His Dark Materials Readalong - Once Upon A Time In The North

As part of the His Dark Materials Readalong, here I am, talking about the last book in this readalong. A book I haven't read before (shocking, I know!). Once Upon A Time In The North is a weird creature. I think I never read it before now because I had read Lyra's Oxford and I think I went away from that going "was that all? Really? That was it?". So, I bought then gave away my copy of Once Upon A Time In The North when the book came out and now, several years later, I went internet hunting for a copy (thank you secondhand!).

Once Upon A Time In The North is a prequel where two characters meet for the first time, around thirty-five years prior to the events of the His Dark Materials trilogy. The Texan balloonist, Lee Scoresby, and the armoured bear, Iorek Byrnison.

When the young Lee Scoresby and his daemon, Hester, land their balloon in a small Arctic town, they find themselves flying straight into a political brawl. The political factions want control of the town and its oil, and the resident bears are treated with contempt and like second-class citizens. It doesn't take long before Lee and Iorek meet and their friendship begins. But with political tensions also at fever pitch, it wouldn't take long before blood will be spilt.

Ok, I admit it, it took me a good 20 or so pages before I found my stride with this story. It's very different from Lyra's Oxford - the book is longer than Lyra's Oxford (almost double) and the type is smaller, so we got more story. But because it has been so long since I read Scoresby (he wasn't exactly a character I remember really well, if I can be truthful with you all), I felt like I had to get to know him again. Which was nice. I feel ready to meet him again when I feel brave enough to try and reread the trilogy again (stupid reading slump).

But once I got into the story, it went into a western-type read and, for this book, I was excited for the change. It fit Lee's character a lot more and I was pleased over how it worked. Setting a western in the Arctic just fitted for some reason.

The illustrations/engravings by John Lawrence fitted the story very neatly and, unless I am mistaken, he also did the illustrations for Lyra's Oxford. I really liked these so I might write a seperate blogpost to show them off.

If I can be honest, the only thing that bothered me was, at times, one of the characters felt out of place. I can't put my finger on why I feel like this.

But I liked this a lot more than Lyra's Oxford. And if you're a fan of the series, this is a must. 

His Dark Materials Readalong - The Collectors

I forgot to tweet and blog that I was relistening to this yesterday. I got myself in a bit of a state with my computer and today, after my other half attacked it and made it workable again, did I realise and am now writing this quick blog post up!

If you read my review on when I listened to this the first time (review is here, by the way), I wasn't that thrilled by it so when all of us taking part of the #HDMReadalong decided to include this, I thought it might be interesting to go back and see if it was better the second time round! 

The Collectors is set within the world of His Dark Materials and, at the same time, not. And because of this, it's hard to figure out whether I like this or not. 

On one hand, I can't help but think Philip Pullman wrote this and then, halfway through, decided to include the elements of this. But, at the same time, the elements he used with hinted at and wasn't in your face, something I really liked on this second listen. 

I think the problem is that when this audiobook (and now, eNovella) was released, it was heavily hinted that this would give a look at Mrs Coulter's life and it doesn't do. It hints at a character very similar to her (and it could be her), but it is never confirmed. It's hinted at. 

It still has the strong feeling of Susan Hill's The Man In The Picture. It is a nice short story and a nice-ish addition to the His Dark Materials world. Might not be an "essential" read for fans, but it will take a few rereads/relistens before I warmed to it, but am glad I relistened to it! 

His Dark Materials Readalong - Lyra's Oxford

As part of the #HDMReadalong, I reread Lyra's Oxford by Philip Pullman. It was an odd experience to reread something I haven't read in a very long time. And with my memory, I knew bits but not all of it.

The book is a collection of things. One short story, a map of Lyra's Oxford, a postcard and leaflet of a cruise ship.

I remember getting very excited when this first came out and devoured it very quickly. This time round, I tried to take it slow. I read it within 3 days.

The story - Lyra and the Birds - was different from what I remember. First of all, it was MUCH SHORTER than I remembered. And when you read it and compare it to the rest of the His Dark Materials trilogy, it doesn't seem to fit. It takes after the events of the series, but Lyra doesn't feel like she's aged and it seems odd to me for some reason.

There are hints to the mysterious Book of Dust that Philip Pullman has been working on for YEARS (pages 46 and 47), and I get the feeling this was meant to be a tease for Book of Dust that would becoming out in a year's time, but Book of Dust took longer to write so, when we get news on this getting published, it might be a good idea to reread this.

The postcard written Dr Mary Malone to one of her nun friend, Angela Gorman, gave tiny details about her, but it was the postcard she picked which was interesting. It showed four locations, which have huge importance to the series as a whole.

The leaflet of a cruise ship is the only thing I don't understand. If someone could tell me it's importance, that would be great as I haven't the foggest.

While this was a lovely book and a nice reread, I'm unsure over how I feel about it. It feels like it's hinting to something that hasn't happened yet. Plus, I feel like it's a tiny bit of a con. When this first came out, it was £9.99 and all it had was a short story of 40-odd pages and some titbits, which seems like a ripoff to the fans of this series. But you can get it secondhand now for not that much so that's ok.

All in all, I'm not sure if this is a worthy addition to the series. Maybe reading Once Upon A Time In The North will change my opinion...

His Dark Materials Read-a-long

When Stephen from Dark Readers and I got chatting on Twitter about His Dark Materials, we both said an idea of doing a readalong would be cool. And before I knew it, a bunch of other book bloggers got excited over this idea too.

So, throughout the course of March, we are banding together to do the His Dark Materials ReadALong, based on the series by Philip Pullman (to celebrate its 20th anniversary of being published! 20TH ANNIVERSARY, PEOPLE!!!) . Each week, one or two of us will take to Twitter and talking about what we have read, whether we are reading the book for the first time or if we're rereading it and discovering new things...

So, what's the plan of action? Well, here it is!

Monday 2nd March till Sunday 8th March 2015 - Tales of Yesterday (@ChelleyToy) and Comet Babes Books (@CometBabesBooks) will be reading Northern Lights.

Monday 9th March till Sunday 15th March 2015 - Bookish Treasures (@Loopy_Lu_) will be reading The Subtle Knife.

Monday 16th March till Sunday 22nd March 2015 - Thirst for Fiction (@FictionThirst) will be reading The Amber Spyglass.

Monday 23rd March till Sunday 29th March 2015 - Dark Readers (@DarkRReviews) and myself (@PewterWolf13) will be reading Lyra's Oxford.

SATURDAY 28TH MARCH 2015 - All of us will be listening to the audiobook The Collectors (it's really short! Only 30 minutes long so we will be tweeting about throughout the day...)

Monday 30th March till Sunday 5th April 2015 - Myself and Dark Readers will be reading the other novella, Once Upon A Time In The North.

If you are following us on Twitter (or fancy taking part), we have come up with a hashtag - #HDMReadALong. It'll be great fun. Honest!