His Dark Materials: Lyra's Oxford, Gift Edition

I enjoyed this little novelette follow-up to the His Dark Materials series. No, it nowhere near matches the depth and breadth that the HDM series covered, but it was really nice to visit Lyra and Pan again.

First and foremost, this is a small book. In length, and also in substance. Decidedly so, no doubt, but it is easy to understand why so many of us have asked, after spending half an hour reading through this: "Is this all? Is this it? Nothing more?" And there is no more (of course, we already do

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have Once Upon A Time in the North, but that's a different story).

So the question is: can you eat one piece of chocolate and be content, or do you need at least a few? I don't think the story is bad, it's just... just little. Like a quick mood piece painted with a gentle touch of watercolours, maybe a sketch or a study of some minor detail for the big and vivid oil painting still in making. Maybe we can really understand the sketch only when we can see the result. Hopefully The Book of Dust will be finished some day...

About fifty pages may sound like a rather lengthy short story, but bear in mind that the pages of this book are exceptionally small! If you'd count the words, I don't think this would equal even one chapter from HDM. To me, the most rewarding part of the book was not so much the story but everything else. Particularly I liked the pages of Baedecker guide, but the map comes as a close second.

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Great short light read. An interesting follow on to the original "Dark Material Series". Where does she go next?

It was a nice touch having all of the items, such as the map, postcards etc. in the story.

Overall a good book.

A nice little story however so short that it is almost not worth reading. The entire book took me about an hour to read and only adds a little to the overall story of Lyra. I would have loved more from this book but there isn't that much in it.

A novella that is a cloaked introduction to semiotics. "Everything means something. We just have to find out how to read it."

This book is astonishingly expensive for what little there is of it. Because I bought it in a '3 for 2' deal, I got something of a discount on it. I s'pose. It still probably ended up being near-enough £7 in real terms, though, and for a VERY short story (it took about ½ an hour to read) that's

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nothing short of completely scandalous.

The basic story is rather like the curate's egg: good in parts, although the conclusion's mystifying (perphaps intentionally, as it seems to be a reference to decoding the different levels of symbol meaning on the altheiometer), and strangely weak. The central plot is also somewhat trite, and is much more reminiscent of the contrived, direct plot of, say, The Ruby in the Smoke, Pullman's earlier work.

Nonetheless, what we're given is still good. It's two years after the end of The Amber Spyglass, and we get a much richer description of Jordan College and, as the title might imply, Lyra's Oxford. Not particularly comprehensive, perhaps, but enough little details squirreled away in the text to flesh the world out quite nicely.

However, aside from the short story, the book also contains a fold-out map of Lyra's Oxford, together with some other oddments from Lyra's world, and whilst these are ridiculously thin in terms of canon-development, they flesh things out considerably (I highly recommend reading the full list of available publications listed on the back of the map, for example - some amusing references in there).

What puzzled me, slightly, was that Mary Malone's flat was marked on the map of Lyra's Oxford. Now, obviously, Mary's in Will's world, but we never really saw her flat, did we? I wonder why it was felt necessary to indicate its location...

There's a Steamer itenary, too, which gives hints at the naming of other countries and stuff, so that we can do the mapping to build up a still bigger picture of the world of anbaric lights and naptha flames, gyptians and armoured bears.

In summary, then, Lyra's Oxford is a diverting ½ hour's story that is ridiculously over-priced. I can only hope that The Book of Dust, if it ever arrives, proves more substantial.

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Lyra's Oxford is another excursion into Phillip Pullman's world of the His Dark Materials Trilogy.

Lyra's Oxford is composed of one 50-odd page story, as well as a map and some other tidbits of information relating to the HDM world.

While the story, Lyra and the Birds, is interesting and well

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written, it did not quite live up to what I have come to expect from Pullman after reading HDM. It seems a little half-hearted...as if Pullman was writing this for popular demand instead of his own desire to write.

Although the tale is set only two years after The Amber Spyglass, Lyra seems to have forgotton all about Will. So much for their devotion to each other.

This is still worth reading, but I hope that Pullman will give us more full length stories to add to HDM.

3.5 Stars.

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Cute story and map of the Oxford Lyra lives in. Not a story to read if you're not familiar with the stories themselves but an interesting look at Lyra and her world.

This short story is set two years after the end of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Lyra is back at Oxford, in school, when a witch's daimon comes seeking her help. A strange illness is killing witches and leaving their daimons alive. But there is something strange about the way the birds of Oxford

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are reacting to the daimon . . .

