The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
21 Jul 1997
11 Nov 2000 <br/><br/>I like Will, and his very pressing day-to-day concerns, his practicality. This is where the series really engaged me, because I could relate to Will better than to Lyra.
2 Oct 2016
I really hate this cover. While it isn't clear what Will's ethnic heritage might be, the text is clear that he has black eyebrows. Straight black brows.
That is, however, the only thing about it I dislike. We've changed from the steampunk fantasy world (armored talking bears!) that Lyra is from, to our own world in the present. There is something wrong with Will's mother, and his father has been missing his whole life. Suddenly there are strange men harassing his mother and searching for something, and it all goes pear-shaped very quickly. Fortunately Will knows how to blend, and he knows enough to take advantage of a fortuitous window into another world. Lead by a cat, of course.
And then we're off on a constantly moving adventure that covers a tremendous amount of ground in multiple worlds, brings back characters from the first book and introduces many more, and a really astounding number of incidents occur, and so many plotlines.
It never is entirely clear how long the whole story takes, but I love every minute of it.
Personal copy
