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QQ Book Club

I've never actually read the books.

I'll shamefully admit I only have hazy recollections of watching a movie.

I have heard good things about this series however.
 
Armored polar bears. All you need to know.
 
So... since I haven't read the His Dark Materials series yet, what do I need to know going in, supposing I were to read it?
 
Xamusel said:
So... since I haven't read the His Dark Materials series yet, what do I need to know going in, supposing I were to read it?
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...the titles of the books and perhaps the name of the author, so you can find them in the library?

I guess I'm not sure what you're asking. Bear in mind I'm the kind of person who doesn't read the back cover so as not to spoil the surprise.
 
I've watch the Golden Compass movie, every human is linked to an animal, which people consider the manifestion of their soul, that can shape-shift when they are young.
 
pepperjack said:
...the titles of the books and perhaps the name of the author, so you can find them in the library?

I guess I'm not sure what you're asking. Bear in mind I'm the kind of person who doesn't read the back cover so as not to spoil the surprise.
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Good point... though I was trying to figure out whether or not I should read the books. I need some form of recommendations that don't go against my beliefs completely.
 
Xamusel said:
Good point... though I was trying to figure out whether or not I should read the books. I need some form of recommendations that don't go against my beliefs completely.
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They are well written, with a distinct style. The main protagonist is a child (of about twelve, I think), and the author clearly remembers being a child well enough to write one without giving the impression that he believes children are (a) imbeciles or (b) miniature adults with limited vocabularies. I feel that's a distressingly rare find, and I can recommend the books on the strength of that alone.

If that's not enough for you, it's a fantasy trilogy with original elements. I don't mean "original" as in "he wrote them himself," but "original" as in "I've read a lot of fantasy and I don't think I've seen that done before." Of course on some level of abstraction everything has been done before, but in the fantasy genre you don't often have to get very abstract to see the commonalities, so I find relative originality quite refreshing.

Was there something in particular you needed reassurance on? It sounds like you've heard recommendations in the past that didn't sit well with you.
 
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Xamusel said:
Good point... though I was trying to figure out whether or not I should read the books. I need some form of recommendations that don't go against my beliefs completely.
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Well, I don't know what I should tell you, but I would recommend you read The Golden Compass at least to get a taste for the writing style of the series. That and The Subtle Edge are both somewhat self-contained, but I would not expect a completely satisfactory resolution unless you read all three, have a good think, rage against nature and then read them all again.

The underlying theme is sort of theological, in that the Church (of another world, think of an Inquisition that just went on) is opposed to more free thinkers aspiring to create a "True Republic of Heaven". (Also, there is a civil war in Heaven.) In this pursuit, the nature if the soul, of growing up and the very nature of creation (His Dark Materials, if you will) becomes important, and there is a diverse cast of characters that either wants to answer those questions, or to silence those who asks them.

More than anything, however, it is a story about growing up, of facing adversity, of the dangers of blindly following dogma and of reckless pursuit of the unobtainable. It is also about friendship, family, love and hatred. Much of the books can be read as metaphors, but in its own right the series holds exiting action and inriguing settings.

I started the series by reading The Subtle Edge, but as I was very young and had not read the preceding book, I did not pick up on much of the deeper themes continued from TGC. Still, the book held up on its own, and after I read it again a few years later, I decided that I needed the other two books as well. After reading them all in sequence, I will not tell in what state the ending left me(spoilers!), but I was in quite the profound mood afterwards, as well.

There are nobody I would not recommend His Dark Materials to, but that is because I believe that the books will either resonate with you from the start, or you'll grow as a person in some very small way to get more out of them. I will say, though, that if your preferences runs entirely in one narrow genre like chick lit or crime thrillers, this might not be for you. That is the only disqualifying condition I can think of, however. You might not love the series, but I would recommend it on the likely chance you do.

Edit: Also, as Mr. pepperjack pointed out, Lyra Silvertongue reads like a tough, tomboyish kid of twelve, that earned her title. She is a child, yes, but she and the other kids also used to beat the shit out of the Gyptian (Gypsy) kids, and get fucked up in return, in the back streets and docks of whatever city she lived in. She is not an idealised kid as us adults tends to write them. And Will, a protagonist that comes in later in the series, he starts the book with the (mostly accidental) murder of a man that threatened his mentally ill mom, and like many mature but still young kids would, he runs off and stumbles across the plot. And fun times are had by all.[/blatant lies]
 
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I recommend the first book, and parts of the second, some nice ideas, some nice visuals, some nice characters -- but I found nothing of value worth mentioning in the 3rd. It devolves into an incoherent mess that doesn't make sense either thematically or plotwise, or in terms of worldbuilding, or in terms of moral message either. It's all a jumbled mess.

