Yet another excellent Pullman book. The worry with these kind of extended universe/prequel/sequels to finished works is that they feel forced or retcon, but none of those issues here. The tale of Malcolm, Lyra, Alice still has the wonderful sense of adventure and magic that the original HDM trilogy had with Lyra.

Is it quite as good as HDM? No, it lacks a bit of the magic. Is it still a 5 star book I greatly enjoyed? Absolutely.