Saturday, September 27, 2014

98:120 The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The 1st book in His Dark Materials trilogy.  In a world where no one is ever alone because they all have their daemon familiars, something strange is happening.  Lyra takes little notice of the stories about the Gobblers who steal children except to use them in games of pretend until her friend is taken one night on the eve of her leaving Jordan College to go with the fascinating Ms. Coulter to the city.  Once in the city however, she starts learning disturbing things about Ms. Coulter and the Gobblers and something they call Dust.  She runs, frightened of what she hears and goes to the gyptians who have been hardest hit by the Gobblers with several of their children missing.  Now that Lyra is able to tell them the direction they have been taken, they are ready to take action and get their children back.  Lyra refuses to be left behind, which is all part of her fulfilling a destiny that she knows nothing of but must fulfill for the sake of everyone.  On her way, she will make some amazing friends including Iorek the Battle Bear.  Unfortunately, her destiny lies in a world far from her own and her friends may not be able to join her.

Yeah, I'm a few years behind on this one but I tend to not want to read things right as everyone else is.  I actually am not sure after the hubbub that I would have picked it up (I find that things rarely live up to their hype) but a friend sent me the series so it's been sitting on my shelf since it looked like something I might enjoy but I just hadn't gotten around to it.  I'm falling a bit behind on my new authors for the year so I figured I'd grab these to read and preview for my kids.  On the whole, it's an interesting new world but I found the characters shallow and the plot nothing new or spectacular.  The world kept me just interested enough that I will read the next one to see where things go but just barely.

Page count: 351p/26,402p ytd/207,440p lifetime

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