Pros: Great characters, complex plot, good writing
Cons: Must read The Golden Compass first; must read The Amber Spyglass after
The Bottom Line: A great read for everyone who likes fantasy, or questioning dogmas, or plain good writing with interesting plot and complex characters.
angel011's Full Review: Philip Pullman - The Subtle Knife
Warning : if you haven't read Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass (book one of His Dark Materials trilogy) you might want to skip this review, as it contains some spoilers for the first book. Also, I'll be so unkind to assume you've either read The Golden Compass or at least have some idea what's it about, since I have no wish to retell it here. In my defense, it's with a good reason: you can't read the book two before you had read the book one. Not in this case. If you try to do it, you won't have a clue what's going on and who's who.
The Subtle Knife is the sequel to The Golden Compass. Unlike most sequels, it didn't disappoint me in any way. The story is as good as the story of book one, and the characters aren't any worse, either. It ends with a cliffhanger, though, even stronger than the one in the first book, so you better buy the third book, The Amber Spyglass, before you start reading this one.
The Golden Compass ends with Lyra and Pantalaimon walking into another world. The Subtle Knife, though, doesn't start with Lyra, or any other character we've met in The Golden Compass. It starts with Will Parry.
Will is an intelligent twelve-year-old boy from our world. He's got a problem, though. He's living with his mom - his dad had disappeared when Will was a baby - and his mom is delusional, or at least that's what it looks like. While younger, Will thought his mom was seeing things which just weren't there; being older and more observant, he realizes there is some very sound system in his mom's madness, and assumes she's seeing something real, something no one else can see.
He has another problem. While trying to protect his mother, he accidentally kills a man (don't worry, this happens at the beginning, so I'm not giving too much away). The result is, he must find a safe place for his mom, then escape from people who are trying to catch him, then try to find out whatever happened to his father, since that seems to be the key to both the attack and his mother's condition.
While doing all this, he follows a cat into something strange (looks like a passage to somewhere else), and ends up in a very different - and dangerous - world. It's not a coincidence it's a cat he follows, but you'll find the reason for that in the book three. There are no coincidences in His Dark Materials trilogy.
You can guess whom he meets in that world. It turns out Lyra and Will make a very good team, and learn a lot from each other.
Want to know what happened next? A lot, actually - this is an action-packed book - but you'll have to read the book to find out. You'll meet many characters from book one (Mrs. Coulter, Lee Scoresby, the witches�), but also some new ones, as well a character who's both old and new�you'll see. Also, like the book one, this is not a story about a few people; it is about destinies of many worlds. All the worlds. And the key to those destinies are mostly Lyra and Will, though many other characters are important, too. Everyone is still trying to find out the ultimate truth, each for their own reasons; though some clues are given, the final answers are in The Amber Spyglass.
Just as in The Golden Compass, it's hard to tell for some characters whether they're ultimately good or evil - even if they're angels, or God himself. Whatever they truly are, all the characters are complex and interesting; there's not a single one-sided character in The Subtle Knife. The plot gets more and more complex too, as the more characters get involved.
As for recommendations, this, like The Golden Compass, is not just a book for children. I'd say that kids old enough to read Harry Potter series are old enough for His Dark Materials, too. However, if you can't stand to see likable characters die, or do not want to question dogmas of the Church (whichever church you go to), you may find this book too disturbing. If you enjoy fantasy, or books which question dogmas, or rich plot and wonderful, complex characters, or all of the above, you'll love The Subtle Knife.
In this stunning sequel to The Golden Compass, the intrepid Lyra finds herself in a shimmering, haunted otherworld, Cittagazze, where soul-eating Spec...More at Audible.com
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