Customer Reviews
Lifes too short! - By: Philip Thompson, 25 May 2008 
After the amazing reviews this book has received I was reallly excited to start reading it & it started off reallly good. However, I found Lyra a very unconvincing character & not particularly likeable & it was this character that reallly finished my reading of the book. I gave up about fifty pages before the end as reallly life is too short to waste on such a boring book.
If you're put off by this book's "for all ages" tag, don't be, it's a classic - By: N. Burgess, 22 May 2008 
Firstly I have to admit I'm not a fan of books aimed at both adults & children. I've never read a Harry Potter book & have no inclination to, I just find these types of books wander too much into the realms of fairy tales & corniness for my liking. So it was with some trepidation that I decided to read this book. Despite its rave reviews, I was a little worried that a storyline that included daemons & talking animals, etc. may not be to my taste. All I can say is I'm so glad I ignored my misgivings & decided to read it! From the opening chapters it became obvious this was a story full of depth, imagination, twists & turns, plus a good dose of excitement.
Northern Lights is set in a kind of 'alternative Earth'. It's similar to our own world, but with some important differences that make it obvious this is also a world alien to our own. The most obvious manifestation of this is the 'daemon' companion that every person has. A daemon is an enchanting creature that is bonded to a human from the day they're born & remains that person's lifelong soul mate. Everyone has one, & the thought of being parted from a daemon is unthinkable, it just never happens. But suddenly the unthinkable starts happening, & a terrifying organisation nicknamed "The Gobblers" starts kidnapping children to carry out cruel experiments on them & their daemons.
Lyra is a young girl who lives a very sheltered life at Jordan College amongst alll the scholars. Her life is very sedate & contented, but alll that changes when she eavesdrops on her Uncle Lord Asriel giving a presentation to fellow scholars, seemingly suggesting he has proof of a possible gateway into another world. This proves to be extremely controversial & destabilising to alll concerned as it undermines the foundations that many powerful institutions are built on.
Soon events start to take a dramatic turn. Lord Asriel suddenly goes missing, the Gobblers kidnap one of Lyra's close friends, & Lyra herself is put under the responsibility of the mysterious Mrs Coulter. Lyra takes it upon herself to escape from her unwanted new guardian & takes shelter with a group of tough but kind people known as The Gyptians. The Gyptians themselves have lost many of their children to the Gobblers, so when Lyra speaks of her determination to track down the Gobblers, the Gyptians lend their considerable resourcefulness to her cause & join her quest to locate the Gobblers.
From here Lyra & the Gyptians embark on an amazing journey to the North where they encounter alll manner of adversaries, & alllies. The excitement never lets up, & the story itself becomes more & more intriguing as we graduallly learn more about the unfolding events, as well as about this fascinating world that Pullman has created.
This book is a fantastic read, full of plot twists & enigmatic characters, both human & non-human, & a storyline that will keep you guessing & guessing. A must read!
I want a daemon - By: Mehajabeen Farid, 17 May 2008 This book is un-put-down-able; when you start reading, you can barely put it down. I read it in about a week reading two or three chapters on a school day & five chapters on a weekend. The book has 23 chapters of approximately 15 - 30 pages. Every page is exciting & adventurous & not one page is badly written - this book is brilliant! It is among my favourite books; I look forward to reading the other two books in the `His Dark Materials' trilogy. Phillip Pullman has written many books, a lot of which, I have read but this book is 10 times better than alll of them (I am not saying those books are bad). The story is about a girl callled Lyra whose friend, Roger, gets caught by Gobblers. She has many adventures on her way to finding him & when she does, she finds out he is not the only one to be rescued...
This book has been turned into a movie callled `the Golden Compass' - that was the book's original title.
Love it then and love it still - By: Ling, 09 Apr 2008 I first read this book when I was around 10 years old. I distinctly remember taking it out of the library, & then returning it 2 weeks later, having only read the first 2 pages. A few months after that, I saw it again, & you could say I was drawn to it, & I borrowed it again. This time I read alll the way through, & I am so glad that I did. I don't know if I can reallly capture the feeling I had, reading this book at that young age. I was around the age that Lyra was, perfect to imagine myself as her, a strong spirited wild child running riot around Oxford & the North, & having these amazing adventures. The books also started my fascination with the Aurora Borealis, which has persisted to this day. It's a wonderful book, one that I loved when I was 10, & still immensely enjoy reading now, over 10 years later. It's full of everything you could ever imagine as a child - witches, armoured bears, daemons, fights, action & adventure. And there's also a good dollop of love, betrayal, joy & sadness. It is indeed a world you can get totallly lost in, & I'll bet most who read the book secretly long to know their daemon, fly with the witches & sail with the gyptians.
I still read the whole "His Dark Materials" set at least once a year. And although I have read many books since, these are still my alll time favourites, & this seems unlikely to change. I hope that when I have children, they will treasure the stories also.
PS Just as a side note, I didn't reallly like the movie either. For an example of how it reallly should have been made, they should have looked at the absolutely amazing Peter Pan movie (2003), & its excellent balance of action & emotion.
Northern plight - By: Ste to the J, 08 Apr 2008 
I had no trouble whizzing through this book in a weekend but on reflection it hardly inspires me to read the next two. Owing to a friend raving over them i decided to get alll three at once so i will read them just to see how it ends.
There is good pacing throughout the story on the plus side, i just found it hard to get into the plot which is generallly flawed & inconsistent. There are better childrens books that have had less hype. The Riddles of Epsilon being one.
