His Grayish Materials

I'd like to follow up on an earlier comment on Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. Kerry and I have finished the trilogy, and our reaction is mixed. The first two-and-a-half books were very good. They were engaging and inventive, with fun concepts like the daemons that animal-morphized people's souls, "experimental theology" (my second-favorite new phrase of the summer, after "bring the venom"), armored bears, and the setting for it all: a world parallel to our own, but subtly and cleverly different. The characters were memorable and interesting, and the plot pulled us along. The story also spread out the discovery; into the third book, we were still exploring and learning about Pullman's invented world(s).

Unfortunately, the story lost its footing at the end. The climactic action relied on God and the host of Heaven portrayed as thuggish tyrants, so one-dimensional and shallow as to make Dan Brown look like an apologist for the Catholic Church. (The Church itself - there's only one organized religion in Pullman's books - doesn't come off too well, but at least it's populated with characters, not stick-figure personalities.) Then there was a strange Adam and Eve, Mark II, which though foreshadowed for 2+ books, felt shoehorned in to a generally forced closing. It was a disappointing conclusion to the series. I'd recommend reading the first two books and stopping, but the plot would leave you hanging, and undoubtedly you'd want to continue. So either steer clear altogether, or consider yourself warned.