Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman

Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman is a thrilling fantasy book and the first in the His Dark Materials trilogy. It is aimed at young adults – adults. It is a well written book that is fairly easy to read. Set in a universe different but similar to our own, it has many twists and turns of events that eventually all connect to each other, as well as leaving open ends for the sequels.

Northern Lights is about a young girl named Lyra who lives in a world where everybody’s soul is a separate being, their dæmon (pronounced demon), who is in the form of an animal. Lyra has grown up an orphan at a college all her life, not knowing her intelligent and powerful parents. When her friend Roger is kidnapped by the ‘Gobblers’, Lyra becomes determined to rescue him. Her journey takes her north to Bolvanger, where scientists conduct horrible experiments that split away the child’s soul from their body.

I really enjoyed this book and others of its genre because of how it allows you to completely escape from reality and be absorbed by the magical themes of another world, where there are many different concepts. One of the most interesting parts in this book was how it combined a magical universe together with our own, and how each person can talk with their soul. It has an intriguing mix of reality and magic that compels the reader to keep on reading.
Northern Lights is fast paced and full of action whilst still having very good descriptive writing. The descriptiveness of the novel makes it seem a lot more real and convincing. The book often focuses on Lyra’s emotions, which are the cause of her journey to the north and later to the parallel universe.
There were many themes and moral issues in the novel. Loyalty and friendship was a major one of these, the main storyline of the quest was of Lyra rescuing her friend. Power was another theme raised in the book, most of this was controlled by the church. The church heavily influenced morals and ethics. The church did not agree with Lord Asriel’s (Lyra’s father) quest to prove that there was no God and so he was locked away. The church also did not really agree with the Bolvanger experiments of splitting the soul and body of children, but with Mrs. Coulter (Lyra’s mother) on both sides, they still happened. Another theme raised in the book was that of ultimate good. This involved Lyra and the Gyptians attempting to stop the Bolvanger experiments.

I found this book was similar to some of the concepts of Harry Potter, which also combines magic and reality. Again, Harry Potter is in the fantasy genre. Harry Potter also has the themes of friendship, loyalty and ultimate good overpowering evil.

Overall, I found this book to be a very good read. I enjoyed reading so much that I went out and bought the other two books in the trilogy. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes fantasy books such as Harry Potter.

Daniel Langford