Monday, December 10, 2007

The Golden Compass - Review


The Golden Compass
Author: Philip Pullman
http://www.philip-pullman.com/
The Golden Compass Website
The Golden Compass Movie Site
Reviewer: David

I thought that The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman was a very good book for three main reasons. It is very suspenseful, full of adventure and action, and makes you think about Pullman ’s world that he created in the first book of this trilogy. This book is a mix of Lord of the Rings and the Alex Rider series. It has the fantasy twist, but is set in the 20th to 21st Century.
The first reason that I liked this book is because it is very suspenseful and kept me at the edge of my seat. During The Golden Compass a reader will never know what will happen next. For example, you never know who will win a duel or a battle. The part that kept me on the edge of my seat the most was the duel between Lyra’s polar bear and the king of all of the bears. I kept on thinking that one bear was winning, and then the other bear would lash out a vicious blow towards the other bear. Also, I kept on thinking that Lyra’s uncle was good until the end when he did something that was uncalled for. The real thing that surprised me was that during Lyra’s whole adventure you never know if she will die or live. At a few points during the story I thought that Lyra was surely going to die.
The second reason that I liked The Golden Compass was because it was full of adventure and action. The story starts in the in the middle of Jordan College , near Oxford , and at the end they are at the North Pole. The story is full of escapes, capture, and battles. For example, when Lyra gets captured at Brothangar, there seems to be no way of escape, but then Lyra gets away and rescues a lot of children in the act.
The third reason why I liked The Golden Compass was because I loved the world that Philip Pullman created in this thriller. The main thing that I loved was the daemons that were soul mates and could take the form of any animal at any time. The weird things about the daemons were that they couldn’t get ore than 3-4 feet away from their human companion without having a weird pull on their heart. Also, when daemons reached a certain age they only became one shape and couldn’t shape shift any more. Philip Pullman also created witches, armored bears (amazing fighters who served as mercenaries), and other worlds that you can travel through, through the Aurora .
Overall, I thought that The Golden Compass was one of the best books that I have ever read. It was a thrilling book with many twists. The Golden Compass is the first in a trilogy and if you don’t like cliffhangers this isn’t the book for you.

3 comments:

Em said...

What a great review! You summed up a lot of the things I felt when reading the book. The daemons were my favorite part too. How cool would that be to always have a talking pet with you? Have you seen the movie yet? I'm curious to see what you think about it.

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I am going to see the movie tommorrow. My brother said that it was pretty good and followed the book pretty well. I will get back
to you as soon as possible.
David

Anonymous said...

Hello EM. Sorry that I couldn't get back to you quicker. I thought that the movie the, "Golden Compass", had pretty good acting, but didn't follow the story at all. Like in the story they go to get the kids before they go to the home of the bears and the story has a different ending. It was too fast paced and none of the scenes developed. I felt almost no emotion towards the characters. I went into the movie thinking of how good it would be and went out thinking how bad it was and what a disappointment it was. If you have any more comments, get back to me as soon as you can.

David