The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman

Fantastic start to the trilogy "His Dark Materials". The story in first volume takes place in a different universe, somewhat similar to ours (have you heard of the multiverse interpretation of quantum theory?). In that world, each human being is an individual made of two physical parts: a body just like yours, plus that of a daemon. Daemons are incarnations of the human psyche and can take the shape of various animals. For birth til puberty, a daemon can shape-shift, but once adulthood is reached, it reaches a form that it will have until death. A daemon is someone you can talk to and reason with, but also someone you can send on little errands in your place. Somewhat like witches' "familiars".

The book tells the story of Lyra, a young girl living among scholars in an Oxford college. After she eavesdrop on a secret meeting, her life takes a turn toward the adventurous and she is taken from her small world into a whirlwind sequence of events that culminates in a trip to the North Pole. She meets all sorts of interesting people along the way: gyptians (somewhat like gypsies), witches and talking bears.

The thread from which the story unravels begins with a different kind of elementary particle, a certain "Dust" which cannot be seen with the naked eye. Dust seems to be attracted to adult human beings, but not children. This book begins to explore what Dust is and how it relates to humans and the universe.

Since this is set in a different universe, which is not too different from ours, the author pitches at the reader all sorts of different words as if they should have a clear meaning. For instance: "experimental theologian" or "ambaric lamp". At the same time that I spent some energy trying to figure out what this meant, I found it reassuring that little by little the author started to explain these terms. He urges you to guess it on your own and gives you a clue here and there.

All in all, this is a wonderful book that has sparked in me an interest for all other books by Pullman. Read on, and have fun, but don't expect it to be utterly simple. "His Dark Materials" has layer upon layer of interesting questions and it's up to the reader to peel them off as the reader wishes. What is interesting is that you can take from it exactly only as much as you want without sacrificing the storytelling.