Nothern Lights – by Philip Pullman
Part of the ‘Dark Materials Trilogy’
Northern Lights – Dark Materials Trilogy
Well, this book I did find a joy to read and am looking forward to the next 2. I bought these after watching the movie of the same name. My curiosity was peaked enough for me to want to know more about the story line which was created in this film (The Golden Compass) – the film flopped, I’m afraid, at the box office, but it was enough for me.
The things I love about this book is the key character is a young girl who uses great guile and female talents to get through her many and, incredible, trials. I love the reliance of her on her instinct and her ability to trust her own skills – such great things to encourage in young people today.
There are problems with the book which surprise me that the editors allowed to go through. There are some simple things like when it’s first described about a mechanical flying bug demon – my description, not the books, it says something along the lines, it kills the person it goes after, well, it did go after someone and got them, but they somehow come back later in the book, with no explanation how they go past this deadly bug, its things like this that mare the book overall from being a top seller to me. Real shame, as they would be easily fixed, so I’m not sure why they were not fixed in the first place.
The story line is quite complicated and multi layered, but I liked it, but it may get confusing and it will be interesting how he builds on what he has started here, as he speaks of many different parallel worlds and the ‘deadly sins’ in reference to a form of ‘dust’, which I’m not quite sure how it will fly in future books. Especially, as at the end, something happens for the young heroine, but it’s not explained, at all, how she has made the transition she does – seems that Pullman ran out of steam for the ending of the book, rather than finish it with more description, it comes across that he assumes the reader will ‘fill in the blanks’. A device he uses too often, so hence, why I am wondering how the other 2 books will carry this forward.