The Book of Dust is a planned prequel trilogy that tells the story of the years before His Dark Materials trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Amber Spyglass, The Subtle Knife) begins. It’s a favourite series of mine and before I listened to this audiobook, I also listened to the original series again. The narration for all of them is fantastic.

Pullman’s writing sucked me into the alternate world of Oxford and London, just like the original series. The characters and story were equally as enjoyable, and he found ways to expand on the fictional science and history of this world that kept the new story interesting. I was glad it wasn’t just a rehashing of what we read in the first three, which I’ve seen before with very popular series.

This is still a YA series, and the book was on par with that. But there are plenty of very real, frightening moments in the book that serve to bring the characters and the reader into adulthood. I love the use of the flood as a metaphor for how the whole world, including the protagonists individual life as an adult, will be different when it recedes. Very biblical and fascinating choice since the series overall seems to take a stance very much against organized religion.

I did struggle with the last third of the book in which Pullman sends the characters on what seems like a tangent “side quest” (if you’re a gamer - a “Tom Bombadil” for LOTR fans), and then almost immediately follows it with another weird scene that felt out of place in the mythology and history he had developed in this series. But he managed to close it strongly, and given there are two more books yet to come, I’m hopeful they’ll shed light on why those bits were important to the arc.

This review is not a super analytical one, because this book is a pure pleasure read. It’s for people looking for a fantasy/alternate history YA series. The next book is due out in October 2019.

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