Skyggernes kniv: Det gyldne kompas 2

I liked most of this book better than the first one, mostly because it focuses on a new character, Will, who I like much better than Lyra. Lyra and Will dash between worlds trying to collect allies and information about Dust. As before, the writing style is uneven--very believable and engaging when speaking about the children's feelings, less so when dealing with adults or dialog. This book would recieve more stars from me if the ending wasn't so sloppy, rushed and needlessly bloody. It felt like Pulman suddenly realized he needed to ramp up the tension and create a cliffhanger, so he basically killed off every character and support he could think of. Violent shocks in a children's book can work very well, but this just felt artificial and calculated.

I liked this less than the first book, but I still thought it was brilliant.

I read the first book months ago and when I found this book at a dollar store for 50 cents I had to buy this one also. The first one was just like I expected it to be; but this one is really deep for a children's book. In this book you find out the true plot of the series. Very controversal. But it wasn't that bad of a book.

Excellent story, very engaging. Even better than the first in the series (The Golden Compass).

This series is definitely dark. There are a lot of dark themes weaved into the plot which twists and turns unrelentingly. I can see how the book is unsettling to some people, much more than The Golden Compass. I'm sure my imagination is only scratching the surface of where the next book will end up.

In the second book of His Dark Materials trilogy, we meet Will Parry, who commits a crime and escapes into another world, where he meets Lyra Belacqua. Lyra followed her father, Lord Asrial, to this world at the end of the first book. The plot centers around a search for Will’s father and the titular “subtle knife” that can cut through to other worlds. Lyra continues her search for “Dust,” and its nature is clarified.

This book, like the first, is very creative. We meet a host of ethereal characters, including angels, witches, spectres, and dæmons. As a second book in a trilogy, this one furthers the original plot and sets up the finale. The character development takes a hit with the addition of Will, who steals the spotlight from Lyra, at least initially. He is a bit stereotypical, but Lyra remains feisty and courageous, and is really a wonderfully drawn character.

This second book is darker in tone than the first. It might be too scary for young children. I listened to the audio book, read by the author and a full cast. The audio version is like listening to a play. As with the first book, it enhances the experience and I highly recommend it.

The second volume of His Dark Materials, and continues the fun of the first volume.Designated by some as teen fiction, the key protagonists are 12 years old (or thereabouts). The book still works well for adult readers and I am enjoying the ride. One sub-plot is the fight against an evil establishment church - not something you would expect in a book for younger readers, but something that raises no problems for me.

I loved the book, and for a full cast (of which I'm not at all fond), this is well made. I absolutely hated the OVER LOUD music they put between chapters, which always caught me by surprise and made my eardrums bleed.

Looses a bit of the charm from the original since it expands the story and takes us other places that I don't find so enchanting. Pullman's worldview also shines through a lot more which can get in your face at times but not enough to stop me from wondering what Lyra will get up to next. The end is a killer cliffhanger though, not as self contained as the original and it's practically forcing me to read the (hopefully) last book.

