlness, a certain preciousness I found much less entertaining than, say, that of Harriet the Spy when I read those classics as a youth. Am I lacking imagination or appreciation, or is this "new classic" lacking something overlooked by others?   hide

I'm not sure I'm going to finish this one. I've read at least half and skimmed the rest. It's seriously too disturbing to me! I'm pretty shocked that it's marketed as children's literature, even though I've talked to at least one sane person who read it to their kids. If I read it at age 8 or 9, I would have had nightmares for awhile. It bears very little resemblance to Harry Potter that I...more

I'm not sure I'm going to finish this one. I've read at least half and skimmed the rest. It's seriously too disturbing to me! I'm pretty shocked that it's marketed as children's literature, even though I've talked to at least one sane person who read it to their kids. If I read it at age 8 or 9, I would have had nightmares for awhile. It bears very little resemblance to Harry Potter that I can see. Basically, this book depicts child torture, child abuse, and human rights violations on a large scale. The fact that these are semi-fantastical evidently is supposed to make the book okay for kids. I imagine that as a child I would have either understood the metaphors pretty quickly, or at least understood something was going on and been squicked. Most negative reviews that I can find online are concerned with the book's attitude toward religion. I have some sympathy for the author's position (some). However, as a depiction of the distorting effects of Christianity on the psyche the book was if anything too powerful for me. I think Nietzsche quotes "if your eye offend you, pluck it out" as evidence of Christianity's sadism. No spoilers, but imagine this metaphor and reading of it developed by a fantasy author. Speaking of Nietzsche . . . some reviewers on amazon suggest that the author replaces religion with an obsession with human power, and I did get some of that from the book as well. There's a willingness to revel in violence that upset me. As a symbolic murder of C.S. Lewis as children's author, it was pretty effective. My family owns quite a bit of Lewis' theological writing and I've never liked him. But I would not want to be forced to choose between Lewis and Pullman. p.s. finally finished it   hide

i think upon reading some of the other reviews, i might reserve most of my judgement for when i've finished the series. however, i would like to say that, as a stand alone story, i think it works as well as a good number of other books i've read. sure, it doesn't COMPLETELY close the main story line, but doing so would kind of ruin the whole point of a trilogy. but it does have a fairly...more

i think upon reading some of the other reviews, i might reserve most of my judgement for when i've finished the series. however, i would like to say that, as a stand alone story, i think it works as well as a good number of other books i've read. sure, it doesn't COMPLETELY close the main story line, but doing so would kind of ruin the whole point of a trilogy. but it does have a fairly satisfactory ending (the movie actually picked a better place to end; you know the story is still going strong, but it's a lot more uplifting and a lot less confusing and frustrating). mostly though, i just loved the whole world pullman has created here (in fact, i'm just a bit leery of venturing into the next world in the second book; i like this one so much, with it's daemons and armoured bears and witches). it is a great allegory for the spiritual violence perpetrated by religious fanatics on everyone else, but i still think it's quite a stretch to be morally offended by it. lyra is a great character; just flawed enough to be really quite lovable (she's quite the liar and trouble maker and all around insolent pre-teen until her adventuring starts, which is a nice change from the female leads in all those madeline l'engle books i was obsessed with when i was her age), and her initial flaws make her growth all that more apparent. pullman seems a little detached from a lot of his characters at times (i don't really care about the witch or asriel yet, and he just sort of threw away all the gyptians and roger at the end there), but he never seems to lose lyra. one more thing; i know this is technically a children's book, but it doesn't seem any less involved or complete or engrossing than anything technically considered an "adult" book. so don't be deterred by the shelving. i think i'm going to have hold off on an opinion on this book until after i've read the rest of the series, since this book was very obviously written as the first of a trilogy (meaning; while the ending is good, it's not exactly satisfying. you're left hanging quite a bit, and while it is a bit of an underhanded tactic to force me to read the next book, it also totally worked).   hide

His Dark Materials is probably one of the best trilogies ever written: Pullman is a real genious that has created an amazingly intricate fantasy world that’s seems so real in that we really feel for the characters. This first novel takes place in society that seems very similar to 19th century Victorian era. So in some ways it is behind our time now, technologically speaking, but in other...more

His Dark Materials is probably one of the best trilogies ever written: Pullman is a real genious that has created an amazingly intricate fantasy world that’s seems so real in that we really feel for the characters. This first novel takes place in society that seems very similar to 19th century Victorian era. So in some ways it is behind our time now, technologically speaking, but in other aspects it is far ahead from ours which makes it very intriguing. Something that I personally love is Pullman’s creation of daemons – the manifestation of the human soul in as an animal that is part of oneself and also ones best friend at the same time. During childhood, these daemons can change shape, so sometimes they may be a bird or a dog or really anything they want to be. Then when the person reaches adulthood, they take on a fixed form that reflects the person’s personality. Northern Lights is esentially the quest of Lyra and her daemon as they journey to save their best friend Roger and all of the other kidnapped children with the aid of an armoured bear, an aeronaut, a witch and the kind of all the gyptians. Yes, it is an awkward group, but it nonetheless creates a wonderful atmosphere for storytelling.   hide