The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials #2)
- Author: Philip Pullman
- Page count: 304
- Started on: 2026/08/28
- Finished on: 2026/09/02
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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The His Dark Materials trilogy often ranks as one of the greatest young adult and fantasy book series ever written. It’s a coming-of-age story set in a series of parallel universes. The first book (The Golden Compass) follows 12-year-old Lyra in her steampunk-like world where scientific inquiry is heavily controlled, and where people have external animal dæmons. At the end of the book, Lyra crosses a bridge into another universe.
The Subtle Knife starts with Will, who is the same age as Lyra and lives in our world in the late 90s (when the books were written). Early on, Will discovers a way to travel to the same world Lyra went to, and they fairly quickly meet and become a team. Many characters from the first book show up again, and through a series of adventures and fights, Will ends up in control of the titular knife.
While I enjoyed the first book in the series, it didn’t fully live up to my expectations, and sadly, the second book continues that trend. Where The Golden Compass leaned heavily into world-building for Lyra’s alternate universe, Will’s world is what we know and the third parallel universe is just not as interesting, so there’s less world to build. The plot moves along nicely though, and through some unexpected (R. R. Martin-esque) twists it all ends on as big a cliffhanger as the first book, but a darker one. I look forward to reading how the story wraps up in The Amber Spyglass.