I came to this not long after seeing the BBC (HBO) television adaptation, and so my own visualisation of the action of the novel was rather influenced by that; not that it spoilt the experience for me. Indeed, there are sufficient differences between the book and series to hold my interest, in terms of seeing what the tv show missed out and how various plot points were advanced for reasons of dramatic timing.Of the novel itself, I was interested to see that it avoids a lot of "middle book syndrome" through throwing a few upsets into the plot. I continue to feel Lyra to be far more feral in the book than she is depicted in the series; and there's a verbal tic that Pullman keeps on using - characters say "en't" for "isn't" - that seems to be usage from Lyra's world rather than just an affectation of hers, as we hear it from Asriel's servant as well. It still brings to mind Richmal Compton and "Just William" for me, though.The relationship between Will and Lyra deepens quite quickly over the course of the book. Given that Pullman writes these as pre-adolescents, and pitches them into quite life-threatening situations, this shouldn't really be a surprise, and the subject of relationships is handled quite sensitively. Nonetheless, there is an undercurrent of sexuality implicit in the relationship, given that in these novels, characters' daemons fix their form at puberty, and it is understood that Lyra's daemon, Pantalaimon, is quite aware that this time is approaching. In my case, though, this theme was influenced by my visualisation based on the television series, where the actors depicting Will and Lyra are older than their description in the novel. Young actors usually act down in age anyway, but still, that visualisation may have affected my reading.The world-building isn't so intricate, as much of the action takes place in our world or the world of Cittagazze. However, the edition I have includes some additional material that Pullman prepared in around 2005 regarding John Parry's expedition. This I found interesting, though it raised something of a question. We now find that the 'Tartar' troops that the Magisterium has access to are from the Imperial Russian Guard (in their universe). This to me implies that in that world, there was no split in the early church that led to the founding of the Orthodox churches, otherwise why would the Imperial Russian Crown be lending out its forces to Rome? Still, given Pullman's anti-clericalism, which becomes more pronounced in this volume, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this. I was also pleased to see that there is a good reason why the witches mostly appear to have Finnish names.With Lyra's search for more knowledge of Dust bringing her into our world, she comes into contact with scientists, and more particularly with a physicist at "our" Oxford University who is looking into the properties of dark matter. Pullman draws a connection between dark matter and Dust, though quite quickly he introduces more of the properties of Dust from the first novel, which cause the physicist some considerable intellectual distress, as Pullman's Dust possesses some degree of sentience. It was roughly at this point that I began to question whether this novel was science fiction or fantasy; certainly, attributing sentience to dark matter places the book firmly in the fantasy category (let alone the presence of daemons, witches and angels), but the reaction of the human characters to the physical manifestations of the effects of the magical apparatus - Dust, the aleithiometer, the Subtle Knife and the windows between the worlds - seems far more grounded in rationality. I suspect that the author himself would reject such labels anyway.So: a worthwhile extension of the story begun in 'Northern Lights' that deepens the story. We learn more about Lord Asriel's plans, though this signals a shift to a wider canvas in the final volume. But overall, the quality - though nothing so astonishing for the seasoned reader of the fantastic - is maintained.

This was not at all what I was expecting from a sequel to The Golden Compass. The end of the first book in the trilogy pulls the rug out from under the reader, revealing that Lyra’s father is just as dangerous as her mother, if only with different methods and conflicting alliances.

The second book resets the playing field when we meet Will Parry, who comes from a world much like our own and who lives in modern times, not the early part of the Twentieth Century like you might imagine from Lyra’s version of Oxford.

The Subtle Knife is deeper and weirder, and much more disturbing than the first book. Lyra and Will discover a third world that serves as a way station between their respective worlds, but it has fallen into disrepair and been overrun with invisible specters who can suck the life out of an adult in seconds.

Will has to make some hard choices, and they encounter new and more terrifying dangers. We also start to get glimpses of Lord Asriel’s grand plan, and it is unclear what to root for other than Lyra and Will living to fight another day.

The book ends on a cliffhanger that must have been maddening back when it was first published. On to the final book in the trilogy!

The adventure continues, this is subtly slightly more adult, more SF and less straight fantasy than Northern Lights. Great stuff and I am particularly taken with the concept of daemons shared by the people of Lyra's world.

I finished the book last night and I still don't know what to say. I liked it. I liked a lot. But I feel that it didn't happen a lot in the story and like... its okay, is the middle book, is set up for all the stuff that's going to happen in the third. But still

I like Will, he's cute and I want to hug him. I like that he's the user of the subtle knife but I hope that he'll be more developed in the next one. I want to see him use the knife more and understand it more and more. I felt bad for him when he found his dad but didn't know it was him until he died.

Lyra is still the same. She didn't grow much but I like that she learned to control (a little) her impulsions of just do whatever she wants.

The one thing that really affect me was... LEE SCORESBY. WHY. God, I haven't even realize that I liked him so much until that last battle when I started to feel scare for him. Jesus, I think only when I read that chapter I realized that he was my favourite character lol but it's okay, I'll get over his dead... maybe...

I'm curious about the third book, if they would succeed, what the hell is going to happen and if Will will get a daimonion. I'm also curious of knowing what mine would be so I'll look for a test or something (?)

Another wonderful audiobook by Randome house audiobook. Please listen to this novel (after the first one) as soon as you can.


