Ah. Contains one of my favorite ending sentences of a novel, ever.His Dark Materials is one of those YA series that seems to grow up with the reader... each novel progressively darker and more nuanced. For example, Mrs. Coulter, who was such an unadulterated villain in the first book, is much more complex by the third. Layered characters with conflicting motives -- they're like crack to me.Also, I came to love the idea of Dust, which seemed little more than a plot device in the first novel, but by the end... what a beautiful idea.UPDATE: I just had a minor epiphany (minipiphany?) today at work: that getting my brain ready for subject analysis is very much like Lyra's state of mind when reading the alethiometer. Except that my alethiometer isn't inscribed with pictures, but MARC tags, each with ladders of meaning, defined by indicators, delimiters, subfields, and thesauri.Or maybe I just really need the long weekend. ( )

The final part of the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy is a very satisfying conclusion that ties up enough of loose ends without seeming to only concern itself with that. The way everything worked out was very appealing too - not sentimental, not overly-dramatic, but perfectly in order considering the two books that preceded it. ( )

Borrowed from public library. Well written story. Even if I thought the ending unjust ( )

This is my favorite book from the trilogy. Yes it has a slow start but it more than makes up for it in the end. I was literally at the edge of my seat with my nose practically touching the pages as I read. ( )

This book, unlike the other two, has a slow start. Of course, it's also considerably longer than the other two. Unfortunately, Lyra spends about the first third of the book unconscious! Will has some stuff to do while she's conked out, of course, but not exactly a whole lot-- and like in The Subtle Knife, all of the important things are being done by characters who are not our protagonists. But this one picks up once Lyra and Will are reunited and decide to journey to the Land of the Dead: they're once again active parts of the story, driving the narrative instead of reacting to it, and they're both on top form, especially Lyra, who is at her manipulative best. All of the material in the Land of the Dead is fabulous, at turns harrowing and joyful. Once they get out, then there's of course their time with Mary Malone among the mulefa, which is great in its own way. I think Mary Malone is the most interesting character in the trilogy who's not Lyra or Will, so it's nice to see her step into prominence here. All in all, it's another excellent installment in the His Dark Materials trilogy; the start is somewhat slow and disappointing, but once the story kicks into gear, it's on par with the excellent first book. And that ending! Oh, that ending! I don't think I have ever read a line more heartbreaking than this: "He kissed her again and again, and each kiss was nearer to the last one of all."

A slow start without any thread to remind me where the action had left off the previous book put me off for a while. I pushed through and eventually got into it. Sort of disappointed that the great confrontation I was expecting Lyra to have to face never manifested -- I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't all sorts of other characters throwing themselves in front of the children to take out their obstacles.things that still bother me, or at least make me ponder:* why Lyra? What marks her as special?* Why is the trilogy called His Dark Materials? Whose? ( )

Lyra and Will continue their dimension-hopping adventure, with a stop in the world of the dead, and come to some amazing conclusions about themselves and life, while the battle for the fate of the universe is fought around them. In the conclusion to the His Dark Materials trilogy, Lord Asriel finishes his fight against the kingdom of heaven while his child and her friend attempt to make things right by finding the dead Roger. In true epic fashion, there are a great many characters and locations, so that it may be rather difficult to keep track of what is happening to who where. The sense of mystery, and the hope of finally achieving resolution pulls the plot along, but the climax might leave some rather empty: are we to believe that two thirteen-year-olds admitting they love each other changes the destiny of the universe? This book is quite blatant about pushing an agenda which may upset many, with God trying to stifle humanity and His church being the evildoers. Those that have made it this far will no doubt want to finish the story, but may wish that it had been fleshed out a little more. ( )

Last in the His Dark Materials trilogy, we discover the end of the story of Lyra Silvertongue and Will Parry--the war between good and evil. Gets into a bit of theology, and the underlying topic is pretty deep. I think reading this as an adult is probably pretty different from reading it as a child...it explores death and what happens afterwards pretty heavily. The writing is good and so is the imagery, and these are things that we all have to think about sometime...I don't know I think you have to be in the mood for it, though. ( )

Will rescues Lyra from Mrs. Coulter, Lyra and Will journey to the land of the dead, and Asriel wages war on the Authority.

