The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2)

Book Summary

Lyra's desperate adventures continue, as she passes into a world called CittÃ¯Â¿Â½igazze, 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.

Is It Any Good?

Two elements make this even better than The Golden Compass, its astonishing predecessor. The first is pacing: This book starts with a bang and never lets up. The second element is breadth of lyric imagination. This quality is a combination of surpassingly poetic writing with a scope of vision that goes far beyond that of ordinary fantasy, and which is, at times, astonishingly reckless and even bizarre.

This quality adds not only the pleasures of beauty and awe, but the excitement of seeing just how far the author can and will go. 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.