by Phillip Pullman

My summer reading topped out at about a half-dozen books (depending at how you define “summer&rdquo) and that was compressed into about a six week period. I started off the summer with this trilogy, lent to me by Jane, plowing through all three volumes during the brief lull between the Jazz Festival and Christopher's arrival.

Ostensibly a fantasy trilogy aimed at a slightly older audience than the Harry Potter series, there is plenty here to appeal to adults as well (especially in The Golden Compass) although (especially by about halfway through The Amber Spyglass) it won't be everyone's cup of tea.

The action begins in Oxford, England, except it isn't our Oxford, England. This Oxford exists in a parallel universe on a parallel planet Earth where evolution has taken a slightly different path than ours has. For example, in this universe there are witches, polar bear mercenaries, and cliff-dwelling vampire-like creatures. Oh yeah, there are also familiars, i.e., every human being is accompanied at all times by an animal form, who acts as friend, confidant, and spiritual advisor. This bizarre, yet strangely familiar world is the backdrop for an intriguing and fanciful tale of one young girl's quest to redeem herself, and in the process unwittingly becomes one of the central figures in a battle to save the world.

The books travel through several other parallel universes and slowly, over the course of several hundred pages, we learn that the mysterious conflict about which the plot swirls is nothing less than an apocalyptic struggle between Good and Evil. And this isn't any wimpy old metaphorical good and evil, à la Tolkien. This is the Good and Evil, a struggle for the future of the universe (all the universes, part of the journey even includes a trip through Hell). By the third book, the struggle includes specters and harpies, angels and demons, Satan and God himself. At its root, the struggle pits the forces for authority and control against those of liberty and free will.

Guess which side God is on.