The Subtle Knife A fantasy written by Philip Pullman in 1997 Reviewed edition by Ballantine from 1998 A paperback has 290 pages ISBN 0-345-41336-9 Click to rate this book from worst 1 2 3 4 5 to best.

Picking up the story where the previous volume of the series, The Golden Compass, has finished, the book follows Lyra on her trip through the gateway created by her father in his horrendous experiment. Lyra ends up on Earth, where she meets Will, a young boy whose fate is remarkably similar to her own. Will is also searching for his father, and Lyra's alethiometer insists she has to help him in his task. Besides meeting Will, Lyra also bumps into a scientist who is investigating the problem of the dark matter, which turns out to be the Earth name for the mysterious Dust that she already knows a lot about. Lyra amazes the scientist by making an experiment that was to be closed as a failure produce miraculous results, and in the process figures that the Dust is actually conscious. Unfortunately, Lyra also manages to draw unwanted attention. Soon, both she and Will find themselves hunted by people allied with her mother, who manage to steal her alethiometer and force her to look for a special item, a knife, in a world full of Specters that feed on human lives ...

I really found it difficult to stomach the beginning of the book. The image of a kid bumping into an office of a researcher in nuclear physics and starting to explain things the scientist did not know is rather far-fetched (comes from too many people reading about physics in the Reader's Digest rather than looking at the thing I guess). The same goes for a kid travelling through an unknown world with no more trouble than what you would expect from an afternoon walk in a park.

Getting over that, the book picks up the pace quite nicely. There is only one other objection I have, which is a rather high number of adults that blindly put ends before means, again adding to the smart kids vs. stupid adults feeling of the book. Makes me afraid I can almost guess the ending of the series, adults trying to force the kids to do something for a higher good, and the kids following the ever reliable voices of their hearts rather than the cold adult logic, which will turn out to be the only option that could have saved the day.

Enough rambling. Rated as average, I will wait and see how accurate my prediction was :-).

Rated as average by Ceres on 1999-12-18

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