The Subtle Knife – Philip Pullman

ISBN – 978 1407 10407 2
Publisher – Point
First Published – 1997
Pages – 321

‘The Subtle Knife brings Lyra to an eerie city where she meets a mysterious boy – a murderer. Will’s fate is strnagely linked with hers, and together, they must find a powerfuland secret object which people from many worlds would kill to possess…’

The Subtle Knife continues Lyra’s journey, this time into another world, where she meets Will, a boy from another world. They meet in a world that is foreign to both of theirs, and empty of people. There, they find the Subtle Knife, which Will is now the master of.

Will is from a world very different to Lyra’s. For starters, he has no dæmon, but is not like the severed children from Lyra’s world. He has his own background story, and personally, I found him to be a better character than Lyra.

The different world that Will and Lyra visit are kept apart by a thin layer, which can be severed through the use of the Subtle Knife, making Will a target for people looking for the power that the knife will give them. They later find out that the knife can be used to kill the spectres that Lyra and Will cannot see, haunting the empty world that Lyra found herself in after passing though the hole that her father, Lord Asriel made at the end of Northern Lights.

Will has a choice to make; whichever side he chooses to join will have the added power of the knife, but he won’t go anywhere without Lyra, and this book ends with yet another cliffhanger, leading into the next book.

This book is, like the first one, full of themes that make you think a lot.

Our review for the next book, The Amber Spyglass can be found here.

Rating (out of 5):

“What were these mysteries? Was there only one world after all, which spent its time dreaming of others?“

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