I'm not sure why it was supposedly so profound for other people.
Perhaps if I wasn't already an atheist in real life, I'd have been shocked by a book that says "gasp, what if the church is lying and is saying tall tales in pursuit of its own power?" But that's, you know, the starting assumption. On my part I was disappointed that the trilogy, despite its supposed anti-authoritarianism and anti-destiny, still has characters whose destiny is to be anti-destiny and which are "meant to" have this noble destiny and powers that mark them as special in pursuit of that noble destiny of being anti-destiny and so forth and so forth, and it's not even clear the books understand the irony of this, because it goes on all the way to the very end! Who "chose" Lyra? If she was "meant" to have those powers, who meant them? Whose 'grace' is that she had received. Not "God"s, so it's just a mess.

And eventually the author chickens out in the anti-authoritanism anyway -- it's not a fight against God, it's a fight against that vile imposter Metatron. It's not a fight against the status quo of obedience to churches and religion, it's a fight to resist a future direct dictatorship that's Metatron is *planning* against the world. Are we to break the boundaries between universes, let everyone freely intermingle? Nope, we can't do that either because of tacked-on-reason-that-it-would-be-a-bad-idea. And so effectively the worlds at the end are the same as the worlds at the beginning, for all intends and purposes. A threat has been defeated, and other than that it's status quo.
 
Elitist Oars said:
I recommend the first book, and parts of the second, some nice ideas, some nice visuals, some nice characters -- but I found nothing of value worth mentioning in the 3rd. It devolves into an incoherent mess that doesn't make sense either thematically or plotwise, or in terms of worldbuilding, or in terms of moral message either. It's all a jumbled mess.

I'm not sure why it was supposedly so profound for other people.
Perhaps if I wasn't already an atheist in real life, I'd have been shocked by a book that says "gasp, what if the church is lying and is saying tall tales in pursuit of its own power?" But that's, you know, the starting assumption. On my part I was disappointed that the trilogy, despite its supposed anti-authoritarianism and anti-destiny, still has characters whose destiny is to be anti-destiny and which are "meant to" have this noble destiny and powers that mark them as special in pursuit of that noble destiny of being anti-destiny and so forth and so forth, and it's not even clear the books understand the irony of this, because it goes on all the way to the very end! Who "chose" Lyra? If she was "meant" to have those powers, who meant them? Whose 'grace' is that she had received. Not "God"s, so it's just a mess.

And eventually the author chickens out in the anti-authoritanism anyway -- it's not a fight against God, it's a fight against that vile imposter Metatron. It's not a fight against the status quo of obedience to churches and religion, it's a fight to resist a future direct dictatorship that's Metatron is *planning* against the world. Are we to break the boundaries between universes, let everyone freely intermingle? Nope, we can't do that either because of tacked-on-reason-that-it-would-be-a-bad-idea. And so effectively the worlds at the end are the same as the worlds at the beginning, for all intends and purposes. A threat has been defeated, and other than that it's status quo.
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In reply to some remarks in the spoilered section, I feel i must say
that the "villain" being the Metatron, and nobody actually knowing about any capital-G God, was sort of profound. The Metatron usurping the authority of some god that may or may not exist mirrors the churches doing much the same. Even the angel worshipped as God was simply the first among them, and he was frail and addled. I don't think the book was explicitly against the notion of destiny, but was more about destiny being a starting point and the people crafting their ultimate destiny from there. The whole "all the worlds together can only sustain ONE portal, and that one's for the dead" seemed sort of contrived to me, done purely for the drama, but overall I think the story ended much like it had to. If they actually made war on an omnipotent being, they would get smeared.
I'm an atheist as well, and I don't think the anti-dogma, anti-authoritarianism aspect fell flat, really. It has been some time since I read the trilogy, though, so maybe its a project for the summer.
 
