Now that the movie is out and doing well, I wanted to share my opinion on "The Golden Compass" and the entire "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Phillip Pullman. There's a controversy over the books and whether they are anti-Christian. And, as far as I'm concerned, there's a controversy over reviews of the books. As some of my readers know, I love fantasy literature, and I've read pretty much every well known author in the genre, and several of the best books over and over again. "His Dark Materials" is no masterpiece. The writing was fairly standard, adequate for the job, but certainly nothing special. The story kept me interested enough to read through the trilogy, and there were a few genuinely clever moments, but overall it was nothing special. The reviews of the books from literary critics, however, are nothing short of fawning. Why is this?

I think it relates to the Christianity controversy. I suppose it's possible one could see the books as anti-Christian or anti-religion. And I also think it's possible that many reviewers (let's be honest here, there's going to be a lot more professional book reviewers who are liberal and/or athiest than otherwise, just like in most any liberal arts field) caught on to the alleged anti-religion theme and thought that made the books absolutely wonderful, and overlooked the weaknesses of the writing and storyline. But did I see the books as anti-religion? Maybe a little bit, but I think Pullman was really just trying to write a good story, and a large organization with opaque customs and lots of secrecy could easily make a good antagonist in a novel. And most religions are large organizations with opaque customs and secrecy- you did "DaVinci Code," right? :) I would be surprised if Pullman deliberately set out to vilify Christianity, as opposed to just trying to write a good story. I certainly didn't finish the series and think, "Wow, I should go kill God!" If I remember correctly, my first thought upon finishing was "Wow, that was disappointing," followed by "Harry Potter is way better," and probably followed after that by "I'm hungry."