Exploring Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials: An Unauthorized Adventure Through The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass [Kindle Edition]

Lois H. Gresh (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

His Dark Materials is one of the most popular, award-winning fantasies of all time, a bestselling trilogy hailed as "a modern classic" by The New York Times. 
 
Now, for the first time ever, Lois H. Gresh helps young readers examine Pullman's intricate universe with Exploring His Dark Materials, the ultimate companion guide. Gresh's fun, interactive book explores the complex science, religion, and fantastic elements of His Dark Materials in a way that's both informative and fun for younger readers.  Exploring His Dark Materials is filled with sidebars, history, facts and an in-depth analysis of the books, answering questions like:
*What are daemons?
*Why is dust important to the series?
* Is Dark Material real and how does it relate to our universe?
* What are the origins of ghosts and shapeshifters?
*And much more!
 
Exploring His Dark Materials is a thrilling and essential guide for young adults to help them explore this fantastic and challenging fantasy world.

About the Author

LOIS H. GRESH is the author of eighteen books, including The Truth behind a Series of Unfortunate Events and The Ultimate Unauthorized Eragon Guide. She lives in upstate New York.
 

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 466 KB
• Print Length: 224 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 031234743X
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1 edition (October 30, 2007)
• Sold by: Macmillan
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000V770HS
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #272,639 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #76 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Advice & How-to > Parenting & Families > Literature Guides

More About the Author

LOIS GRESH is the New York Times Best-Selling Author (6 times), Publishers Weekly Best-Selling Paperback Author, and Publishers Weekly Best-Selling Paperback Children's Author of 28 books and 45 short stories. Her books have been published in approximately 20 languages. Current books are THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION (Nov 2011), critically acclaimed dark short story collection ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS (2011), and thriller TERROR BY NUMBERS (2012). She's also editor of DARK FUSIONS (2012) and ARKHAM NIGHTMARES (2013). Lois has received Bram Stoker Award, Nebula Award, Theodore Sturgeon Award, and International Horror Guild Award nominations for her work.

Blog: http://loisgresh.blogspot.com/
Web: http://www.loisgresh.com
Twitter: @lois_gresh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A nicely done exploration of the trillogy's concepts and chararcters, December 25, 2007

By 

Max Johnson "Neo-Whiteheadian Doctoral Student" (Claremont, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Exploring Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials: An Unauthorized Adventure Through The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass (Paperback)

I wrote this mainly to balance out the rating of the previous (first) reviewer, who doesn't seem to realize that reviewing Gersh's book on its own merits and one's personal feelings about Pullman's "His Dark Materials" Trillogy are NOT the same thing!! That in mind, Gersh's book is an extremely entertaining and informative exploration of many of the major concepts ("Dust," "Daemons") and Character Types ("Witches")found in the books, in historical, folkloric, scientific, and theological perspective. It is nice suplementary reading for lovers of the trillogy of all ages.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ridiculous, January 18, 2011

By 

Anne Bonny - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Exploring Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials: An Unauthorized Adventure Through The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass (Paperback)

Let me start by saying I have not read this book cover to cover, but it's also not that kind of book. It's organized into chapters about specific aspects of HDM, allowing you to read the chapters relevant to your own interests or studies.

I have skimmed a few chapters, and overall the language and ideas are overly simplistic and geared toward young readers in a rather patronizing way.

I read the chapter on witches the whole way through, as it is the most pertinent to my thesis and this is the only source I've found so far that devotes a whole chapter to Pullman's witches.

Gresh's handling of actual witches is preposterous. A quick glance at the three-source biography for the chapter (two of which I'm pretty sure are essays, and one of which is an encyclopedia with no specific articles mentioned or anything) helps explain this, but it's still thoroughly disturbing. She mixes myths in with the truth, often in a way that begins with "Christians/witch hunters believed..." but by the end of the passage has taken on a tone of factuality. She blatantly insults modern witches, calling witchcraft a pseudo-religion and saying she has no idea why anyone would want this label but she suspects it makes girls feel cool to pretend they have supernatural powers. There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don't know where to begin.

She also grasps at straws a lot, using Gaia as a primary connection between Pullman's witches and actual witchcraft, even though Gaia is not explicitly part of either so much as a concept that both HDM and her brief reading about the history of witches seemed to remind her of. Later, she assumes Pullman's witches cast magical circles simply because she has found other similarities with "real" witches (quotation marks hers, not mine). Most of the points and conclusions she makes are completely unfounded, or else based in misinformation, stereotypes or outrageous myths (she actually says modern witches become invisible, shape shift, use toads and hares, etc.) Thus, even if you come well-equipped with a background of accurate information on the subject, it's basically impossible to take anything new away from her writing because less than half of it is based on conclusive evidence or arguable links between Pullman's and actual witches.

You would be much better off reading something like Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon and making your own connections to the witches in HDM; it would take less effort than trying to find anything of value on the subject here.