It was funny strange to see our world in this novel all of a sudden. Instead, we get two new worlds – one of which is our very own world. Lyra’s world doesn’t play a large role in this novel, although it is referred to quite often. It started out pretty good in Northern Lights, with the world that is similar to ours but also very different, and the sequel really built on that. What I loved most about the novel is the amazing world building. It succesfully got me out of my almost-reading slump, that’s for sure! I liked Northern Lights a lot, but I hadn’t expected to love The Subtle Knife as much as I did. I was busy with trying to solidify my dissertation topic and needed to read something fun that had nothing to do with any of it, which is where this book came in. Could it be that this quest, and Lyra’s, are part of the same larger one?Īfter reading the first book in this series, Northern Lights(or The Golden Compass) in October last year, I picked up The Subtle Knife a few weeks ago when I was on the verge of a reading slump. Their paths will take them to the mysterious Torre degli Angeli, where they must somehow acquire Cittàgazze’s most important secret: an object which people from many worlds would kill to possess.īut Will has his own task as well: he must find the father he has never known. Almost at once he meets the strange, savage young girl called Lyra, and soon they discover that they haven’t met by accident. Into this world comes Will, who has killed a man and is on the run. An utterly entrancing blend of metaphysical speculation and bravura storytelling, HIS DARK MATERIALS is a monumental and enduring achievement.The world of Cittàgazze is an unsettling place: the silence, the empty streets, the threat of horrible death from the soul-eating Spectres, from which only children are safe. The epic story Pullman tells is not only a spellbinding adventure featuring armoured polar bears, magical devices, witches and daemons, it is also an audacious and profound re-imagining of Milton's Paradise Lost. As Lyra learns the truth about her parents and her prophesied destiny, the two young people are caught up in a war against celestial powers that ranges across many worlds and leads to a thrilling conclusion in The Amber Spyglass. In The Subtle Knife she is joined on her journey by Will, a boy who possesses a knife that can cut windows between worlds.

Lyra's search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving stolen children and turns into a quest to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust. Northern Lights introduces Lyra, an orphan, who lives in a parallel universe in which science, theology and magic are entwined.

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Northern lights the subtle knife