I thought that in some ways they were extrodinary, while heavily lacking in others. His style is captivating, but his books lack depth, aren't subtle, and are poorly ended. What are your thoughts on this subject?

I loved the series, my fav book was The Subtle Knife...

but you can&#39;t have a complete story without the other 2 books, Amber Spyglass and Golden Compass, they >were< all really very well written.

His Dark Materials is a great collection....I&#39;d especially like to have those shapeshifting things here ^_^ that&#39;d be so kewl&#33;


EDIT: were not we&#39;re

I thought it was a good plot - the endings are designed to leave people hanging for the next book, hence they have that uncompleted feel about it. I kind of thought Lyra got over Roger&#39;s death a bit quickly, but it does fit in okay with her character as she&#39;s the practical sort and she doesn&#39;t forget about him altogether.

If you want a book with a really bad ending, read "Cosette" by Francois Cesera - probably one of the most unfinished books I&#39;ve ever come across&#33; :P

One of the best series i have read,
not going to do spiolers, but one of the few series ive read where ive gone to the shops as soon as i finished the first and second book

Originally posted by PFT_Shadow@Sep 29 2004, 05:18 AM
one of the few series ive read where ive gone to the shops as soon as i finished the first and second book
Oh yeah, it&#39;s captivating until about a third of the way through the last book. During that poorly contrived "tragic" ending, I could do nothing but laugh. His logic did not work.
He always relies on the "dead dog" technique. "Look, I&#39;m maiming this dog. Cry. It&#39;s sad." There&#39;s never a reason to maim a dog. Ever. Likewise, there was no real reason to kill off any of those characters at the end of his books. Well, that is, unless you could only summon emotional distress by slaughtering characters you&#39;ve developed only to kill. *Ba-ZING&#33;*
He has only a few flaws. But those flaws are blinding.

I thought the Amber Spyglass was great up till the ending - it just seemed a bit like he had chucked in a romantic aspect at the last minute and it didn&#39;t really have any depth to it. I thought the Mary Malone/mulefa bits were really good and I was actually skipping through bits of the book to get to them ;)

The Amber Spyglass is pure distilled literary evil. It mixes dangling plot threads, incredibly out of character personality shifts, the most anticlimactic moment in history, incredibly pretentious and insulting pseudo-intellectualism, anti-religious demagouguery so painfully obvious that I (a dirty heathen myself) felt disgusted, characters acting as obvious author mouthpieces, and to cap it all off, small children and their soul/animals having sex.

The other two were quite nice.

ahhh glad to find some other people who enjoyed the series as much as me, Been about 4 or 5 years since I&#39;ve read this series, thinking back on it im gunna have to re read it.

hm, I like it, but not as much as I probably would, so I&#39;m going back and reading it again. Then again maybe it&#39;s just &#39;cause I&#39;ve read Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings so many times over...

I do like the subtle knife, but I&#39;ve only read the first two books. :heh:

See David Hayter&#39;s post concerning the last book. The other two are great.

"The Amber Spyglass is pure distilled literary evil. It mixes dangling plot threads, incredibly out of character personality shifts, the most anticlimactic moment in history, incredibly pretentious and insulting pseudo-intellectualism, anti-religious demagouguery so painfully obvious that I (a dirty heathen myself) felt disgusted, characters acting as obvious author mouthpieces, and to cap it all off, small children and their soul/animals having sex.

The other two were quite nice."

o.o;;; that last sentence drives me away instantly. That&#39;s a shame -- Lyra was my favorite character and I did so like Pantalaimon (sorry if I mispelt it --;;)

Sounds like a rushed-ending to me...*sighs and shakes head sadly*

Oh, no. He had the ending worked out for a long time. Author insertion will always ruin a story. always. He was just writing "A Child&#39;s Primer on Atheism" and sucked it up.

http://www.ifitsmovies.com/2007/05/21/the-golden-compass-trailer-hits-the-net/

trailer anyone?

movie looks ok. i hope they don't mess it up. reminds me of chronicles of narnia.

i though they omitted the daemons in the trailer a bit too much. there was one scene where one of the daemons turned into a cat and hissed at one of the armoured bears, but that was it. i really liked those daemons in the trilogy.

i thought the third book was enjoyable, albeit a horrible ending that should have been continued in a fourth book. they were a bit young for that romance though.

I can't wait for this movie. The acting looks very good, and it should be seeing how its like 6 years in the making.

I can't wait to see it!

Hope it doesn't fall away from the books completely.

...mixes dangling plot threads, incredibly out of character personality shifts, the most anticlimactic moment in history...

Unfinished plots? Like what? Anticlimactic moments? Like what? The world of the dead window? That wasn't the climax - the two-on-one battle with Metatron was.


...incredibly pretentious and insulting pseudo-intellectualism, anti-religious demagouguery so painfully obvious that I (a dirty heathen myself) felt disgusted...

It's a book. A fantasy book, at that. Who cares if it's completely false? It's creative. I'm a devoted Christian, but I can still appreciate that this guy has an imagination.


...and to cap it all off, small children and their soul/animals having sex.

Who said they ever have sex? It makes several references throughout the series that they don't even know what sex is yet. The term 'lovers' isn't always describing a sexual relationship.


I thought the Amber Spyglass was great up till the ending - it just seemed a bit like he had chucked in a romantic aspect at the last minute and it didn't really have any depth to it. I thought the Mary Malone/mulefa bits were really good and I was actually skipping through bits of the book to get to them ;)

True, the whole love bit was a little ridiculous, and that's probably what ruined the rest of the ending - the circumstances of their seperation was actually well orchestrated.




o.o;;; that last sentence drives me away instantly. That's a shame -- Lyra was my favorite character and I did so like Pantalaimon (sorry if I mispelt it --;;)


Woot. ^_^

The first book of the series I read was The Subtle Knife and I thought it was really good. The whole concept of the knife was pretty amazing to me back then. The Amber Spyglass....is really hard to remember this early in the morning.^^' But I'm sure I didn't think it was too bad. As for The Golden Compass, I don't remember much of the ending at the moment either, (it's been a few years since I last had my hands on the book), but I remember the rest well. The way he wrote the series seemed pretty cool a majority of the time. I am looking forward to the movie though. Crossing my fingers for a good one.