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A small, vivacious 11-year Lyra Belacqua is a resident of Jordan College, Oxford. But it is an Oxford set in a universe parallel to our own. It is a different world, where a certain kind of magic works and where the unexplainable is nothing out of the ordinary. It is a universe where every human being is accompanied by his dæmon…an embodiment of the individual’s soul. An animal form, it constantly shape-shifts (in the case of a child) which best represents the person’s current frame of mind.
Lyra, with her beloved dæmon Pantalaimon, is the quintessential wild-child. She believes that her parents were killed in an airship crash. Consequently she is reared by the scholars and residents of Jordan College. Her life is a mad whirl of inconsistent formal studies…running amok on the vast limitless grounds of Oxford, unearthing it’s hidden secrets…picking fights with the collegiates and the rough and hardy townspeople, called Gyptians. The one man she respects and fears in equal measures is her uncle, the powerful and saturnine Lord Asriel.
Her unending curiosity leads her to overhear a conversation between Lord Asriel and the resident scholars that will soon tumble her into a whirlpool of adventure, chaos and destruction. When her close friend, Roger the kitchen-boy goes missing (believed to be captured by a fiendish group called the Gobblers) Lyra vows to find him.
On the eve of her departure she is given a strange instrument.....an Alethiometer. A rare and painfully-intricate device, it turns out to be much more than just an ordinary compass. It is infact a truth-measurer and goes on to be a strong and worthy aid to a child on a seemingly impossible mission.
Her subsequent findings reveal that her search will end in the bleak and bitingly-cold North. Along the treacherous journey she encounters unique and multi-faceted characters….the deceptively charming Mrs.Coulter, the Gyptian chief, John Faa….wise and caring Farder Coram, the wise and eternally young witch Serafina Pekkala and the magnificent armored bear, Iorek Byrnison.
But the true pièce de résistance is the unique concept of DUST..... and it’s sinister and intriguing connection with theological concepts. When brilliant minds settle down to unravel nature’s mysteries, put their own twisted interpretations to religious doctrines and meddle with destiny……chaos reigns and supreme.
This is the first in a trilogy (HIS DARK MATERIALS) and it is a must-read for all who have savoured the mystical world’s of Narnia, Middle-Earth and Hogwarts.
