Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is great work og fantasy -- beautifully written, intricately plotted, emotionally deep and challenging, politically complicated, and brilliantly anticlerical, though not in a crude rationalist Tom Paine sort of way The title is from Milton, Satan -- whom Blake, another of Pullman's heroes, counted as the real hero of PL -- contemplating his Fall, and the opportunities it presents him. It is the only book I have ever read where the death of God is actually depicted; I won't say more, but it's not a heroic bit of grandstanding, it's more like a off-handed but very tender mercy killing. In addition to the anticlericism is complex stuff about love and honor and betrayal and coming to sexual maturity -- it's a rare children's book, if that's what it is, that represents sexuality as an unadorned good without getting all goopy or preachy about it. The book is written in high Perils of Pauline style, every chapter, or near enough a cliff-hanger, melodramatic as hell, but not at all cheesy. Buy it for all the teens you know. Buy it for yourself.
jks
--- Chuck0 <chuck at mutualaid.org> wrote:
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > ***** The New York Times
> > January 25, 2004
> > Staging the Next Fantasy Blockbuster
> > By SARAH LYALL
> > LONDON
> >
> > The unassuming man at the end of the eighth row
> slipped quietly from his
> > seat during the final applause for the sold-out
> performance of "His Dark
> > Materials" at the National Theater. But he didn't
> get far. This was
> > Philip Pullman, 57, who wrote the thrilling books
> on which the play is
> > based, and he was quickly waylaid by a crowd of
> young readers who seemed
> > unable to believe their luck.
>
> Thanks, Yoshie, for sharing this with us. It sounds
> very interesting.
>
> My favorite anti-religious sci fi book is still
> "Last Days of Christ the
> Vampire" by J.G. Eccarius.
>
> "The Last Days of Christ the Vampire is a book that
> is more than a
> little reminiscent of Robert A. Wilson's Illuminatus
> series. Eccarius
> gives a less than charitable view of Christianity
> and its founder, and a
> vision of a world run by a council of vampires that
> has members ranging
> from Aliester Crowley to Genghis Kahn. The book is a
> little disjointed
> in spots, and leaves the reader with a lot more
> questions than it
> answers, but for some that could be a recomendation
> in and of itself. If
> you enjoy paranoid conspiracy novels, I can
> certainly recommend this
> book without hesitation. If, however, you are an
> Anne Rice fan looking
> for yet another incarnation of Lestat. you would be
> better off looking
> elsewhere."
>
> We could certainly use more novels that bash or
> ridicule organized religion.
>
> Chuck0
>
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