HIS DARK MATERIALS

I'm sure there was something approaching an oil refinary mentioned somewhere. I might be imagining it though.

Before drainage, the Lincolnshire Fens and the Yorkshire marshes were all connected anyway. There was a more-or-less continuous belt of fen from the Wash through to the Trent valley, and it was an important trading route, with Boston, the largest port in the country outside London, at one end.

(the Yorkshire fens - usually called Moors even though they're nothing like moorland as you imagine it - are a large, flat, bog formed where the Trent, Ouse, Aire and Don meet to form the Humber)

LA Times puff piece on things but there's some useful bits among the slop.

that article ends kind of abruptly!

SEQUEL

my daemon is a fox.

Okay, so. As muttered above, I've had the damn thing sitting around for a bit and had promised myself I would obv. read it all before the movie came out. I'd mentioned the books to a friend of mine, she went and got her own copy from the library and started to read it and I was all, "Okay, it's a sign."

So I read the first one today. Lived up to all the promise. And to celebrate I then saw the trailer, which I'd carefully avoided until now. This'll be good. (But isn't Mrs. Coulter supposed to be a brunette?)

More thoughts on all the books when I've read them all...

Read in a single day? Even with all those long words like 'magisterium'? I think you'll like the second one (The Subtle Knife) even more. It really does build the momentum.

...as for the brunette issue, Pullman stated he originally wrote the part with Nicole Kidman in mind, and she is, lest we forget, a gingah. I think in the film her golden blonde hair will set her apart from the witches, i.e. Eva Green and her dark ilk.

Read in a single day? Even with all those long words like 'magisterium'?

It's a quick read! And I don't mean that as an insult, rather as a sign of appreciation -- he takes you into the world created very easily and the various characters and plot points are quick to grasp, if the deeper theology requires reflection. Also, the setting reminded me a hell of a lot of Randall Garrett's Lord D'Arcy stories, of which I'm v. fond, so it was easy to accept an alternate England/Earth setting mixing the supernatural and the technical.

i mainlined the first two over last weekend. they remind me more of l'engle than lewis, carroll, or rowling – and the writing is much lovelier, to boot.

i'm a lion named sophia

L'Engle! That's a *sharp* comparison -- as soon as I read that it all clicked on that front.

Randall Garrett's Lord D'Arcy stories

totally forgot about those, i loved them.

i'm surprised most of the initial rush of hype isn't even mentioning the anti-theist angle. i guess they're saving that up for the big arts-section think pieces this fall.

in the meantime, i'll be preparing my rebuttal.

Unsurprisingly, given the fact it's US-financed, the 'anti-theist' angle has been toned down in the film in favour of a more generic 'anti-authoritarian' slant. Even Pullman's backtracking a bit, saying that the 'Magisterium' might denote an umbrella organisation of all kinds of wickedness, not just the Catholic Church, as so brazenly alluded to in the books.

i'm surprised most of the initial rush of hype isn't even mentioning the anti-theist angle

"So I dunno, Bob, you think we should play that up given how most of America claims to believe in God?"

"Nah, Mark, better to let it lie for now."

Repeat as needed.

I would have thought that the anti-Catholic aspect would have gone down a storm in the States, as the born-again section of Christian right often seems to give the impression that they think that all Catholics are Statnists...

Perhaps, but those who have read the final book know that God does in fact feature in a massive way, and, Statnists or no Statnists, believers in any monotheistic religion would take umbridge with the events. Quick, read the other two!!!

umbrage at the events. I think Umbridge is a place in the Midlands.

I think there's another really obvious umbrage-attractor in the final book beyond the God stuff, but since there's a lot of ppl who haven't read them I will hold my tongue.