Philip Pullman

doctor evil · 02-07-2005 9:27pm #1

I`ve read the trilogy can`t remember the name

, the one with the girl and the boy who had the nife that could slice into different realities, I quite liked it. Are his other books good?.

grimloch · 02-07-2005 9:29pm

I read one or two and I can't actually remember the names off the top of my head but I recall it was good.

EDIT: It was the Sally Lockhart trilogy, which now that it's been brought to my attention, I never actually finished.

Tar.Aldarion · 02-07-2005 11:21pm

no it was called His Dark Materials.he is an excellent author aye.

OfflerCrocGod · 02-07-2005 11:34pm

Hai! I really liked the Dark Materials trilogy. The ending is very good and it was very weird overall.

scorpy · 02-07-2005 11:43pm

I loved his dark materials, but the other series that nobody seems to know about(one of them was called 'the ruby in the smoke') was, if I recall correctly, pretty good. I read it a couple years ago and I quite liked it. not a patch on his dark materials though ^_^

Tar.Aldarion · 02-07-2005 11:58pm

ah yes i remember reading it for the first time as a wee lad,will lyra be ok!!!!? :P
twas great.

grimloch · 03-07-2005 12:02am

scorpy wrote:

I loved his dark materials, but the other series that nobody seems to know about(one of them was called 'the ruby in the smoke') was, if I recall correctly, pretty good. I read it a couple years ago and I quite liked it. not a patch on his dark materials though ^_^

'The Ruby in the Smoke' was part of the Sally Lockhart trilogy, the other two were 'Shadow in the North' and 'The Tiger in the Well'

angeldelight · 03-07-2005 12:29am

I've read both trilogies and I loved them both. However his dark materials is better by a mile, as would be expected given the prizes it has won etc.

Tar.Aldarion · 03-07-2005 12:40am

ya always slap bang second behind lotr in best books ever isnt it.

dudara · 03-07-2005 2:17pm

"The Dark Materials" trilogy is soo good. I bought the first book as a Christmas present for my teenaged sister years ago, and I was hooked myself. As well as being a great fantasy story, he really manages to capture the whole teenager-growing up thing as well. Truly great.

There's another trilogy that my sister recommended as well by a different author, Garth Nix. The books are "Abhorsen", "Lirael" and "Sabriel". Maybe a little more for children, but still a good read.

angeldelight · 03-07-2005 2:23pm

dudara wrote:

There's another trilogy that my sister recommended as well by a different author, Garth Nix. The books are "Abhorsen", "Lirael" and "Sabriel". Maybe a little more for children, but still a good read.

They're good but the story isn't as good as dark materials. Also the writing isn't of the same quality. Still not a bad read though

Sapien · 03-07-2005 10:17pm

doctor evil wrote:

I`ve read the trilogy can`t remember the name , the one with the girl and the boy who had the nife that could slice into different realities, I quite liked it. Are his other books good?.

Quite excellent. I have heard disturbing rumours to the effect that the film, in pre-production with Newline, will have much of the anti-clerical theme exponged.

Also, consider moving this thread to or replicating it in the Christianity forum.

lacuna · 04-07-2005 1:32pm

Only a few days ago I found the trilogy while rumaging in a press in my house. I'm planning on re-reading it. It was brilliant. I read the Sally Lockhart Trilogy beforehand and loved that too.

I hope they don't make His Dark Materials into a film. It'd ruin it imo.

arrietty · 04-07-2005 1:51pm

They are making the trilogy into a film, AFAIK. If they're putting all three books into one film it's gonna be pretty tight.

I love His Dark Materials. There's a little book that came out a couple of years ago called Lyra's Oxford, a little red hardback book. It's got a short story and a lot of little pictures and a map of Lyra's version of Oxford. Philip Pullman's working on another book, called the Book of Dust, which as far as I remember isn't about Lyra and Will, but some of the other characters. I don't think there's any publication date for it yet.

monkeyfudge · 04-07-2005 1:58pm

I bought the first part of His Dark Materials to read for my nephew, Northern Lights I think it was. But it was a little bit too advanced for him at the time, but I ended up reading it myself. It was certainly very enjoyable. I'll have to try it out on my nephew again now that he is a little bit older.

It certainly does sound like the film will be terrible, all references to religion are being removed.

theCzar · 04-07-2005 3:20pm

His Dark Materials was really excellent, i took about half the first book to get into the weird world, but once i was in, it was so engrossing, such a fascinating story, blew my mind.

