Philip Pullman's His dark materials trilogy Book

This is probably the closest thing to what I would want to write, only I would want to write a much expanded, ever-updating version. In many respects, Squires work is consummate competence: her summary of Pullman's biography is excellent, and she does a smooth job of synthesizing a great deal of story and thematic material in a very brief space. There are a few outright errors: her assertion about what Asriel says to Lyra about Dust at the end of the first book and Pan's summary of it later leaves out what Asriel says to Mrs Coulter at the end of that book and then retcons later in his conversation with her in TAS; Squires calls Tony Makarios an old friend of Lyra's, which might be a mix-up with subsequent adaptations where the character is merged with Billy Costa, whose brother is also, confusingly, named Tony. She also puts a great deal of weight on the catch-all term politics, whereas I tend to think of that as largely a red herring in Pullman's story, subsumed under the much more important process of storytelling. Still, she is a perceptive reader overall, asking brilliant questions, connecting widely separated quotes from within the books, as well as essays, speeches, etc, and reviews (up until about 2003). A handy little volume, nothing earth-shattering, but I'll have to check out her other book on Pullman, Master Storyteller.

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