Philip Pullman as the narrator
Joanna Wyatt as Lyra,
Stephen Webb as Will,
Julian Glover ad Stanislaus Grumman,
Stephen Thorne as Sir Charles Latrom and Thorold,
Paul Panting as Pantalaimon,
Ruth Coppe as Ruth A.,
Douglas Blackwell as Jaucomo Paradisi
Alison Dowling as Mrs. Coulter,
Sue Sherridon as Serafina Pekkala,
Garrick Hagen as Lee Scoresby
Liza Ross as Stelmaria
Tim Bentink as Iorkin Lorenze,
Kate Locke was Dr. Mary Malone
Haywood Morris as Frau Pauvel and Oliver Paine
Theresa Gallagher as Laina Felt and Utica Minor
Gordon Reed as the Archeologist and Inspector Walters,
Stephen Gripe as Martin Macelias,
Liza Ross As Hester and Mrs Parry,
Anne Rosenfeld as the tortured witch and Mrs Cooper,
Andrew Branch was Kaisa and Alan Perkins,
William Roberts as Sam Cancino and Umak,
Nigel Carringron as the Angel,
Emma Dinverno as Angelica,
Arthur Mitchell as Paulo,
Thomas Grundy, Anna Colon, Andrew Lamont, Fiona Lamont.

“All the other roles were played by members of the cast.”

**any misspellings are my own, as I couldn’t find a full listing of the cast online anywhere. So I had to transpose this list myself.**

Didn't like it quite as much as the first. Felt like there was more philosophy and exposition. The book didn't move as quickly as the first book.

Hopefully the third book reveals that all the 'chance' encounters and perfect timing are part of some sort of world spanning coincidence engine. I'm not sure the third book can bring this in for a landing.

Building upon Northern Lights, this novel successfully develops the story of Lyra, creating more complex fictional worlds and introducing interesting new characters, whilst maintaining the overall story arc.Difficult moral decisions are taken, there is violence, pain and death, which all work as integral to the story.It also becomes clear that the heroes are in a fight against organised religion, but this is subsumed within the storytelling.A good read.

I suffered my way through this trilogy as it was "The greatest thing" and concluded that it was only deemed such as the Literati never deign to read Sci-Fi and so thought he dreamt up all the stuff he just re-hashed.

The second book in the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Subtle Knife starts off on our world, with Will trying to find a place to keep his mother safe. Eventually Will meets up with Lyra, and learns that his destiny is linked with hers. They travel back and forth between his world and another parallel world, running from enemies everywhere. It ends in a cliffhanger, and I'm definitely interested in what happens to Will and Lyra. Knowing this has been marketed to a YA audience, I was a bit surprised with some of the disturbing imagery and plot turns.

The second part of His Dark Materials introduces multiple universes, and Will, a boy from our world. He enters an alternate universe by accident and meets Lyra, and on the run from various enemies, they discover that their fates are intertwined. Here, Pullman's inspiration "Paradise Lost" becomes more obvious as the worlds are preparing for a war either for or against 'The Authority'. It has lots of action and deaths of important characters. Looking forward to the final book to see how it is all resolved.

I really like these! Especially, of course, the abundance of animals/daemons (Will and his love of cats! So adorable!). Can't wait to read the third one. Wish I had known about these when they came out; I would've loved them when I was in my teens.

I hear the movie of the first book sucks, so I won't be seeing it, but I think these books would make a really excellent Hayao Miyazaki anime. It's got the strong female protagonist, lots of cute animals, and just... the feel of a lot of his stories. Compare these books to, say, Nausicaa or Princess Mononoke.

In The Golden Compass Pullman introduced his readers to the possibility of more than one universe. He hinted there were actually three - the one we were in currently, a completely different universe and a third being a combination of the two. In The Subtle Knife we experience those different worlds first hand as Lyra and her new friend, Will Parry, move between them to escape their enemies. In The Golden Compass readers were also introduced to daemons. Now, we learn that people without daemons are without free will. They lack fear and imagination so they make perfect soldiers for the evil Mrs. Coulter. In addition to Mrs. Coulter, the otherworld of Cittagazze hides other enemies. Soul-eating Specters haunt the streets while children run wild without daemons or parents and rule Lord-of-the-Flies style. As Lyra and Will travel from world to world they discover the Subtle Knife, a blade that can cut through anything. It's power has yet to be fully understood