I'm surprised it isn't getting the same book-burning-in-the-bible-belt treatment as Harry Potter.

arrietty · 04-07-2005 3:36pm

theCzar wrote:

I'm surprised it isn't getting the same book-burning-in-the-bible-belt treatment as Harry Potter.

Oh, it is, don't worry! It is.

But the books just aren't as popular or as [STRIKE]hyped[/STRIKE] focused upon by the media as Harry Potter is. That's why they get less attention. But believe me, there are pretty appalling attacks made on HDM by certain sections of the Christian churches.

theCzar · 04-07-2005 4:15pm

arrietty wrote:

Oh, it is, don't worry! It is. But the books just aren't as popular or as [STRIKE]hyped[/STRIKE] focused upon by the media as Harry Potter is. That's why they get less attention. But believe me, there are pretty appalling attacks made on HDM by certain sections of the Christian churches.

Can't say I blame'em about HDM, if your a religious christian, HDM is pretty blasphemous.

Scarinae · 04-07-2005 4:36pm

But if you remove the religion references, doesn't that kind of destroy the whole point of the books?

Interestingly, I discovered that in America 'The Northern Lights' (the first book of the trilogy) is called 'The Golden Compass' instead. Why do you think that is? I mean, there isn't even a compass in the books - Lyra has her aleithiometer (sp?), but it is certainly not a compass

arrietty · 04-07-2005 5:12pm

Fishie wrote:

Interestingly, I discovered that in America 'The Northern Lights' (the first book of the trilogy) is called 'The Golden Compass' instead. Why do you think that is? I mean, there isn't even a compass in the books - Lyra has her aleithiometer (sp?), but it is certainly not a compass

I read in an interview with Philip Pullman on his website (can't remember the link but I'm sure it's easily googled) that the change was made by the same editor who changed Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone to Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. They're both pretty terrible changes.

Scarinae · 04-07-2005 5:17pm

arrietty wrote:

I read in an interview with Philip Pullman on his website (can't remember the link but I'm sure it's easily googled) that the change was made by the same editor who changed Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone to Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. They're both pretty terrible changes.

But I mean, what's the point? Do they think that American audiences can't cope with words that have more than three syllables?

tHE vAGGABOND · 06-07-2005 1:41pm

His dark materials was an amazing series of books. Never heard of it until the BBC big read thing, and it was in the top 10 out of nowhere.

*marie* · 08-07-2005 11:53am

I read the first two in HDM about 4 years ago, was absolutely blown away by the story, I really loved them but for some reason I never got round to reading the last one. Can someone tell what it's called and I'll try and track it down?

Tar.Aldarion · 08-07-2005 6:57pm

was the amber spyglass the last one? cant remember....read them in the one book...

*Angel* · 08-07-2005 7:31pm

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

was the amber spyglass the last one? cant remember....read them in the one book...

Yep, I loved that series.

Scarinae · 12-07-2005 9:38pm

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

was the amber spyglass the last one? cant remember....read them in the one book...

Yes, it's called the Amber Spyglass and it is longer than the other two books

Tar.Aldarion · 13-07-2005 2:22am

ah yes it's a great trilogy and when i got the three in one for the first time nobody saw me for ages

Sapien · 13-07-2005 1:39pm

Philip Pullman has been described as the "most dangerous author in Britain". Does anyone agree?

grimloch · 13-07-2005 6:24pm

Sapien wrote:

Philip Pullman has been described as the "most dangerous author in Britain". Does anyone agree?

Maybe from the religious aspect he could be viewed as dangerous. But I disagree.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 13-07-2005 6:32pm

excellent series, love it.
was helping out at a book sale and as a thank you I was told I could pick a few books from the leftovers, I found all three HDM books in perfect condition.. looked like they were just off the bookshop shelves. Took them home and read them in 2 days, stayed up on the first night to read the second book because I just couldn't bring myself to wait until after I'd wasted 8-10 hours sleeping.

ending was ... powerfull stuff.

sephirosis · 13-07-2005 11:16pm

excellent, EXCELLENT books. perhaps its a testament to their quality that not one person yet has slated the books, as usually happens when a book is lauded on this forum á la harry potter (actually very good) or da vinci code (actually awful).
anyway does anyone else think its a bit unfair that they are marketed as childrens books?? i think many adults would miss out on them because of this, but it has philosophical themes which are at an adult level.
ive heard of this fourth book "the book of dust" too, i hope its good. it will be an interesting read if nothing else.
just in case anyone cares my fave charater is mary (i hope thats her name i havent read the books in years!)

Philip Pullman

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