Harry Potter, Aslan, Taran, Dorothy, Frodo, Meet LYRA...

I don't think of myself as a fantasy novel reading kinda guy. Never did the Dungeons and Dragons, or the Sword of Shannara series, or any of the others that would traditionally pigeonhole me in that category of nerddom distinct from my usual niche as a sci-fi/comic book geek. We all have our place in life.

I didn't read the Chronicles of Narnia until I was 18 or 19...I still remember being at a park reading "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe" and having a little girl (probably about ten) come up to me and say, "I read that book LAST YEAR, why are YOU reading it?" and I felt pretty dumb. So I drowned her in the park's pond, and went on with my life.

Shortly after that I read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Deeply satisfying, but it took me MONTHS to get through the second book.

I read the first seven or eight "Oz" books by L. Frank Baum before I couldn't find the next book in the series--someday I'll go back and find out what happened to Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tik-Tok, Ozma, and the others.

I borrowed/stole the Book of Three series by Lloyd Alexander--Disney did a half-@$$ed job of making "The Black Cauldron" out of one of the books, but the series is EXCELLENT.

Then, in the last year or so, I discovered Harry Potter about the same time my wife (then girlfriend) did, and we were keeping it from each other as our dirty little secret until we both gleefully discovered the other one was on the same book, just a few chapters ahead or behind "DON'T TELL ME ANYTHING!!!!"

So, I guess I am sort of a fantasy guy anyway. So when I read very favorable reviews in a magazine about "The Amber Spyglass", the third book of a trilogy that was a "must-read", I decided to track down the first book in the series by Philip Pullman. I wrote "Philip Pullman" and "The Golden Compass" down on a Post-It, where it sat in my wallet for literally a year.

A month ago, in an attempt to do ANYTHING instead of my homework, I hunted down a copy at my local library. Let me just say before I go any further--support your local library. Frequent it, cherish it, get your books back on time ("Hi, pot, this is kettle...YOU'RE BLACK!!!"), and get your books there instead of at the Big Boxy Bookstore.

The trilogy is called "His Dark Materials" and the books are in the following order:

The Golden Compass
The Subtle Knife
The Amber Spyglass

The heroine of the first book, who I assume and hope will be in all three books, is named Lyra Belacqua. I don't think that it ever gives her exact age, but she's between ten and fourteen years old.

Lyra lives on a world that's very similar to our own, but is just...TWEAKED enough to be different. It's parallel to our own, and we're told that the second book in the trilogy takes place on our Earth, and the third book moves between both worlds.

The world Lyra lives in is enchanting and intriguing--there, every person, adult and child, has a "daimon", a sort of animal familiar that, when you're still a child, changes to match your mood. If you're angry, it'll be a wildcat, if you're timid, a mouse, frightened, a bird. Like that. When you become an adult, your daimon turns into whatever you "really" are the most. It seems to make people more honest, more genuine in Lyra's world than in ours...no matter what the person SAYS, you can look to their daimon to see what they're really thinking.

Daimons also talk to their humans, and occasionally to other humans, but the daimon/human bond is one that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden for this world. The daimons are seen as your soul.

Lyra's daimon is named Pantalaimon, and the bond between the two is fun, as sometimes they scold one another and get into little scuffles...no matter what, though, they're literally inseparable. If they get more than about ten feet apart, they both become weak, and start to wilt.

There are other differences between Lyra's world and our own--there are witches who live in the arctic regions and who live for hundreds of years. Some are friendly, some are not. There are also Armored Bears, great intelligent speaking polar bears who make their own armor and have their own ice palaces. As with the witches, some will be enemies of Lyra, some allies.

I'm not going to tell you the plot of the story, because there are too many twists and turns in it--there are at least five times I audibly gasped when I made discoveries--some of which I could have figured out if I had really wanted to, but it was more fun to have Pullman lead me along on Lyra's remarkable journey.

Lyra, like all great fantasy heroes, is on a quest. For her, it begins as something that's just fun--an adventure she can tell her friends about later. Later on, it becomes a matter of life and death, and according to the characters around her, she may in fact be the key to the mysteries of not only her own world, but indeed the entire universe.

There's a great deal of "destiny" in this book--Lyra is destined for great things, and the adults around her know it, but can't tell her that. If they tell her she's destined to do these things, she will either be afraid of them, or just become a puppet of her own destiny, and with then fail to fulfill her greatness.

She's given help and allies in her great quest, and all of them are remarkable and different enough from other fantasy stories that they were fresh and inviting.

She possesses an "Alethiometer," which is the Golden Compass of the title. It has three rings of characters that you can twist to seek the Truth of any matter...there were only a few ever made, and no one can read these Alethiometers without the aid of rare books. No one, that is, except for Lyra. The Golden Compass becomes a treasured possession that her enemies want and her allies need to win the battles they fight.

Iorek Byrnison is an armored bear--he has some flaws in him that made him an outcast of the Bear Society, and Lyra builds a wary relationship with him through the course of the book. Even though he talks, he's still an animal, and it's still hard to read what he's thinking, but like my dead dog Sasha, will be loyal to those he loves to the very end. Of course, my dog bit me several times....

Lyra also has the help of the "Gyptians" or gypsies, on her quest, and even though they're considered to be outcasts of human society, her quest becomes one where that's a distinct advantage...and as the saying goes, there's honor among thieves...and even Gyptians.

There's enough adventure, honor, loyalty, horror, and blood in this first book for several volumes--and the 400-page book is pretty big if it were just intended for children. The style of writing and the content of the book make it seem like it would be more appropriate for older children, at least twelve years old. Of course, you know your pups better than I do. The adventure and settings are grand, and sparked my dull 28-year old imagination...the storyline is as remarkable as any I've read, and the thrill of discovery is there on every page.

You should definitely check this one out at the library--I'm returning my copy now (ten days late...) and looking for "The Subtle Knife"...the second book in Pullman's trilogy.