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Overview
With these words, the spell is cast. Upon reading them, millions of people have been pulled irresistibly into the adventure-filled cosmic vision of Pullman's His Dark Materials, a vision in which the angelic being who claims to be God is a fraud and a tyrant, life and love are made out of Dust, a whole world is dominated by a malignant church bent on separating children from their animal natures, and the best hope for the future lies with a grimy young girl who revels in trickery and deceit.
Can a habitual liar fight for truth?
Why might souls in the Afterlife prefer personal extinction?
Is some knowledge too important to be made freely available?
If heroism has been long foretold, must it cease to count as heroism?
Is religious indoctrination mutilation of the soul?
Do fictional characters have personal identities?
Is the Authority the same person as the Judeo-Christian God?
Do all possible worlds exist, and can we ever cross from one world into another?
Must we all return to Dust?
Do the books of His Dark materials exert a dark influence on their readers' minds?
Synopsis
The popularity of the His Dark Materials trilogy has generated a major motion picture, a stage play, video games, and a new prequel. The series has also been highly controversial with its use of exciting adventure stories for children to comment on organized religion. These books have piqued the interest of the contributors to this fascinating volume, who use it to probe the philosophical issues that inform them. Could a golden compass, or alethiometer, really work? Can a person's soul or daemon have a mind of its own? What are the ramifications of pursuing the diabolical "intercision" process, or of trying to bring about the death of God, a plot that Lyra and her mysterious Father struggle over? These are some of the questions explored by these essays that try to get to the heart of Lyra's bewildering, inspiring, and multifaceted world.