I had never heard of Phillip Pullman before the PR campaign behind The Golden Compass had begun. The Atheist blogosphere had jumped up and started to write more about Pullman and this trilogy and it intrigued me.

I’m not a huge fantasy fan. I’m a big YA fan and it intrigued me that His Dark Materials trilogy was written for the purpose to be a counter to the Chronicles of Narnia. So off to the book store I went and picked up the tenth anniversary editions that had just been published in hardcover.

I read through The Golden Compass and enjoyed it. You can tell that it is the introduction to a larger story since most of the novel sets up the coming conflict and establishes the characters and themes that run through the trilogy. I am now reading The Subtle Knife which brings in parallel universes and more characters.

There are moments of brilliant writing. And there are moments of muddled writing. But the brilliance far outshines any hiccups in his style. His characters aren’t as well rounded as I would have expected. But unlike cardboard archtypes in similar novels, his characters have some depth and make decisions contrary to what you would expect at times.

I think I’m going to wait about three months, let the hype die down, and see if I can pick up some UK first editions of these books. Right now I suspect they are a bit overpriced to take advantage of the market. And it looks like the movie was a financial disaster and it would be a long shot that any studio would risk more money on the sequel. So I see the first edition prices decreasing in about three months with a slight up tick when the DVD is released. But not much of one.