I read Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy back-to-back-to-back. By the time I'd reached the middle of the first book, The Golden Compass, I was content to exist half in my own world and half in Philip Pullman's. It seemed appropriate, if somewhat perplexing to casual acquaintances. Extending my arm in front of my body, holding an imaginary sharp instrument in my hand, I would show whomever would tolerate me how Will used the subtle knife to cut into other worlds.

"Will says it feels like stitches he's cutting," I explained again and again. "He says he can tell from the feel of each stitch against the blade which world he's about to enter."

Even as I started The Amber Spyglass, I knew I was living on borrowed time. Each sitting with the manuscript pushed my bookmark closer to its final pages and I began to recognize the bittersweet sadness of a wonder passing. Volume Three is the most ambitious installment of the series, shifting from one world to another as storylines converge. Oxford and Cittagazze, the world of the dead...soon enough, these worlds would close to me – it felt that way, as if they were slipping away. I hoarded the last chapters of Pullman's magical creation like a sleeper stirring, grasping at the hems of a dream. I hadn't been so gloriously consumed by children's fantasy since the Saturday morning cartoons of my youth. Dave, Powells.com

The Amber Spyglass brings the intrigue of The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife to a heart-stopping end, marking the final volume of His Dark Materials as the most powerful of the trilogy.

Along with the return of Lyra, Will, Mrs. Coulter, Lord Asriel, Dr. Mary Malone, and Iorek Byrnison the armored bear, come a host of new characters: the Mulefa, mysterious wheeled creatures with the power to see Dust; Gallivespian Lord Roke, a hand-high spymaster to Lord Asriel; and Metatron, a fierce and mighty angel. So, too, come startling revelations: the painful price Lyra must pay to walk through the land of the dead, the haunting power of Dr. Malone's amber spyglass, and the names of who will live--and who will die--for love. And all the while, war rages with the Kingdom of Heaven, a brutal battle that--in its shocking outcome--will uncover the secret of Dust. Philip Pullman deftly brings the cliff-hangers and mysteries of His Dark Materials to an earthshattering conclusion--and confirms his fantasy trilogy as an undoubted and enduring classic.

"The book rollicks and careers with the narrative gale force we've come to expect.  Philip Pullman achieves effects that rival the best accomplishments of the earlier books.  In any given chapter Pullman offers more sensuous description and narrative brio than are found in most entire novels." --Starred review in The Horn Book

The final volume of Pullman's critically acclaimed fantasy trilogy brings the heart stopping intrigue of "The Golden Compass" and "The Subtle Knife" to a harrowing conclusion. Pullman deftly weaves the cliffhangers and mysteries of the first two books and provides some startling revelations: the painful price Lyra must pay to walk through the land of the dead; the haunting power of Dr. Malone's amber spyglass; and the names of who will live--and who will die--for love.

In this third and final volume to his series, Pullman brings new characters to join those from the previous books in this conclusion to the cliff-hangers and mysteries of His Dark Materials, as the haunting power of Dr. Malone's amber spyglass is revealed.