Book Review: The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

Synopsis: In the third book of the His Dark Materials trilogy, Will and Lyra join forces again to save the entire multiverse.

First things first, now that I've completed this book, I can think about the series as a whole. Probably the best way to see it would be to consider each of the three books as an act in a single larger story. That solves a lot of the pacing/plotline problems of the previous books (except that each book should ideally stand alone by plot). This book has the second part of act 2 and act 3.

I came into this book with high hopes. The reviews I've read about the greatness of the series all talk about the series itself, not individual books. So I'd hoped this book would pull the rest together and solve my problems. I don't like going around maundering that the emperor isn't wearing clothes. It makes most people think you're either stupid or bad at your job. But when you see His Eminence wandering down the street like a jaybird, you can't just go along with the crowd that insists he's dressed (that's actually the point Pullman is trying to make in this series).

Unfortunately, The Amber Spyglass didn't live up to my hopes. It has the same dragging pace as the other books. That pace finally picks up once Will rescues Lyra and they embark on their quest to destroy death. As I think back now, having finished the book less than 2 hours ago, I can't really think of anything groundbreaking or even new in this book. The closest thing are the Mulefas, think motorcycle-tapirs, and their tallship-swan enemies, but I had such a hard time suspending disbelief at the entire world they inhabited (it wouldn't have been so bad if either Pullman didn't keep insisting they had evolved that way or if I hadn't studied evolution, thermodynamics, or Occam's Razor, as much as I have) that they left me with a bitter taste.

That said, it's a rare series where the final book has a worse case of worldbuilder's disease than the preceeding ones. But that was one of the major problems this book had. Once more, the actual theological implications (God's evil, not actually a god, and needs killin') doesn't bother me except that the forces of said evil god are so patently evil that only the utterly evil or utterly stupid would be on that side (yes, I realize that's a standard atheistic argument, but that actually makes it worse, being unoriginal). And that leads me to my other problems with the agenda: The arguments are terribly prosaic, and the agenda itself often gets in the way of the story.

On a somewhat ironic sidenote, you'd think a story about killing God would refrain from deus ex machina. And yet god crawls out of the machine several times, once in the literal sense of an angel appearing. All it was missing was the crane.

I could go on and on about what was wrong with the story, but the vast majority falls under the cover that I don't ask for much from a story, but internal consistancy is one of them. That, and I ask for the protagonist to act. And I ask for the plot to have some kind of direction. And I ask for the resolution to make some kind of sense.

The denouement of the book (and series) is heartbreaking for the first several pages. And had Pullman ended there, it might have left me with such a powerful emotion that my retrospect on the entire series would be colored by it. But the ending passed through heartbreaking to melodramatic and on into annoying. It's a simple matter of too much of a good thing. As it is, I like the series more for it,

One final note, I always heard that the British were averse to violence. And I thought these books were targeted at kids. But there's some seriously graphic descriptions in here. A reader of Robert Jordan would be familiar with the battle of Dumai's Wells, where hundreds of people are turned into sausage with magic. While that's surely messier than anything that happens in this book, there aren't any lovingly crafted descriptions of sinew, blood, and guts spattering and misting from wounds.

So there it is. The entire His Dark Materials trilogy. I wouldn't say it's terrible. I wouldn't say it's good either. It's a story that could probably have been better told with simplification (The vast majority of what happens in all three books is episodic, not impacting the overall plot much at all.), being cut down to a single book with a tight plot and less browbeating. I think I'd actually really like a book like that.