Book Review: The Golden Compass (or Atlas Shrugged for kids)

I picked up an omnibus volume of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy a little over a month ago.  I finished it last night.

Story: this is an alternate history with mythical/religious elements.  The time is now, but the last 300 years are very different from our last 300 years.  The church is powerful, technology is stagnant, and powerful forces are at work.  In steps Lyra Bellacqua, a precocious 12-year old girl.  

The story follows Lyra and her companions through parallel worlds (each similar to but a little different from our own).  The social/religious fabric is rich and complex.  There is enough detail about it to get a sense of it, and enough tidbits of information thrown in here and there that it makes it seem real.  You know how a good author has trouble deciding which parts of their world to not write about, not trouble making the book long enough to sell?  Pullman is one of those.  There are hundreds of stories he could tell about this universe he's created.  

The main characters are compelling, but oddly so: they are miniature versions of Ayn Rand's characters in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.  They are able instantly to tell if a person they meet is worthy of their friendship or not, and they are always right.  They are able to get out of any situation by the force of their own will.  Their eyes are intense, so that other people are afraid of them because of how inadequate they'll feel.  And they are going about the business of completely reversing the order of the world.  

The books are engrossing, the story is fabulous and deep, and some parts of it make you want to cry.  It is not, despite what you may have read, an anti-God or anti-religious book.  In its alternate world, the Church (always with capital letters) is repressive and seeks only to dampen people's spirits and kill the joy in the world.  It does reflect the author's atheistic view, and if his view of religion in general were accurate then I suppose it could be subversive.  The thing is that Pullman's vision of Christianity does not at all match with what I live.  It is an alternate reality, and will remain so.

I highly recommend these books - they're a great experience.  I'd put them next to the InkHeart series.  More serious than Peter and the Starcatchers.  Less grown-up (and more, in some ways) than Twilight.