Book: The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

It almost seems that my flip flopping opinion of His Dark Materials (Northern Lights was meh, The Subtle Knife brilliant) was predestined to continue with the third book in the trilogy. The Amber Spyglass was dire, awful, bakwas (and I never thought I'd use that word) and nonsensical. I honestly don't know where to begin.

Was it the random, haphazard and redundant plot? The blatant stretching of a story that should have been half the size? The horrendously anti-climatic events toward the end? The heavy baggage with religion that the author threaded throughout this last one (you know, when it was too late to dismiss him as a lunatic)?

So no, I didn't like this third book. In fact I disliked it so much that I would say it tarnishes the trilogy so much that it's not even worth reading The Subtle Knife. Which is a massive shame, since the potential for Pullman's universe to actually spin a compelling tale was most definitely there. But hey: at least it was well written.

No recommendations here.