The best moments of the series are in this book — the wonderful insight that the tempting serpent is just frank talk between women, and the dissolution of the Authority ("... their last impression was of those eyes, blinking in wonder, and a sigh of the most profound and exhausted relief." [p. 411]). ( )

The Amber Spyglass is a satisfying conclusion to the His Dark Materials trilogy, well-written with believable characters.

I did find the sections dealing with Mary and her discovery of Dust and the mulefa to be a bit slow, with the effect of arresting the rocketing momentum of the novel. And I do question the logic of Pullman's publisher categorizing the series as suitable for 10-12 year olds. There are concepts in the novel that are extremely adult: atomic physics, original sin, Christian mythology, little say the modern retelling of Milton's Lost Paradise and Dante's Inferno. In places the language is quite advanced, not that children shouldn't be challenged. I think perhaps the marketing 'experts' didn't know what to do with a novel that had a child protagonist.

Still and all, a good read. ( )

Opening Sentence: '…In a valley shaded with rhododendrons, close to the snow line, where a stream milky with melt water splashed and where doves and linnets flew among the immense pines, lay a cave, half hidden by the crag above and the stiff heavy leaves that clustered below…’

This is the third, an final, book in Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy. And, for me, ended the series on a fizzle. I think it is mostly because the story was stretched so many ways - so many different threads that took their own sweet time coming together

As the book opens, Lyra is hidden on one world in a Himalayan cave and kept in a drugged sleep by her mother, the beautiful and evil Mrs. Coulter. Will is is on another world being guided by two angels across even more different worlds to find Lyra. Then the physicist and former nun, Mary Malone, is on yet another world. I had so much trouble keeping up with who was where and why that I am not sure a younger person, who the series is marketed at, would have the patience to follow. It is not the in your face religious stuff - it is just poorly written. In THE GOLDEN COMPASS the characters lept of the pages and dragged you into their world - it was fantastic. Now they all seem dead and uninteresting just doing what the author tells them to do, just ghosts of their former vital characteristics.

It was just a big downer for me - everything built up to the point where Lyra was to be tempted to do something, like the biblical Eve, and this could cause the end of the world. If this single act was so important that it took 2 volumes to build up to it, various groups bent on either killing her or controlling her, why is it such a minor event when it happened? It took less than a page for it to be all over !!!!

No, didn't like the book - but needed to read it for closure. ( )

The amazing conclusion to the Dark Materials trilogy this book like the others will leave you gripping the pages and astonished with what Pullman is putting down on paper.

The somewhat anti-climatic finale of a rollicking fantasy series. Still an excellent read, though the ending has split fans down the middle. ( )

I wondered at first whether to read this immediately; it's been some time since I read the first two books in the sequence. But I didn't feel like rereading them, and although I had forgotten some details, it turned out not to matter much as far as following the story went. I'd like to go back and look up a few things, like the studies into the Dust, and the theology of the Church (I really liked the way physics was experimental theology and controversial theories became heresies. Made perfect sense, too.)It was cruel of him to separate Lyra and Will at the end. And pointless; it didn't seem to follow from anything. Like he felt he had to manufacture an unhappy ending somehow. And the adults were all: "thanks kids for saving the world, now run along and do what we tell you as we ruin the rest of your lives." ( )

I thought this was an enthralling read and a great finish to the series. I'd read it before when it came out but remembered none of it - I think at the time I zoomed through it too quickly for it to sink in, which was a mistake. It's not a book you can read quickly, although since I didn't want to put it down, it didn't take too long to finish.

I've heard Pullman criticized for not keeping a consistent tone or target audience throughout the series. It's perhaps deserved criticism, but he's in good company - the Harry Potter books aren't consistent from first to last, for example; nor to my mind are the Chronicles of Narnia, although they come closer to the mark.

For me, this series got more intellectually stimulating as it lost a little of the action-packed momentum of the first book. I didn't mind that Pullman slowed down to develop both his fantasy world and his theology. ( )

The darkest of the three, this book doesn't dissapoint. ( )

Modern fantasy at its best! Not only are the adventures of Lyra and Will simply too exciting to let pass, the novels are also exceptionally well written and even intellectual - best fantasy since Tolkien! ( )

All three of these books are a fun read, and each story is able to stand on its own as unique and interesting apart from the others, even though it’s one story spread over three novels. There is definitely some obvious anti-Judeo-Christian themes, but if you really drill down to what Pullman is communicating through them, they work more as a satire intended to be a mirror to people who hold onto self-righteous and bigoted beliefs that isolate and abuse others. Ultimately, though these are fun stories born out of a creative mind that was able to construct an entirely original fantasy that critiques our own culture. It’s a rare gem, blending both an imaginative fantasy with a pointed social commentary. I recommend this series to all readers 9 and I also recommend rereading them as you get older, because alike books such as Wrinkle in Time, and The Narnia series, the layered conflicts, references, and commentaries will grow with you as a reader.-Lindsey Miller, www.lindseyslibrary.com ( )

Pre09: My favorite of the series. I love books that build to a crescendo and boy does this one ever. I've read it multiple times and will again.

