Shall reap no gain where former rule still peace hath taught to know.
I finished The Golden Compass at lunch today. Wow. Really good stuff — very imaginative, with lots of interesting ideas that I haven’t seen in fantasy or science fiction before. I’m not sure who told me it was written for children, but it’s certainly not. The main character may be a prepubescent girl, but the writing, plot and situations are quite mature. I’m looking forward to reading the next book in this series; this one did a very good job at being the first book in a trilogy. It set up the world very clearly and gave us lots of chances to learn how things worked, it asked a lot of interesting questions, and only answered enough of them to keep the reader in the loop.
Now I’m reading Fireflood by Vonda N. McIntyre, which is a collection of her short stories.
Interesting. Who knew kid’s books could be so much fun? Well, with the exception of The Babysitter’s Club, of course.