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Oct. 23rd, 2007
Review - His Dark Materials
Oct. 23rd, 2007 01:48 pmShort, non-spoiler reviews:
Book 1: The Golden Compass, a fascinating alternate world, interesting characters, fairly tightly written. All around good read. Grade: A-
Book 2: The Subtle Knife, simply exists as a bride between book 1 and book 3, introduces lots of plot threads none of which come even close to resolving. Scattered, with the occasion flash of brilliance but over all, not good. Grade: D+
Book 3: The Amber Spyglass, the conclusion, full of dropped plot threads, hand-waving, unexplained (and unexplainable) mistakes from major characters and heavy moralizing. Also, not good though there are some intriguing bits that zip by. Grade: D+
So, my advice, read and enjoy the first book and then ignore the rest of the series. May do a spoiler laden analysis later.
Book 1: The Golden Compass, a fascinating alternate world, interesting characters, fairly tightly written. All around good read. Grade: A-
Book 2: The Subtle Knife, simply exists as a bride between book 1 and book 3, introduces lots of plot threads none of which come even close to resolving. Scattered, with the occasion flash of brilliance but over all, not good. Grade: D+
Book 3: The Amber Spyglass, the conclusion, full of dropped plot threads, hand-waving, unexplained (and unexplainable) mistakes from major characters and heavy moralizing. Also, not good though there are some intriguing bits that zip by. Grade: D+
So, my advice, read and enjoy the first book and then ignore the rest of the series. May do a spoiler laden analysis later.