What other fantasy books do YOU read?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I've finished a trilogy called His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, which is made up of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. It's intriguing to read if only because of its philosophy about existence. I got the books from my sister who liked them because of the adventure. And my mother, who read the first one, liked it because of the complexity and the language.

I love this trilogy to bits. Pullman is one of my very favourite writers.

Now, where do you want to begin with discussing these? They have a fan forums just like this one, there's so much to talk about and I've got a number of books about them too. I even went to find Lyra's Bench in Oxford Botanical Gardens. There's so much to delve into - Blake, Milton, the Bible, the science and physics etc.

The first one is called Northern Lights in the UK, incidentally, so if I ever refer to that then I'm not talking about a completely different book!

[Galadriel55]

The thing I forgot to include in my previous post is the number of references to history, various mythology (and mythology that is evidently made up, as I can't find a parallel), linguistics, and just the breadth of it all. Man, the trilogy is vast in its cultural aspects! And the other things - as you say, Lal, there is just so much to delve into!

And when I read the first book, I thought it was full of intrigue, philosophy, and complexity. When I read the second, I realised that the first was just a little warm up. It's just mind-blowing!