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The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials #01)
by Philip Pullman
Only 3 left in stock at $4.95!
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Lyra Belaqua is content to run wild among the scholars of Jordan College, with her daemon familiar Pantalaimon always by her side. But the arrival of her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, draws her to the heart of a terrible struggle — a struggle born of Gobblers and stolen children, witch clans and armored bears. And as she hurtles toward danger in the cold, far North, young Lyra never suspects the shocking truth: She alone is destined to win, or to lose, this more-than-mortal battle.
Review:
"As always, Pullman is a master at combining impeccable characterizations and seamless plotting, maintaining a crackling pace to create scene upon scene of almost unbearable tension. This glittering gem will leave readers of all ages eagerly awaiting the next installment of Lyra's adventures." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review:
"Extraordinary storytelling at its very best." Detroit Free Press
Review:
"Superb...all-stops-out thrilling." The Washington Post
Review:
"Fantastic....A shattering tale that begins with a promise and delivers an entire universe." Kirkus Reviews
Review:
"Very grand indeed...scene after scene of power and beauty." The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis:
Young Lyra's uncle, Lord Asriel, returns from the far North with tales of terrible danger and of a child severed from its daemon familiar. Soon Lyra sets out to save kidnapped children and their familiars from hideous experiments. But an even greater mystery awaits.
Synopsis:
- Ideal for the fantasy/sci-fi market: new striking, commercial paperback look.- The trilogy has been showered with awards: Whitbread Award, Booker Prize nominee, Carnegie Medal, ALA Notable, Guardian Fiction Prize, Parents Choice Gold Award, Horn Book Fanfare, Booklist Editors' Choice, and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year- Over 2 million copies sold in the U.S.alone: Pullman's trilogy is truly a modern classic.
About the Author
Philip Pullman is a renowned author and storyteller both here and abroad. His books for young readers include the Sally Lockhart trilogy, Spring-Heeled Jack, I Was a Rat!, and Puss in Boots.
What Our Readers Are Saying
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Average customer rating based on 3 comments:
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icesk8r, March 10, 2008 (view all comments by icesk8r)
The Golden Compass is amazing it takes you on a journey that changes the way you look at things forever. If you read the first book you just have to read the 2nd and 3rd as well.
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K Bloom, December 24, 2007 (view all comments by K Bloom)
The Golden Compass is stunning - it's full of unique ideas and an incredible landscape. It hardly feels like magic, and science of a sort underlays most of the ideas in the book. But it's thrilling and full of rich, deep, funny characters who continually step out of the page and into three dimensionality. It makes Harry Potter seem positively workaday, but, on more reflection, Potter and Lyra (the star of this book) are two sides of a coin. They're both headstrong, but Harry has to fight his battle against ultimate evil inside a framework. Lyra's world is falling apart and so rules have been broken already - she has to use all means at her quite extensive disposal! I'd also recommend reading Tino Georgiou's bestselling novel--The Fates--if you haven't yet
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thomasn528, November 27, 2007 (view all comments by thomasn528)
Pullman's books have subject to some angry scrutiny by some Christian and other believers, and this is intended to provide an alternative point of view.
Pullman's "Dark Materials" series is, it's true, in part an attack on _organized_ religion -- on the worldly power it wields when it takes a bureaucratized, theocratized, Catholic Church-like form. True, Pullman goes further, arguing essentially that if such organized religions are truly representative of God... well, then there's a problem with God, too.
But much more importantly, the series is a discussion of the consequences of an obsessive focus on eternal life after death rather than on a productive life before it. And they are a discussion of what it means to grow up and understand that. Indeed, Pullman is more ally than antagonist to Christians (and other believers) in one very important way: he doesn't dispute the notion of a "soul" -- rather, he extends and elaborates on it with the daemons accompanying humans in the alternate universe he describes.
But for those who believe the books are necessarily an "attack on Christianity," there's arguably an even more important point about Pullman's books: there is no mention whatsoever of Jesus in any of his discussions of either the Church or its ethereal counterpart, the Authority. Indeed (or instead), the chief protagonists Lyra and Will play a Christ-like role when they make a great but utterly necessary sacrifice at the end of "Amber Spyglass" -- moreover, after essentially "harrowing" Hell, admittedly with a decidedly different goal in mind than Jesus had in the New Testament.
To me, Pullman's books are ultimately not so much an attack on religion as an alternative vision of spirituality: sentience and mature purpose are the great goods of the universe, to be cherished, husbanded, and multiplied. That, it seems to me, is not such an awful vision for a Christian -- even for a conservative Christian -- to contemplate.
Pullman himself has called his books an attempt to kill God, and God's death is indeed ultimately part of the story -- though a strangely lesser part than one might think. But if your faith in God is unshaken by evil in the real world, it ought to be unshaken by a fantasy trilogy as well. Meanwhile, readers of all faiths (or lacks thereof) would do themselves out of a singular feat of the imagination and a powerful challenge to their beliefs about "children's books" -- if nothing else -- if they don't give these books a fair chance.
(adapted from comments at
http://tinyurl.com/35ywbh)
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Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780440238133
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Laurel-Leaf Books
- Subject:
- Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Magic
- Subject:
- Children's 12-Up - Fiction - General
- Subject:
- Adventure
- Subject:
- Fantasy - Epic
- Subject:
- Magick Studies
- Subject:
- Special Interest - Adventure
- Subject:
- Children s All Ages - Fiction - Fantasy
- Subject:
- Action & Adventure - General
- Subject:
- Missing persons
- Subject:
- Fantasy
- Copyright:
- 2003
- Edition Number:
- Reprint ed.
- Edition Description:
- Paperback
- Series:
- His Dark Materials
- Series Volume:
- 01
- Publication Date:
- September 9, 2003
- Binding:
- Mass Market Paperbound
- Grade Level:
- - Up
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 351
- Dimensions:
- 7.09x4.33x1.02 in. .41 lbs.
- Age Level:
- 12-UP
