His Dark Materials: The Subtle Knife (Book 2)

His Dark Materials, Book 2

By: Philip Pullman

Narrated by: Philip Pullman, full cast

Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

The spellbinding sequel to The Golden Compass, the modern fantasy classic that Entertainment Weekly named an "All-Time Greatest Novel" and Newsweek hailed as a "Top 100 Book of All Time," continues the epic adventure, catapulting listeners between worlds, and toward a devastating discovery.

Lost in a new world, Lyra finds Will—a boy on the run, a murderer—a worthy and welcome ally. For this is a world where soul-eating Specters stalk the streets and witches share the skies with troops of angels.

Each is searching—Lyra for the meaning of Dark Matter, Will for his missing father—but what they find instead is a deadly secret, a knife of untold power. And neither Lyra nor Will suspects how tightly their lives, their loves, their destinies are bound together...until they are split apart.

A #1 New York Times Bestseller
Published in 40 Countries

“Just as quick-moving and unputdownable as The Golden Compass. . . . The mysteries deepen and the wonders grow even more extravagant.” —The Washington Post

“Pullman’s imagination soars . . . A literary rollercoaster ride you won’t want to miss.”—The Boston Globe

“The story gallops with ferocious momentum . . . Devilishly inventive.” —The New York Times Book Review

Don't miss Philip Pullman's epic new trilogy set in the world of His Dark Materials!
** THE BOOK OF DUST **
La Belle Sauvage
The Secret Commonwealth

Listen to the rest of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series.

©1997 Philip Pullman

Critic reviews

"The superb production of this fascinating fantasy epic makes it a heart-thumping listening adventure." (AudioFile)

"More than fulfilling the promise of The Golden Compass, this second volume starts off at a heart-thumping pace and never slows down." (Publishers Weekly)

"A resoundingly successful sequel." (Booklist)

Awesome book nearly ruined by bad music

I love this series. The performance was decent. The music between chapters was loud and very unpleasant. it truly made it nearly unbearable.

The cast makes this listening experience amazing.

His Dark Materials is one of my favoritve series, but the voice actors of this audio book make the experience even better.

Just as awesome as the first book

Reading some of the reviews made me a bit concerned that the second book in the series will not live up to my expectations, but my feelings turned out to be completely unfounded. Pullman is an amazing writer, I really like his style, but there was more to this chapter than clever writing, the story was suspenseful, I had to force myself to put it down to do other things XD, the story moved forward quite a bit, and many miseries have been unfolded by the end. In my opinion the characters behaved realistically, maybe they sometimes acted a bit more clever than most of their peers, but they are the protagonists, it made sense to me that they are more giften in this regard than others, otherwise they wouldn't be the main characters XD; and the mistakes they've made were also quite fitting. All in all, the writer went a long way to create an atmosphere as dark, believable and awe inspiring as during Northern Lights/Golden Compass, and I can't thank him enough for that. If the last book in the series will be as good as this was, I will definitely have to make space at a prominent position for it in top list :D

Couldn't stop listening

Story telling 9s brilliant and beautiful. The characters come to life in my imagination while I work.

Great sequel to the golden compass

I loved this story so much. This continuation to the golden compass was filled with adventure and also full of emotion. I would recommend this book to all children and adults alike. The performances are amazing and add so much to the story.

wow, just great

the story is simply amazinig
i lved it, easy to understand and interesting
for every one that likes adventure books

The Subtle Knife, an excellent story

Like the best stories, The Subtle Knife can be understood on many levels. The plot is tight, the characters are believable. This is a part of a rare handful of epic fantasy stories that keeps its unique world rules. Very highly recommended for ALL fantasy lovers, older children and adults.

amazing story, hilarious interludes

a stunning and sometimes emotionally wrenching second installment in His Dark Materials. my only complaint is that the musical interludes are not great. like, laughably so.

an earful

The second part of the trilogy is wonderfully compelling. The musical interludes between chapters are terrible -- ear piercing interrruptions to an otherwise great dramatization.

A solid reading of a fine story

Overall this is both an enjoyable adventure and a very well done audiobook.

Production:

Philip Pullman does a fantastic job as the narrator, and with a few minor exceptions the rest of cast of thousands does a first rate job too.

On the other hand this audiobook is overproduced as if they are trying to compete with television (Pullman reads the narration, a huge cast of BBC folks reads all the dialog, and overbearing musical segues punctuate the beginning and end of as each chapter).

While it's good to see that American audiobooks aren't the only ones to suffer from being overproduced, someone needs to give these audiobook folks the message that there's no need to try to produce these things as if they were cheesy television shows.

Plot:

I'm a little disappointed that Pullman twists theistic themes and elements ("authority," angels, Hades, Adam and Eve, original sin) around a central plot that castigates "the church" as all evil, stifling, and oppressive.