Julian's review
The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3) by Philip Pullman
By far the weakest in the trilogy and just generally a crappy book. What happened, Philip Pullman?? After the first two books, which are pretty good YA fantasy with decent characterization and fascinating plot, the last book just goes to shit. The kids start acting and talking like miniature adults, EVERYONE loves them and does whatever they need, the "danger" they are in never feels urgent because they've become so damn infallible, and even the VILLAINS find love in their hearts and basically martyr themselves in the service of THE INFALLIBLE CHILDREN. Blah. I only finished because I wanted to know what happened, but it just got really stupidly sickeningly sappy and sweet. One of the most annoying things was that a human character met a basically alien population with PERFECT UNDERSTANDING AND COURTESY FROM AND TOWARDS BOTH THE HUMAN AND THE ALIENS. NO CONFLICT. WTF.
yeah, I agree with you. This book was a bad ending to a promising series. And its ending for me was the worst of it all! They give up so quickly after having found a way to do what they wanted over and over again without fail. What's one more lifetime of an open hole when they have just closed all the rest? I mean really. The whole tome is full of such silliness.
The "no more holes between worlds" thing really, really bothered me. It just doesn't make sense! Spectors are created when the hole is *made*, and Will and Lyra both intend to devote their lives to replenishing the Dust, so why *not* leave one more window open? They're already leaving one (to the Land of the Dead) open--so why not two? It really felt like Pullman was trying to create conflict to distract the reader from his inability to write romance.
Amen! This book was a mess - I can't wait to see how they try to make a movie out of it.
