Back in May, I got up to Recycled Books Records and CDs in Denton with some friends, for extended shopping. Among the things I found was a pretty matched sat of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, young adult fiction that I’ve been hearing was necessary reading for the past two or three years. So, snagged it, and like most things lately, read the first one before I had a log. Last week and into the airplane last weekend, I read the second book of the trilogy, The Subtle Knife.

Below the cut are spoilers for the series so far. I deem them to be acceptable, but read at your own risk.

It definitely shows itself to be a book for kids and teens in some ways. The young hero is inevitable, sure, but the bad guys are almost cartoonishly evil, with their master plan to cut children away from their (in this case external and animal-aspected) souls, apparently in an attempt to prevent people from being subject to the doctrine of original sin.

A thing I knew going into the series is that it’s very anti-Catholic, and although I wished I could have come into it without knowing that, I find that it doesn’t bother me now. It’s far too obvious to be missed by even the most casual reader, really, so knowing before I started hasn’t put me in a different place at the end of the second book than I would have been anyway.

The thing I missed the most from the second book was more exploration into Lord Asriel’s character, as I find him to be refreshingly ambiguous, thusfar. He seems to be trying to stop the stuff happening to the kids, in a very permanent way. But I can’t tell if his plan is good either, nor if his motives are particularly noble. I’m looking forward to more out of him, certainly.

I think what has been the most fun for me so far is how, in Lyra’s dimension, Texas seems to be the dominant country in North America. Just because, really. Also, I love the discussion about dark particles (and about dark matter in science in general), because a friend and I postulated those, for a lark, in the mid-90s. Dear Physics: Ha!

I’ve got no good thematic ending here, except to say, Series Good (as well as Short). Read!