His Dark Materials non-spoiler review
Lets start with the first book shall we?
The Golden Compass is an absolutely brilliant book. The story is engaging, the characters well put together and the world imaginative. I would highly recommend this book to anyone IF it were a complete story by itself, unfortunately to get any sort of conclusion you are required to read the other two books. Which brings us to
The Subtle Knife was a bit jarring when set next to it's predisessor. That is not to say that it is a bad book, merely that it not quite equal to the standard set by the beginning of the story. Several things happened/were introduced here that I made faces about, but was willing to hold out to the end in hopes that it would have a fantastic wrap up only to end up with
The Amber Spyglass is an utter turd. Plotlines are left dangling with no suggestion of ever following them up, nonsensical things are introduced with no explanation, characters pull complete 180's of personality with no reason or explanation offered and worst of all the 'climax' falls flat onto such an absolute piece of trype that I wanted to bludgeon Mr Pullman with his own book.
Final conclusion, it feels like Mr Pullman showed me a beautiful and unique painting, then when I walked closer he threw turpentine over the canvas, and when I was dumb enough to stand around after than he threw turpentine in my face and set me on fire, then kicked me in the balls for good measure.
This opinion has nothing to do with the 'anti-religious theme' that everyone is so fucking up in arms over with the upcoming movie and managed to get pulled from the script(this person's opinion, bad idea movie studio guys, that's going to make the only good book's story a total wash) But rather is based on the total hack he makes of his own story, abandoning all logic, sense and explanation for a "It just happens, shut the fuck up" type of rhetoric.
Okay, lets start at the beginning shall we?
I honestly have no complaints with The Golden Compass, beautiful, well done sir.
Now, when we get into The Subtle Knife the first thing that bugged me was that Lyra, our 12 year old heroine consults her all knowing magical oiji board(the Golden Compass), the Eleithiomiter, to find out what sort of person this strange boy she's just met is. The answer comes back that he is a murderer, to which her immediate thought is "Oh good, then he's trustworthy" WTF?!! What logic are you using here?
Okay, fine, whatever right? 12 year olds think stupid things for no appearant reason sometimes. Lets move on to the Chitagatzi World Phantoms, WTF ARE THEY?!!! WHY do they destroy people's souls on contact, WHY/HOW are some people able to make them do their bidding(note, said people have NO magical powers etc) WHY do they only attack adults? WHY can only adults see them? Guess what, Mr Pullman doesn't think any of this needs to ever be discussed in the entire trilogy! YES we do know that every time a rip is opened between worlds a phantom is spawned, great, that tells us how they're getting here, but NOTHING else will ever be known.
On that note, the major climatic discovery of the second book is that Will's mother is not actually deranged, but is in fact under attack from one of said Phantoms. HOLY SHIT! You say, OMG! What will they do with this story thread?!!! NOTHING, they find out and never do a damn thing about it, you never get a view from said mother's eyes, no one ever goes to save her from her invisible attacker, despite having the only physical weapon that can kill it. NOTHING EVER HAPPENS WITH THIS DISCOVERY!!! Bad form Mr Pullman
Next up, Mr Pullman has decided to use the Quantum Parallel Worlds theory for his story, I don't approve of this to begin with as I think this particular theory is retarded, but it's his story right? Right. BUT Mr Pullman actually goes on to state that in his story the theory is taken to it's utmost extreme, that is to say, every time any sentient being does ANYTHING 298723976290376 other worlds spring into being where any possible other outcome happened instead. Okay fine, or rather it WOULD be if we didn't have Will, Lyra, Lord Azrael and 352423 other people all doing things that for no particular reason affect EVERY of these infinite worlds AT ONCE. HOW THE FUCK DOES THAT WORK?!!! By your own logic sir, every time Will and Lyra do something that helps everything 236489075304 X 10^840986 other Will and Lyra's just fucked every one of these worlds over and doomed them! It's all contradictory! This is probably one of two things that pisses me off the most.
The other being, the climax of the entire story. Okay, let me set this up. There's a prophecy, right? About Lyra specifically, Will's just playing the counterpart roll assigned to whatever boy happens to be handy. These two 12 year olds make underage whoopie, and simply because the prophasied girl just lost her barely pubescent cherry all of sentient life in all of every universe is saved.....WTF?!!! That's right folks, there's no reason as to WHY this particular girl had to go pole riding to fix the esscence of life itself, it just DOES. WHY? Because the prophecy said so, that's why. Seriously, this is like saying that Frodo took a dump on the side of the road, and the army of Mordor exploded because there was a prophecy that said if the destined hobbit was cured of his constipation the war would suddenly be won. YES IT IS THAT BADLY DONE!
Good christ people, the only reason people are going so nuts about the movie's story changes is that it's an anti-religious story written by a vocal aethiest. Unfotunately, it's NOT the anti-religious story elements(read: the entire story of book 2-3 and overtones of book 1) that are the problem here, it's the shitty ass copouts, LET the christian fundamentalists picket! It boosted DaVinci Code's ticket sales like CRAZY when they did! If you're going to rewrite the story fix the damn nonsensicle inconsistencies and make an ending worth reading. Fuck you Mr Pullman, I would urinate in your eyes.
