The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3) | Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3) | Philip Pullman | Classic experience

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The Amber Spyglass...

	The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3) Philip Pullman Laurel Leaf, 2003 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 879 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

In the astonishing finale to the His Dark Materials trilogy, Lyra and Will are in unspeakable danger. With help from Iorek Byrnison the armored bear and two tiny Gallivespian spies, they must journey to a dank and gray-lit world where no living soul has ever gone. All the while, Dr. Mary Malone builds a magnificent Amber Spyglass. An assassin hunts her down, and Lord Asriel, with a troop of shining angels, fights his mighty rebellion, in a battle of strange allies?and shocking sacrifice.

As war rages and Dust drains from the sky, the fate of the living?and the dead?finally comes to depend on two children and the simple truth of one simple story.

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Excellent!

What a fabulous book! Definitely my favorite of the trilogy. So well written and intricate. The ending was bittersweet, but made a lot of sense. It left you hoping for a 4th book or an epilogue of the future.

Classic experience

My children and I audio read this trilogy 10 years ago. My oldest who turned 22 yrs old in October requested it as a birthday present. The narration is wonderful. Pullman's trilogy is a classic gift to literature.

Where'd the Story Go?

Throughout junior high and high school, I heard constant mention of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy but never got to read it myself. Years later, I finally picked up the books and breezed through the first two in less than a week. The third book in the series, however, was far more difficult to read.

At first glance, I was surprised by its size: "The Golden Compass" and "The Subtle Knife" are both condense, well-written stories with less than 400 pages apiece, but "The Amber Spyglass" is over 500 pages long and definitely not as well-written as its predecessors. Many parts of the story dragged, and many of the major characters (aside from the two stars of the series, Lyra and Will) played significantly smaller roles than in the previous two books.

To add to this, many of the mysteries and secrets set up in the first two books are not fully explained in the third book. For example, advertisements for "The Amber Spyglass" claim readers will discover the startling secret of Dust. This never happens. I'm okay with a few unsolved mysteries but so many loose ends are left untied here that I was disappointed.

I also had a problem with the romance created between Lyra and Will. (Sorry if I'm spoiling this for readers, but anybody who's read the first two books should see it coming.) The story does have a coming-of-age subtone but Pullman treats Lyra and Will's romance as a complex, intimate, adult passion that is too rare among young teenagers to be believeable here.

Overall, the series is worth reading but don't expect the "astonishing conclusion" as promised by promotional advertisements and teasers.

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