Book Overview #17: His Dark Materials

It was recently announced that there will be another trilogy of His Dark Materials, which makes it a fine opportunity to tell you what I think of it as a whole.

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The Golden Compass (or Northern Lights)

The story begins with the obligatory orphan and main heroine Lyra, saving her uncle from being poisoned. That happened in a very silly manner; sneaking in conveniently for seeing by total accident something being put in the wine in that exact moment, and immediately assuming stuff. How did she know about poisoned wines; was it such a common sight in her nation that even children knew about it? How would the murder be excused anyway? He died of a heart attack right before a very important revelation? The very people who poured the poison had no idea how to excuse it and were even relieved they failed.

The only reason this whole event was there was just so the author can establish in the laziest way possible, that religion is evil and silences all those who want to prove their world is not the only one. This will be a constant theme through the trilogy and it’s laughably bad in how the author doesn’t try in the slightest to make Christianity any more complicating than a 1 dimensional evil organization of megalomaniacs. I’m no fond of religions but I never talk about them as if they are the source of all that is evil.

So, the evil Christians kidnap innocent children and perform sinister experiments on them, because as we all know Christianity is all in favour of science, especially the immoral and dehumanizing kind. This results in Lyra joining the Gypsies, who in the story serve as a powerful rebel faction and not as a bunch of ironmongers. What follows is a very long infodump, which reveals all the backdrop stories and all the mysteries at once. Such a lazy and boring way to answer everything.

One of the revealed mysteries is her uncle being her father, and the woman she was assisting being her mother. What an unnecessary complication was that? It didn’t serve anything in the story and was following every orphan’s power fantasy of not really be orphan, that its parents are super important and really care about it.

After that, Lyra uses a magic compass that only she can use in order to find anything she likes. It’s another lazy way of instantly skipping the search for anything that is hidden and would normally take years to be found. Just like the infodump from before, the author slaps you the answer without bothering to maintain some sort of mystery or suspense.

Thus, Lyra easily saves the children from the evil Christians, and finds the armour which they stole from a talking bear. By the way, for such a powerful organization, one would think the security would be top level and the evil Christians wouldn’t perform fire drills just for the heck of it. Especially in the middle of a snowy field. The way she tricked them was laughably improbable.

After that there is another huge infodump about a magical dust that opens gates to other dimensions. Lyra and her father separate, as he goes to different dimensions so he can bring more allies to fight the armies of the evil pope and his Dark Lord, the god of the Abrahamic religions. Yes, that’s right, God exists and is evil (slow clap).

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The Subtle Knife

In the second book, Lyra goes to a parallel world where she meets Will, a boy from our world looking for his father, and almost immediately you see the romance blooming between them. She is also revealed to be the chosen one that will bring a big revolution against the evil Christians. Translation: The story lost all sense of tension since you know the outcome because of destiny, and became more about the sexual tension between teenagers. Also, more power fantasy for orphans.

So, the two of them jump over to our world by using a magical knife (hence the name of the book) that can slice through dimensions. Because the compass wasn’t hax enough in instantly offering answers, we need another plot device so they can instantly teleport where they are supposed to go. Can you imagine the author letting them slowly figure out what to do and where to go? That is unthinkable; it would make the story actually interesting.

So yeah, they find a scientist who instantly throws another huge infodump at us. Because that’s what scientists do when children they just met tell them they are from alternative dimensions. They are then taken to talking computer, that keeps infodumping what is going on, because god forbid if the author shows us the plot instead of having people talk about it.

After that, Will finds his long lost father, who (of course) immediately tells him many blah blah explanations and gets MURDERED AS SOON AS HE FINISHES. What`s wrong mr. author; he was no longer important to the plot so you finish him off just like that?

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The Amber Spyglass

In the third book, the first quarter was just people talking and talking and talking about the greatest war that will soon come. Which we will never see, since that would require the author showing us instead of telling us. The second quarter was just the daily lives of some short horned creatures and their own version of how life became sentient. Very nice fantasy-wise but otherwise useless to the plot.

In the third quarter Lyra goes to the world of the dead because in the universe of the story it is just another world anyone can go to with the power of the knife. And you thought it wasn’t broken enough already! So, she goes there to make all souls feel like rebelling and all it took was telling them this is not Heaven and God is evil. Yeah, ok; talk about being easy.

After that we see the evil pope planning to kill Lyra. His name is Father MacPhail. The author is not even trying. Is the street outside his house named Path Etic? Is the car he’s driving a Lame-ozine?

Anyways, his evil Christian plan is to use a magic bomb that can kill you no matter where in the multiverse you might be. That is a seriously broken power. So why didn’t they use it to kill her father, who has become the leader of the rebellion? Anyways, the bomb failed because obviously Lyra is the chosen one; we already know she wins at the end. More specifically she was informed in time and shaved her head. You see, the bomb was detecting the DNA from her hair and by shaving them, you can are no longer be detected. Since as we all know, DNA is limited to hair and has nothing to do with the rest of your body. The author is not even trying.

After that, they take out God’s no.2 man, by having Lyra’s mother seducing him. An easy victory for a being that is trashing armies for fun. Also, this is the end of the greatest war of all times that they were hyping up for 3 books. It lasted 10 pages and it was about a MILF seducing an angel before stabbing him in the back and then killing God, who is a frail and powerless figure that can’t even fight back. Because as we all know Dark Lords are powerless grandpas any mortal can kill with a simple knife. Talk about anti-climactic final showdowns.

The epilogue is about the author telling us it is fine to have sex with random people without being married and giving up on religions because they expect you to die a virgin. Because that is exactly what Christianity is all about and has nothing to do with love and compassion.

And that was His Dark Materials, the story of a pope named Mc Fail, a compass that tells you all you want instantly, a knife that teleports you anywhere you like, and the greatest war of all times being a MILF that seduces angels because illicit sex is fine. Can’t wait to see how the next trilogy will top that.