The Golden Compass is an absolutely brilliant book. The story is engaging, the characters well put together and the world imaginative. I would highly recommend this book to anyone IF it were a complete story by itself, unfortunately to get any sort of conclusion you are required to read the other two books. Which brings us to
The Subtle Knife was a bit jarring when set next to it's predisessor. That is not to say that it is a bad book, merely that it not quite equal to the standard set by the beginning of the story. Several things happened/were introduced here that I made faces about, but was willing to hold out to the end in hopes that it would have a fantastic wrap up only to end up with
The Amber Spyglass is an utter turd. Plotlines are left dangling with no suggestion of ever following them up, nonsensical things are introduced with no explanation, characters pull complete 180's of personality with no reason or explanation offered and worst of all the 'climax' falls flat onto such an absolute piece of trype that I wanted to bludgeon Mr Pullman with his own book.
Final conclusion, it feels like Mr Pullman showed me a beautiful and unique painting, then when I walked closer he threw turpentine over the canvas, and when I was dumb enough to stand around after than he threw turpentine in my face and set me on fire, then kicked me in the balls for good measure.
This opinion has nothing to do with the 'anti-religious theme' that everyone is so fucking up in arms over with the upcoming movie and managed to get pulled from the script(this person's opinion, bad idea movie studio guys, that's going to make the only good book's story a total wash) But rather is based on the total hack he makes of his own story, abandoning all logic, sense and explanation for a "It just happens, shut the fuck up" type of rhetoric.
Okay, lets start at the beginning shall we?
I honestly have no complaints with The Golden Compass, beautiful, well done sir.
Now, when we get into The Subtle Knife the first thing that bugged me was that Lyra, our 12 year old heroine consults her all knowing magical oiji board(the Golden Compass), the Eleithiomiter, to find out what sort of person this strange boy she's just met is. The answer comes back that he is a murderer, to which her immediate thought is "Oh good, then he's trustworthy" WTF?!! What logic are you using here?
Okay, fine, whatever right? 12 year olds think stupid things for no appearant reason sometimes. Lets move on to the Chitagatzi World Phantoms, WTF ARE THEY?!!! WHY do they destroy people's souls on contact, WHY/HOW are some people able to make them do their bidding(note, said people have NO magical powers etc) WHY do they only attack adults? WHY can only adults see them? Guess what, Mr Pullman doesn't think any of this needs to ever be discussed in the entire trilogy! YES we do know that every time a rip is opened between worlds a phantom is spawned, great, that tells us how they're getting here, but NOTHING else will ever be known.
On that note, the major climatic discovery of the second book is that Will's mother is not actually deranged, but is in fact under attack from one of said Phantoms. HOLY SHIT! You say, OMG! What will they do with this story thread?!!! NOTHING, they find out and never do a damn thing about it, you never get a view from said mother's eyes, no one ever goes to save her from her invisible attacker, despite having the only physical weapon that can kill it. NOTHING EVER HAPPENS WITH THIS DISCOVERY!!! Bad form Mr Pullman
Next up, Mr Pullman has decided to use the Quantum Parallel Worlds theory for his story, I don't approve of this to begin with as I think this particular theory is retarded, but it's his story right? Right. BUT Mr Pullman actually goes on to state that in his story the theory is taken to it's utmost extreme, that is to say, every time any sentient being does ANYTHING 298723976290376 other worlds spring into being where any possible other outcome happened instead. Okay fine, or rather it WOULD be if we didn't have Will, Lyra, Lord Azrael and 352423 other people all doing things that for no particular reason affect EVERY of these infinite worlds AT ONCE. HOW THE FUCK DOES THAT WORK?!!! By your own logic sir, every time Will and Lyra do something that helps everything 236489075304 X 10^840986 other Will and Lyra's just fucked every one of these worlds over and doomed them! It's all contradictory! This is probably one of two things that pisses me off the most.
The other being, the climax of the entire story. Okay, let me set this up. There's a prophecy, right? About Lyra specifically, Will's just playing the counterpart roll assigned to whatever boy happens to be handy. These two 12 year olds make underage whoopie, and simply because the prophasied girl just lost her barely pubescent cherry all of sentient life in all of every universe is saved.....WTF?!!! That's right folks, there's no reason as to WHY this particular girl had to go pole riding to fix the esscence of life itself, it just DOES. WHY? Because the prophecy said so, that's why. Seriously, this is like saying that Frodo took a dump on the side of the road, and the army of Mordor exploded because there was a prophecy that said if the destined hobbit was cured of his constipation the war would suddenly be won. YES IT IS THAT BADLY DONE!
Good christ people, the only reason people are going so nuts about the movie's story changes is that it's an anti-religious story written by a vocal aethiest. Unfotunately, it's NOT the anti-religious story elements(read: the entire story of book 2-3 and overtones of book 1) that are the problem here, it's the shitty ass copouts, LET the christian fundamentalists picket! It boosted DaVinci Code's ticket sales like CRAZY when they did! If you're going to rewrite the story fix the damn nonsensicle inconsistencies and make an ending worth reading. Fuck you Mr Pullman, I would urinate in your eyes.