It's a lovely little volume, bound in red cloth with a drawing of Oxford's spires. Inside, there is a folded map tipped in, along with other ephemera, some of which relates to the story, some of which hints that there may be more to come.

If you loved His Dark Materials, you'll want to read this.

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I've given this a mediocre rating. It was a nice little story about Lyra and Pan, but didn't feel particularly necessary. Either there's very little substance here, or Pullman is being so clever (and the included postcard, maps etc etc certainly imply he's trying to be clever) that I don't get it.

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I'm left feeling a bit disappointed, stupid or possibly both.

I liked the story about Lyra, but the thing we learned from this short tale doesn't seem worth the effort. Yes, it might be important, but for us the readers to see that Pullman will need to write more books, something he hasn't yet given any indication he plans to do. And if he did, that tiny scrap of information could just as easily, and probably should be, included in that.

I guess I feel vaguely cheated. I was looking forward to more about favourite characters and while I did get that, it was a short tale without the strength and substance I know Pullman can write. It read like a prologue for a book but there's no book and while this story is complete, it doesn't feel finished.

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I haven't quite outgrown my love of pop-up books and books with pieces you can pull out of them, so I was delighted to come across this little gem. It contains a (very) short story set in the same universe as Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and an assortment of maps, postcards, and random

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dictionary pages that either accompany it or just add more depth to the mythical Oxford he's constructed.

For Oxonians, it's particularly fun to spot the differences, and retrace Lyra's steps – map in hand – imagining a world with Daemons and witches and University lectures on alchemy.

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Given the spectacular nature of the His Dark Materials trilogy, I was expecting something far greater than this. The story hardly semed to get started at all and ended up seeming like the first chapter of a book as opposed to a short story in itself. I was left thinking "Is that it?"

They stood still. Their city lay quietly around them, and the only voice was the bird's, and they couldn't understand what it said.

This book is a very nice as an object, with a tactile red cloth cover and a few extras including a fold out street map of Lyra's Oxford with the location of some of the

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landmarks of our Oxford scribbled on it. Unfortunately the short story it contains, called "Lyra and the Birds", is rather disappointing.

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Resembled an early chapter from the Northern Lights. We seem to regress to the character of Lyra before she embarked on her adventure - full of the same naivity and positive aggressive spirit. Where's the memory of sadness and the lessons learnt by the indescribable loss suffered and the

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astonishing and illuminating revelations of the trilogy?

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Slight, mysterious, delightful. An alethiometer of a book with suspected layers of symbol and meaning and some ephemera from two worlds. Nice addendum to "His dark materials"

This is a great book for fans of Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. I would not recommend it for those who want to read the series later, because it is set after the other three books. In this novel, Lyra saves the daemon-bird of a witch and tries to help it get where it is going. The plot is

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filled with twists and turns and a surprise ending (though you can see it coming). It is good for an older reader (male or female) who has already read the other fantasy of Pullman. It also features a cool fold out map of Lydia’s Oxford.

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This is truely dreedful, compared to his dark materials it is just not playing the same game let alone in the same league. the story is ill coneived and poorly written. i really wish i had never read this book.

Lyra’s Oxford was an interesting and nice add on to Lyra’s world and story. While the story is very short, it still is a good story to read for those who are fans of the series, His Dark Materials.

Hardly a book at all, just an odd chapter of Lyra-fic that Pullman apparently wrote and couldn’t find a home for. Artistically pointless, but probably profitable.

first line: "Lyra didn't often climb out of her bedroom window these days."

While a fun return to the world of Northern Lights/The Golden Compass, this book isn't quite substantial enough to be really satisfying. Still, it's a necessary addition to the library of any His Dark Materials enthusiast.

An addition to the Dark Materials. Small booklet with beautifull map en expensive cover. It contains a story about Lyra, situated short after the ending of the dark materials trilogy. Nice story but too short for a real fan :)

A cruelly tantalizing, brief glimpse into Lyra's world after the events of His Dark Materials

Just an afterword to the trilogy. Well written, but at some level very little happens. The book, as opposed to the audiobook, is accompanied by some amusing bits of miscellaneous documents from Lyra's world and possibly from others.

Lyra's Oxford is an ancillary of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Fans of His Dark Materials will enjoy this book, as it sheds new light on some of the character from His Dark Materials in a short story format.