
Phillip Pullman, The Golden Compass.
Yeah, I know. More YA. So? The thing that made me read it was the preview for it before Pirates, and ... well, it looked neat. So I got it. I'd been meaning to read it, but had never really been *forced* to do so, and they made it look all steampunky, and I'm a sucker for that.
So. It opens with a quite from Paradise Lost. I knew it was goign to be good from there on, because really, who would open a children's book with Milton if they didnt' have something good to to with it? And it didnt' disappoint. It's clearly also not of the "insulated children" genre -- more for the ones that can read the Juniper Tree and not be permanently scarred. Remember when they had brutal stories for children? Yeah, I read those when I was little. (Explains soemthing, doesn't it?) It's more fantastical than the Holly Black books, being not set in this world. But it's also *far* more sophistacated than I've come to expect of books written for people of abotu 10-12 years. To start with, there's the drinking and near poisoning in the first chapter. Lies, deceit, betrayal, death, murder, war, some more death, some gore, people doing horrible things to children, rebellion, the endless debate between destiny adn free will, the strained and hazy definitions of good and evil and the general lack of difference between the two, compassion, love, caring, deep friendship, cunning, politics ... I want to say this isn't for children. But in all good conscience, I just can't. The world is a shitty, fucked up place, and if you grow up thinking it's all just rainbows and roses, that no one dies and no one ever gets realy hurt, how are you going to be able to cope with the real world, once you grow up and out of the protection that chidren are given these days? (Thus begins another rant ...) Anyway, the book is *very* well written. It also took one day to read the 400 pages, around an eight hour work day. It goes quickly, as the story is too engrossing to really *want* to put it down long enough to savour. There's always something happening, and very few good stopping points. That is not, by the way, a complaint.
Apparently, I need to read more Milton, too.