h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Philip Pullman is a master of description. His worlds as described in His Dark Materials are fascinating and deserve the accolades they have received.

But the plot is pathetically bad. It wanders from one place to another, introducing characters and doing nothing with them. The war between Lord Asriel and the Church is boring, because both sides are evil and we don't care who wins. The whole trilogy is one one of the least satisfying pieces of literature I have read.

Plot summary:

A small ragamuffin girl has an evil father and an evil mother. She blunders around for a bit, accidentally getting into some parallel worlds, meets a boy, then solves the whole problems of the universe by never seeing him again.

It's about on a par with the stuff my children come up with.

I agree with your comments...

The series has been written very well. I particularly enjoyed the introduction of worlds were evoloution has taken a different path etc.

But on the whole, the plot is severly lacking in the second two books.

The first book in it's own right was highly enjoyable, and transfered reasoably to film. However I wonder how they intend to film the remaining two books to film (Assuming the studio made enough money from the first film to entice them into making the sequels) as the scope is a little too large (And potentially uncomprehendable to most movie-goers who haven't read the books).

As for the ending... Don't get me started. By the time I got half way through the "The Amber Spyglass" the only thing I was waiting to find out was what shape Pan would finally settle on.

Sad but true

I entirely disagree with you. The plot is amazing primarily because it travels so much between different and apparently unconnected threads of storyline. The beauty is how Pullman is able to tie all these different threads together into one story, particularly towards the end of the last book. Also, Lord Asriel and his 'Republic' are not evil. Asriel is occasionally blind to the full implications of the things he does, but so is everyone. In the end, Asriel is fighting for the greatest cause possible, intelligent life throughout the multiverse.

I have to agree about the second and third books. I loved The Golden Compass, but didn't like the others at all. Mostly, I think I just hated Will's character. Lyra's character was so strong, and then in The Subtle Knife she kind of let Will take over as the "strong male figure" and tell her what to do.
The third book was okay, just because the scientist woman, Mary whatever, gave you the occasional respite from Will.
But that's just me.