Subtle Knife & Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman

Before I plunge into expressing my views about these books it’s just fair to give a small summary regarding the story [for the sake of continuity to the previous post if not anything else].

So in the previous book a doorway had opened into another world [Cittagazee] and Lyra had gone through it. Will, a 12 year intrepid boy is on the run and through a window between his world and another, finds refuge in the latter. Cittagazee is full of specters, some transparent creatures visible only to adults and which suck life out of adults rendering them alive but still lifeless. So anyway, Lyra and Will become best of friends, get hold of Subtle knife, which is a very unique knife that can cut anything, even windows between different worlds. They are in search of Will’s father, in course of which they meet some witches, who are keeping them safe and helping them reach Lord Asriel. Lord Asriel meanwhile is assembling the biggest army to fight Almighty or Creator. Whatever!!

The Church are also in search of Lyra and Will, cuz it is fated that Lyra will be tempted like Eve and her decision will result in a world of sin. So they want to kill her for greater cause. Eventually Lyra is kidnapped by her mom Mrs Coulter, who wants to keep her safe from church, but Will manages to free her with the help of angels. Lyra gets some notion that she has to go to the world of dead and meet and apologize to her friend. So off they go there and meanwhile Mrs Coulter and Lord Asriel fight the church and Almighty [who happened to be some powerful angel], so that Lyra and Will can live a fulfilling life.

After the great war is over and things are returning to normalcy, Lyra and Will fall in love but they can’t live together cuz they have to return to their respective worlds and cannot live in each other’s worlds. Also all the windows to the different worlds have to be closed and subtle knife has to be destroyed so that no more specters are born and nature's balance is not lost. So in effect Lyra and Will can’t meet each other ever and they make the choice and go about living in their respective worlds. End of story. Phew!!

Believe me it was such a boring story. I mean even if it is a purely imaginative and fictional story, there should be something interesting in it, some interesting characters, and interesting plots. But this trilogy had nothing. Subtle knife was still okay, but the third part was just too much to take. The way author started, building the story’s characters and plots was still fine, but somewhere in between the author lost it and probably finished writing the remaining part just for the sake of completion. I also went about reading the entire thing just for the sake of completing it. But this trilogy has been a sheer waste of time and money [sob].