Apparently some visitors of this site still do not know His Dark Materials. Unfortunately, HDM is no story that can be summed up in a few words without spoiling the many surprises Philip Pullman has built into the story.
However, the following short introduction should give new readers an idea of what to expect and why to buy the books at once.
Basically the first book is the story of a little girl, Lyra, having lost both her parents in a zeppelin crash and living in Oxford, Brytain at Jordan College, the Master of Jordan being kind of her godfather. Well, the story is kicked off the moment when children of poor people start disappearing all over Brytain. One day Lyra's best friend, the kitchen boy Roger is kidnapped, too.
Lyra and her dæmon Pantalaimon decide to rescue him from the gobblers.
But before she has a chance to follow Roger's traces she is invited to be the personal assistant of the charming Mrs Coulter whose dæmon is a golden monkey and is unable to resist. She comes to London where she gets to know the glamourous life of the rich and what it's like to behave as a real, modern woman, how to charm people and how to say “no” without offending anybody.
But soon her thirst of adventure makes her decide to flee all this and to go to the North to rescue Roger as well as her uncle, the powerful and impressive Lord Asriel. She nearly gets kidnapped herself but is saved by some Gyptians. The Gyptians are a gipsy boat people who live on the channels and junctions of Brytain. They take her to the fens, the head quarter of the Western Gyptians in East Anglia to take part in the official meeting with the King of the Western Gyptians, John Faa.
The Gyptians, having lost many children to the gobblers, decide to initiate a rescue party which is to go to the North and rescue the children from where they are kept, a hideous experimental station. Lyra comes with them, her skill in reading the alethimeter, a truth teller, being very valuable for the Gyptians.
And here the big adventure begins, involving witches flying on cloud pine branches, speaking armoured bears, the always cruel guard sent by the Church to fight the Gyptians and of course the mysterious aurora borealis, also called the Northern Light through which you can see the outlines of another universe.
Sounds weird huh? It is! One of the strongest points of the books is that the reader constantly discovers new facts and wonders. And the main character, Lyra, is simply adorable. Never have I read a book with such a cool character in it. Lyra seems so brave, clever, but at the same time she is an "ordinary repellent brat with dirty fingernails" and speaking a dirty Oxford slang. She is just incredibly real and better than in any other book the reader is transferred into her body and thoughts!
The second and third books introduce new perspecives to the whole story and the third book ultimately makes the "small adventure" an epic war between Good and Evil.
One small PS: don't wonder about words that seem utterly weird in this synopsis, such as “dæmon”, “Brytain” or “gobbler”. Unfortunately, they cannot be explained. One has to read the books to understand. No more to say.
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