The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2)
Common Sense Note
Even faster-paced than the first book, this brilliantly constructed story keeps readers breathless. Brilliant writing inspires imagination. Lyra and Will demonstrate loyalty, determination, and responsibility, even if they are not always honest.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
Two elements make this even better than The Golden Compass, its astonishing predecessor. The first is pacing. The first book started slowly and gradually gathered momentum, gaining speed and power until the final breathless finale. This second starts with a bang and never lets up, moving from one explosion to the next with hardly a pause for the reader to catch a breath. It's the kind of book you're tempted to sit up all night to finish.
The second element is breadth of lyric imagination. This quality is a combination of surpassingly poetic writing with a scope of vision that simply goes far beyond that of ordinary fantasy, and which is, at times, astonishingly reckless and even bizarre. The first book had that in spades, but this one goes even farther.
This quality adds to a book not only the pleasures of beauty and awe, but the excitement of seeing just how far the author can and will go. THE SUBTLE KNIFE rises to this level, though without the convolutions of language that make books like this both a joy and a challenge. The relative simplicity of Pullman's lyricism is what makes this trilogy accessible to bright adolescents, while still challenging adults.
The ambition, the sheer audacity of this series are breathtaking. Pullman bids fair to be leaving the realm of fantasy for something larger, more mythic, in which good and evil confront each other on the most primal level, and powerful ideas and haunting imagery vie in the reader's mind with sheer edge-of-your-seat suspense and adventure.
From the Book:
She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy?
The Alethiometer answered: He is a murderer
When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. He could find food, and show her how to reach Oxford, and those were powers that were useful, but he might still have been untrustworthy or cowardly. A murderer was a worthy companion. She felt as safe with him as she'd felt with Iorek Byrnison, the armored bear.
Plot Summary:
Lyra's desperate adventures continue, as she passes into a world called Citt�igazze, where she meets a boy named Will, destined to become the Bearer of the Subtle Knife, which can cut anything, even the boundaries between worlds. Nonstop pacing and stunning imagination make this a more-than-worthy sequel.
Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon, have crossed into another world, called Cittàgazze, across the bridge made by her father's vicious experiments. There she meets Will, who is from our Earth and has found his way accidentally through a window into Cittàgazze while on the run from mysterious men seeking information about his long-missing father.
Together they find the Subtle Knife which can cut through anything, including the boundaries between worlds, and Will becomes the Bearer of the Knife, losing two fingers in the process. Meanwhile Mrs. Coulter is out to stop Lyra from fulfilling her destiny, everyone is after the knife, and Lord Asriel is amassing the greatest army ever gathered, drawn from a multitude of worlds, for an assault on The Authority who is, well, God. And as happened once before, the angels are lining up on both sides.
Related Books:
Other Books in This Series
The Golden Compass
The Amber Spyglass
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ViolenceThe children are attacked repeatedly. The battles over the Knife, in which Will loses fingers, are bloody. Will accidentally kills a man. Many scary moments, including being surrounded by soul-sucking ghosts. Will, trying to save his mother, meets his father just before he dies. |
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