BOOK FEATURES:
Description:
A breathtaking epic spanning multiple worlds, His Dark
Materials follows the adventures of Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry,
two children catapulted into a life-or-death struggle to save the
future of the Cosmos.
In Northern Lights, 11-year-old Lyra
discovers dark forces at work involving kidnapped children and a
mysterious substance called ‘Dust’. With her shape-shifting daemon,
Pantalaimon, she leaves her Oxford college home and embarks on a
dangerous journey to the frozen North, aided by armoured bears,
Gyptians and a witch-queen…
The Subtle Knife sees 12-year-old
Will finding an opening into the haunted world of Cittàgazze, where
daemon-destroying Spectres roam. There he meets Lyra, and together
they acquire the most powerful weapon in all the universes – an
object many would kill to possess.
In The Amber Spyglass, a
colossal war is brewing in Heaven, and Lyra and Will have been
separated. They must find each other and journey onward – even into
the World of the Dead…
These thrilling dramatisations feature
an all-star cast, including Lulu Popplewell, Terence Stamp, Bill
Paterson, Kenneth Cranham and Adrian Scarborough.
Also
included is a bonus documentary, World Book Club, in which Philip
Pullman answers readers’ questions about Northern Lights.
Northern Lights / The Golden Compass
In Northern Lights (released in the United States and Canada
as The Golden Compass), the heroine, Lyra Belacqua, a young
girl brought up in the cloistered world of Jordan College,
Oxford, and her dæmon Pantalaimon learn of the existence of
Dust, a strange elementary particle believed by the
Magisterium to provide evidence for Original Sin. Dust appears
less attracted to the innocence of children, and this gives
rise to grisly experiments being carried out on kidnapped
children in the icy wastelands of the distant North by
Magisterium-controlled scientists. Lyra and Pantalaimon
journey to save their best friend Roger Parslow and other
kidnapped children from this peril, with the aid of the
panserbjørne (armoured bear) Iorek Byrnison, John Faa and
Farder Coram, leaders of the gyptians, the aëronaut Lee
Scoresby, and the witch Serafina Pekkala. During the trip,
Lyra discovers the identity of her parents: Lord Asriel
(ostensibly her uncle, who placed her at Jordan College and
who has a daemon in the shape of a snow leopard) and Mrs.
Coulter (who has a golden-monkey daemon). She loses any trust
she had for Mrs. Coulter after she and Pantalaimon nearly
become separated, or "cut" apart. Lyra succeeds in saving the
children from the Gobblers (the General Oblation Board). After
the children's dealings with armoured bears (Iorek returns
from exile and wins back his Svalbard kingdom by killing the
current king of the bears, who has become corrupt by wanting
to be more human than bear) and witches and success in many
arenas, Lord Asriel kills Roger in his own successful
experiment to create a bridge into another world. Lord Asriel,
followed by Lyra and Pantalaimon, journey through it
separately in search of the source of Dust, unaware that they
both mean to prevent the Magisterium from destroying it. |
The
Subtle Knife
In The Subtle Knife, Lyra journeys through the Aurora to Cittàgazze,
an otherworldly city whose denizens have discovered a clean path
between worlds at a far earlier point in time than others in the
storyline. Cittàgazze's reckless use of the technology has released
soul-eating Spectres, rendering the world incapable of transit by
post-adolescents. Here, Lyra meets Will Parry, a twelve-year-old boy
from our world who has stumbled into Cittàgazze after recently
killing a man to protect his ailing mother in an effort to locate
his long-lost father. Will becomes the bearer of the titular Subtle
Knife, a tool forged 300 years ago by Cittàgazze's scientists of the
same materials as the silver guillotine. One edge of the knife can
create portals between worlds and the other edge easily cuts through
any form of matter. After meeting with witches from Lyra's world,
they journey on. Will finds his father, who has been lost in Lyra's
world under the assumed name of Stanislaus Grumman, only to watch
him murdered almost immediately, and Lyra is kidnapped by her
mother, Mrs. Coulter, an agent of the Magisterium who has learned of
the prophecy that Lyra is to be the next Eve. Will is then
instructed by a pair of angelic lovers, Balthamos and Baruch, that
he must travel with them to give the Subtle Knife to Lyra's father,
Lord Asriel, as a weapon against The Authority. |
The Amber
Spyglass
In The Amber Spyglass, Will ignores the angels and with the help of
a local girl named Ama, the Bear King Iorek Byrnison, and Lord
Asriel's Gallivespian spies, the Chevalier Tialys and the Lady
Salmakia, rescues Lyra from the cave where her mother has hidden her
from the Magisterium, which has become determined to kill her before
she yields to temptation and sin like the original Eve. They journey
to the Land of the Dead, temporarily parting with their dæmons to
release the ghosts from their captivity imposed by the oppressive
Authority. Mary Malone, a scientist of the world of Will, interested
in Dust (or Shadows, as she knows them), travels to a land populated
by strange sentient creatures called Mulefa. There she learns of the
true nature of Dust, existing as panpsychic particles of
self-awareness. Lord Asriel and the reformed Mrs. Coulter team up to
destroy The Authority's Regent Metatron, but are killed in the
process, taking Metatron down with them. The Authority himself dies
of his own frailty when Will and Lyra free him from the crystal
prison Metatron has trapped him in, able to do so because the
prison's protectors are killed or driven away in an attack by cliff-ghasts.
When Will and Lyra emerge from the land of the dead, they find their
daemons (Serafina names Will's soul, now in a daemon form, "Kirjava").
After all of this, Lyra loses her ability to read the alethiometer,
and the book ends with Will and Lyra falling in love but realising
they cannot live together in the same world; because all windows
must be closed to prevent the flow of Dust, and because they can
each only live full lives in the world they are born into. During
the return, Mary learns how to see her own daemon, who takes the
form of black Alpine chough. |
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Audio CD
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Publisher: BBC
Physical Audio; Unabridged edition edition (14 Nov. 2019)
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Language: English
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ISBN-10: 1787533719
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ISBN-13:
978-1787533714
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Format: CD-Audio
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Dimensions: 138x
141mm
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Publication date: 14
Nov 2019
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Publisher: BBC
Worldwide Ltd
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Imprint: BBC
Physical Audio
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Publication
City/Country: London, United Kingdom
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