I never read the third book, but I will say at the time I read it it was one of the strongest messages against organized religion and authority that I'd read. I was barely in my teens at the time, so the books kinda resonated with me. The basic question the book asks is: how do we know what we are taught is the truth? History books, religious texts, even science books -- certainty is a luxury. Especially when the authorities hold up the books they wrote as the proof of why they should be in charge.

But criticisms about plot incoherence are justified. I know that while I eagerly sought the second book after reading the first, after reading the second one I felt no pressing desire to get the third.
 
...perhaps it's because I'm a Christian, but the anti-religious aspects of it really don't do anything for me, other than to say "KEEP THIS STUFF OUT OF MY HEAD!!"

Anyway, that would probably be the reason why I'm against the books, though I'd have to read more to understand if that's the only reason or not.
 
Xamusel said:
...perhaps it's because I'm a Christian, but the anti-religious aspects of it really don't do anything for me, other than to say "KEEP THIS STUFF OUT OF MY HEAD!!"

Anyway, that would probably be the reason why I'm against the books, though I'd have to read more to understand if that's the only reason or not.
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Eh, do what I did when reading them and read it as science's side of the (very real) historical warbbetween religion and science. I know it isn't the intended reading, but it fits all the same.
 
That... actually sounds a lot better than what I thought.

Thanks for the suggestion on that.
 
abyssmal_kismet said:
Eh, do what I did when reading them and read it as science's side of the (very real) historical warbbetween religion and science. I know it isn't the intended reading, but it fits all the same.
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That... That never happened. That's a common myth. Science and religion were never opposed, some of the greatest scientists have been religious ffs!

So, no, if that's what you get out of the series, I want no part of it.
 
(/)_-) I forgot that it was a myth, to be fair, sadly. Don't know how I forgot, mind, but I did.
 
vyor said:
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That... That never happened. That's a common myth. Science and religion were never opposed, some of the greatest scientists have been religious ffs!

So, no, if that's what you get out of the series, I want no part of it.
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It's not as dramatic as all that, to be fair, but there are a couple of different times throughout history of the church screwing up people's lives because what they were studying didn't agree with the church's worldview. Best example I can think of off the top of my head is copurnicus and Galileo. If it weren't for the fact that i am not home and am on my phone, I might do more research, but probably not. I don't care enough about internet arguments, anyways. No, it isn't a war, but yes, it has historically been a thing.
 
abyssmal_kismet said:
and Galileo
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I physically twitched when I saw this.

No, you dumb fuck, that is not fucking why he was placed under house arrest.

And fucking Copernicus? Really?

Where the actual fuck are you getting this from!? Because it's WRONG WRONG WRONG!

*takes deep breaths*

Next time, before you start spewing utter bullshit that isn't even close to actual fact, DO SOME FUCKING RESEARCH!
 
vyor said:
I physically twitched when I saw this.

No, you dumb fuck, that is not fucking why he was placed under house arrest.

And fucking Copernicus? Really?

Where the actual fuck are you getting this from!? Because it's WRONG WRONG WRONG!

*takes deep breaths*

Next time, before you start spewing utter bullshit that isn't even close to actual fact, DO SOME FUCKING RESEARCH!
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Calm down. I did that research years ago. I'll just leave this conversation you care about far more than I do before you have an aneurysm.
 
...moving on.

Who here has read the Tales of Redwall series?
 
abyssmal_kismet said:
Calm down. I did that research years ago. I'll just leave this conversation you care about far more than I do before you have an aneurysm.
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Sorry, I've had to deal with idiots spreading that bullshit to "show" how terrible my religion is. That it's utter and complete bullshit just pisses me off even more.

There are things that my religion has done that are objectively wrong, so when people start spewing that bullshit...

Galileo directly insulted the pope. You want to know what the pope did to deserve such? Ask for proof(because Galileo was wrong). Galileo refused.

A quick glance over Copernicus wiki page shows that he never had any problems with the church.
 
Ah, good, I thought I would be the only user here who liked the series at all.
 
Christian book? How about the allegory of Chris in the form of the Narnia series. :3

It;s a fund read.
 
I actually read the whole Narnia series before. I love the style of C.S. Lewis, and I find that it's probably better than one of his contemporaries, J.R.R. Tolkien.
 
I am going to have to see if my parents have the book, so as to save money and a trip to the library, and get back to you on that later.
 
How about the Shannara series?
 
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