I pretty much like all of the characters. The doctor with the elephant things is a little boring, but she plays a very important part in the end. ( )

wish I could say, the actual contents were “astonishing” and “extraordinary” like the blurb on the back of the novel says. But I can’t. What a disappointment! I loved The Golden Compass, it had this wonderful land, armoured bears, witches, and a young girl who was a very interesting character. Subtle Knife was dark, and different, but still lured me into this new fantasy world/worlds. Then The Amber Spyglass came. Half the time I had no clue what the author was writing about, plot pieces just popped up out of nowhere and thrown in the story, for the sake of it. New characters were introduced, yet had no character development; they just seemed to be thrown in there, to make the story longer. I really want to know what happened to this book, and why is it so different then the other two. By the end, I just didn’t care who lived or died, or anything else about the characters, their emotions or what was happening. I would have liked how it wasn’t your typical happy ending, but by the time it got to that, I didn’t care any more. I had given up. Lyra lost that magic touch that caused readers to enjoy her, the whole issue of Dust? What is Dust? I still don’t know, it seemed to be something very different then what it was building up to be in the first two books.

Lyra and Will in love. They are twelve, how are they suddenly head over heals in love? I can understand the children having deep feelings for each other, even giving a little innocent kiss, but they were completely in love (I do not think, like some other reviewers do, that they “slept together”) but no matter how you look at it, that whole piece of the plot was one of the many things that brought this to a huge down fall for me.

Another issue was Mary Malone. What exactly was her purpose? What exactly was her purpose for building the spyglass? She barely used it, and she didn’t help anyone really. The Mulefa. I think they were thrown in there to just add another weird creature into the story for the heck of it. There are so many things that happened in this book that just didn’t add up to what happened in the other two, it’s like this was written by a different author who had no grasp on what was suppose to happen, what connects to what we learned in the first to novels, so they just wrote some fan fiction version of what should happen.

What I did like. Okay, I liked the idea of the land of the dead, and Lyra and Will releasing them. I like the brief battle Arsiel was in, although how it ended and why, was poorly executed. That’s about it. Oh Iorek…. I liked him too.

One thing, I do not understand why everyone claims this to be anti-religious or anti-Christian. Yes, Pullman does have ideas that go against the conventional Christian way of thinking, throughout the book. We find that the dead do not go to heaven like what is taught…. But how is it anti-religious? Seriously, people need to wake up, and realize there are multiple religions and ways of thinking, and that this is one fictional account for it. (Sorry to any religious readers of mine, I do realize most people who are religious, whatever religions they have or beliefs aren’t like this. But I find that there are a few people out there, who just can’t deal with the fact, there are other opinions out there and then blow things out of proportion or insult others because of their differences in beliefs). That’s all I see in this trilogy, a difference in beliefs.

Back to the book. It was just a big, big disappointment. It lost it’s magic I enjoyed in the first book, wasn’t interesting at all, and I really had to force my way through to the end. And this is more than a disappointment after a hyped up excitement when waiting for it, which I wouldn’t have minded as much.

Review can also be found on my book review blog here:

http://juliebooks.blogspot.com/2009/0... ( )

The trilogy ends as well as it began, this mamoth undertaking is really very impressive. I have not read any other work by Pullman but he has given himself quite some task to write further works of this magnitude. ( )

The series ends with a whimper that doesn't come at all close to living up to the excitement and intrigue set up in book 1. ( )

Lyra and Will find themselves at the center of a battle between the forces of the Authority and those gathered by Lyra's father, Lord Asriel. (BCCLS) ( )

This one was a bit too sci-fi-ish for my taste, but it did tie up all the loose ends, I guess. ( )

I like this book because it's very exciting and has non-stop action. It makes you want to read on. ( )