here is the intro to the Trilogy:
Original Title to the series: His Dark Materials
His Dark Materials is a trilogy of fantasy fiction novels by Philip Pullman, comprising Northern Lights (1995 - released as The Golden Compass in North America), The Subtle Knife (1997) and The Amber Spyglass (2000). The trilogy follows the coming of age of two children, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, as they wander through a series of parallel universes against a backdrop of epic events. The story involves fantasy elements such as witches and armoured polar bears, but alludes to a broad range of ideas from fields such as physics, philosophy, and theology.
The series is primarily marketed to young adults, but is also intended to speak to adults, and it has also appeared as a single-volume omnibus in the United Kingdom and North America, titled His Dark Materials (2007).
In terms of popularity, the trilogy is sometimes compared with fantasy books like A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling and The Chronicles of Narnia.
An early proposal from Pullman for the name of the series was The Golden Compasses. This term is taken from Paradise Lost, where it poetically refers to the "compasses" with which God shaped the world, an idea depicted in William Blake's painting The Ancient of Days. Due to confusion with the other common meaning of compass, the navigational instrument, this phrase in the singular was used to title the American edition of Northern Lights (which prominently features a device that might be called a "golden compass").
Now is here for the setting to the novel, The Dark Materials:
The trilogy takes place across a multiverse, moving between many alternate worlds. In Northern Lights, the story takes place in a world with some similarities to our own; dress style is similar to our Victorian era, and technology has not evolved to include automobiles or planes; zeppelins are a notable mode of transport. It appears that in this world The Reformation never took place; John Calvin is referred to as a Pope. The church (often referred to as the "Magisterium") controls all of the western world and probably the entire planet. In The Subtle Knife, the story takes place in our world and the world of Cittàgazze, and in The Amber Spyglass it crosses through an array of diverse worlds.
One defining aspect of Pullman's story is his concept of daemons. In several universes in the trilogy's world, including that where the story's protagonist Lyra Belacqua is born, the human soul is manifested throughout life as an animal-shaped dæmon that always stays near its human counterpart. Witches and some humans have entered areas where daemons cannot physically enter; as such, their daemons can move as far away from their humans as desired. Daemons will usually only talk to their humans, but they can communicate with other humans and daemons autonomously. During childhood, the dæmon can change its shape at will, but upon adolescence it settles into one form. The final form reveals the person's true nature and personality, implying that these stabilize after adolescence. Spectres, in some of the universes, prey upon the daemons of adolescents and adults, consuming them and rendering said dæmon's human essentially catatonic; they lose all thought and eventually fade away and die. Daemons and their humans can also be separated by intercision, a process involving cutting the dæmon away from the human. This process can be conducted in a medical setting, such as the titanium and manganese guillotine used at Bolvangar, or as a form of torture used by the Skraelings. This separation has a high mortality rate and renders both human and dæmon little more than obedient zombies. Severing the link using the silver guillotine method releases tremendous amounts of unnamed energy which can be converted to anbaric, or electric, power.
The universe of Northern Lights has interesting technology; at a glance, it appears to be considerably behind our own world, but in many fields it is equal or superior to ours. As evidence, it is revealed that Lyra's world has the same knowledge of particle physics, referred to as experimental theology, as we do. In The Amber Spyglass, an advanced interdimensional weapon is discussed which, when aimed using a sample of the target's DNA, can track the target to any universe and disrupt the very fabric of space-time to form a bottomless abyss into nothing, forcing the target to suffer a fate far worse than normal death. Other advanced devices include the Intention Craft, which carries an extremely potent energy weapon amongst other things. (Though this craft is first seen and used outside Lyra's universe, and may be the invention of engineers from other universes.)
Here are the 3 Series:
Part 1: The Golden Compass (Northern Lights)
In Northern Lights (released in the United States and Canada as The Golden Compass), the heroine, Lyra Belacqua, a young girl brought up in the cloistered world of Jordan College, Oxford, and her daemon Pantalaimon learn of the existence of Dust, a strange elementary particle believed by the Magisterium to be evidence for Original Sin. Dust appears to be less attracted to the innocence of children, and this gives rise to grisly experiments being carried out by Magisterium-controlled scientists on kidnapped children in the icy wastelands of the distant North. Lyra and Pantalaimon journey to save their best friend Roger Parslow and other kidnapped children from this peril, with the aid of the Panserbjørne (armoured bear) Iorek Byrnison, John Faa and Farder Coram, leaders of the Gyptians, the aeronaut Lee Scoresby, and the witch Serafina Pekkala. After dealings with armoured bears and witches and success in many arenas, Roger is killed by Lyra's father Lord Asriel in his own successful experiment to create a bridge into another world. Lord Asriel, followed by Lyra and Pantalaimon, journey through it separately in search of the source of Dust, unaware that they both mean to prevent the Magisterium from destroying it.
Part 2: The Subtle Knife
In The Subtle Knife, Lyra journeys through the Aurora to Cittàgazze, an otherworldly city whose denizens have discovered a clean path between worlds at a far earlier point in time than others in the storyline. Cittàgazze's reckless use of the technology has released soul-eating Spectres, rendering the world incapable of transit by post-adolescents. Here, Lyra meets Will Parry, a twelve-year-old boy from our own world who has stumbled into Cittàgazze after recently killing a man to protect his ailing mother in an effort to locate his long-lost father. Will becomes the bearer of the titular Subtle Knife, a tool forged 300 years ago by Cittàgazze's scientists of the same materials as the silver guillotine. One edge of the knife is capable of creating portals between worlds and the other edge easily cuts through any form of matter. After meeting with witches from Lyra's world, they journey on. Will finds his father, who has been lost in Lyra's world under the assumed name of Stanislaus Grumman, only to watch him murdered almost immediately, and Lyra is kidnapped by her mother, Mrs. Coulter, an agent of the Magisterium who has learned of the prophecy that Lyra is to be the next Eve. Will is then instructed by a pair of angelic lovers, Balthamos and Baruch, that he must travel with them to give the Subtle Knife to Lyra's father, Lord Asriel, as a weapon against The Authority.
Part 3: The Amber Spyglass
In The Amber Spyglass, Will ignores the angels and with the help of a local girl named Ama, the Bear King Iorek Byrnison, and Lord Asriel's Gallivespian spies, the Chevalier Tialys and the Lady Salmakia, rescues Lyra from the cave she has been hidden in. They journey to the Land of the Dead, temporarily parting with their daemons to release the ghosts from their captivity imposed by the oppressive Authority. Mary Malone, a scientist of our world interested in Dust (or Shadows, as she knows them), travels to a land populated by strange sentient creatures called Mulefa. There she learns of the true nature of Dust, existing as panpsychic particles of self-awareness. Lord Asriel and a reformed Mrs. Coulter team up to destroy The Authority's Regent, Metatron, but are killed in the process, taking Metatron down with them. The Authority himself dies of his own frailty amongst a massive battle between the rebels and his servants. The book ends with Will and Lyra falling in love but realising they cannot live together in the same world as all windows must be closed to prevent the flow of Dust.
Well, for more of the analysis that i had gone thro', you can visit the following websites for more details on it:
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/12/well_how_antichristian_is_the.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1207/p09s02-coop.html
That's all for today..
TO BE CONTINUE . . .