In book 2 His Dark Materials we meet 12 yr old Will who cares for his unwell mother and whose father,who was an explorer, disappeared when he was a baby. Now someone was after them, and when Will fears he may have killed the intruder he leaves his mother in the care of his teacher and goes in search of his father. While fleeing he stumbles across an opening into another universe and it is here he finds Lyra and is granted the gift of the subtle knife. Together they go looking for Wills father and Lyra's father Lord Asrial . They find they have a common link in the search for the meaning of Dust. More adventures while trying to stay away from people who are trying to harm them. Good reading.

I was surprised how Kassie kept interested. She thinks the knife itself is cool.

I'm rereading this amazing series and enjoying it more the second time around. Like the title, there are some subtle themes running through this series -- religion, good vs. evil and free choice. The audiobook is especially well done and very fun. Although there are so many amazing YA fantasy series, this one is special and should not be missed. Definitely one that will also appeal to adults.

I finally decided that if I were going to read the rest of the trilogy, I should really do so before I forgot everything about the first book. (I am normally very resistant to series.) Only to be dropped right into a new world with new rules. It was a little frustrating for a bit, wanting a continuation of the first story, having nearly all the trappings of the first book stripped away and needing time to invest in the new characters and stories. For a while I didn't like this book nearly as much as the first one, but over time it won me over. I enjoyed getting to read more about the witches, and about Lee. The knife itself is fascinating.I think if I were rating this book as a stand-alone, the rating would be much lower, but it maintained enough momentum to plunge me right into the next one, which I did.

Volume 2 of this series is a pleasant read. The writing is good, although the characters are a bit stilted and predictable. This volume, especially towards the ends, may begin to merit the claim that it's anti-Christian. I say "may" as it's still a fantasy novel, set in a fantasy universe, with some connection to a universe that may be our world. We'll have to see what happens in the final volume to really say.

I'm very glad I'm listening to this, instead of reading it. I don't think it would really hold me attention if I couldn't do something else with my hands.

The series is like a mirror twin of the Chronicles of Narnia, although I seem to recall Mr. Lewis's writing was a bit more engaging. I am interesting in the world building Mr. Pullman's done here, and exactly what he may end up saying about humanity and religion.

And is it just me, or does Lee Scoresby seem a lot like Quincey Morris, from Dracula?

Still love this series!

Not as good as he 1st one.

Strange men have been harassing Will Parry's mother for years about his missing father, even going so far as to break into their house searching for documents! Will knows he must keep his mother safe entrusts her care with a friend. Then Will flees from the men and begins a frantic quest to find his father. Just as he's getting started Will stumbles through an unseen window and into another world inhabited only by wild children telling stories of "specters" that have chased away all the adults. It is here that Will meets a young girl named Lyra Silvertongue. Quickly it becomes apparent that her and Will's meeting is no accident and that both their fates will be tied to something called the Subtle Knife.The Subtle Knife is the second in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. It felt a little like starting over with a whole new protagonist and the story being told primarily from Will's point of view. Lyra and Pan are definitely important and have some great moments. This is just more Will's story than Lyra's. Similar to the first book it wasn't until about half way through again that I felt really engaged in their adventure.I ended up liking Will & Lyra as a team. Their introduction was funny and awkward, just as it should be. Once they grow to trust each other Will provides a good balance to Lyra and helps her character grow into a more mature direction. I found it interesting when Pan takes it upon himself to comfort Will in his time of need because will didn't have his own daemon even though this is something strictly not done. Makes me wish I had my own daemon even more.The religious overtones are starting to show and it sticks out badly from what is otherwise fast paced, if a bit dark, adventure. I'm still not sure I have made the correct connection between Dust, the specters and consciousness. Maybe I'm overthinking it? Hopefully it becomes clearer in the third book. It also felt kind of weird to suddenly throw angels into the mix along with the Adam/Eve myth and what appears to be a literal attack on The Authority (aka God). I'm definitely getting an idea as to why this series caused so much controversy. The book ends on quite a cliff hanger that is obviously a set up for the final book. I feel invested enough at this point that I want to see how it all ends.