Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Summary and Reviews of The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass

His Dark Materials - Book III

by Philip Pullman
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Oct 1, 2000, 400 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Oct 2001, 480 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Book Summary

Brings the intrigue of The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife to a heart-stopping end, marking the final volume of His Dark Materials as the most powerful of the trilogy.

The Amber Spyglass brings the intrigue of The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife to a heart-stopping end, marking the final volume of His Dark Materials as the most powerful of the trilogy.

Along with the return of Lyra, Will, Mrs. Coulter, Lord Asriel, Dr. Mary Malone, and Iorek Byrnison the armored bear, come a host of new characters: the Mulefa, mysterious wheeled creatures with the power to see Dust; Gallivespian Lord Roke, a hand-high spymaster to Lord Asriel; and Metatron, a fierce and mighty angel. So, too, come startling revelations: the painful price Lyra must pay to walk through the land of the dead, the haunting power of Dr. Malone's amber spyglass, and the names of who will live--and who will die--for love. And all the while, war rages with the Kingdom of Heaven, a brutal battle that--in its shocking outcome--will uncover the secret of Dust. Philip Pullman deftly brings the cliff-hangers and mysteries of His Dark Materials to an earthshattering conclusion--and confirms his fantasy trilogy as an undoubted and enduring classic.

The Break

Ama climbed the path to the cave, as she'd done for many days now, bread and milk in the bag on her back, a heavy puzzlement in her heart. How in the world could she ever manage to reach the sleeping girl? Would the woman never leave the cave for more than a few minutes?

Ama came to the rock where the woman had told her to leave the food since she wasn't allowed in the cave anymore. She put down the bag, but she didn't go straight home; she climbed a little farther, up past the cave and through the thick rhododendrons, and farther up still to where the trees thinned out and the rainbows began.

This part of the valley was where the streams and cascades ran most confusingly: shafts of green-white water would sink into potholes and emerge a little lower down, or gush upward in splintered fountains, or divide into myriad streamlets, or swirl round and round trapped in a whirlpool. When the world was frozen, spears and shelves and columns of glassy ice grew ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
About This Book

The Amber Spyglass brings the intrigue of The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife to a heart-stopping conclusion, marking the final volume as the most powerful of the trilogy.

Along with the return of Lyra, Will, Mrs. Coulter, Lord Asriel, Dr. Mary Malone, and the armored bear Iorek Byrnison, The Amber Spyglass introduces a host of new characters: the Mulefa, mysterious wheeled creatures with the power to see Dust; Gallivespian Lord Roke, a hand-high spymaster to Lord Asriel; and Metatron, a fierce and mighty angel.

And with rich characters and mounting suspense come startling revelations, too: the painful price Lyra must pay to walk through the land of the dead, the haunting power of Dr. Malone's amber ...
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

Newsweek
Pullman [is] a big deal, and so is this final volume of the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy.

Salon.com - Polly Shulman
.... while Pullman may have become caught up in adult theology -- and while he has won more grown-up readers with each Dark Materials book -- he keeps the swooping plots and passionate characters that make his earlier books so appealing to young readers. With fantasies, as with mysteries, the hardest part to get right is the end, where everything is revealed. The magical objects and unexplained forces that flourish in the genre easily lend themselves to anticlimax, disintegrating into mere mechanics or bluster once the author attempts to explain them or tie them together in the traditional apocalyptic battle at the end. Given the delicious promise of the first two Dark Materials books, some disappointment was almost inevitable. But The Amber Spyglass delivers surprisingly little of it; the latest novel is nearly as satisfying as the first two.

USA Today
One of the most anticipated books [this fall].

Reader Reviews

Book Freak

Life and Love goes on
I absolutely adore this book. In fact, I own it! I love this book for its emotional trauma of how life and love move on even after the most terrible blows. I recommend this book to anyone who has a giving heart and is awed by the possibility ...   Read More
Lindsey

Great Book!
This book was very very good I have read the whole Harry Potter Books and many other fantasy book, he did a great job,my mom read it too .She cried at the end and I almost did, I couldn't put it down! Thumbs up!:-)If you haven't read the book,YOU ...   Read More
Big Girl0013

The Amber Spyglass
I think that the book "The Amber Spyglass" s a great book because Lyra and Will was at war rages and Dust drains from the sky, the fate of the living and the dead finally comes to depend on two children and the simple truth of one simple story. When ...   Read More
Katie

GREAT!!!
This was one of the best books I have ever read and I have read A LOT of books! It is also one of the saddest. I wish that there was a forth book!

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Amber Spyglass, try these:

  • Smoke jacket

    Smoke

    by Dan Vyleta

    Published 2017

    About this book

    More by this author

    "Smoke is an addictive combination of thriller, fantasy, and historical novel, with a dash of horror. It's chilling and complex and amazingly imaginative." - Marilyn Dahl, Shelf Awareness

  • Fly Trap jacket

    Fly Trap

    by Frances Hardinge

    Published 2012

    About this book

    More by this author

    In the eagerly awaited sequel to Fly by Night, acclaimed storyteller Frances Hardinge returns to a vivid world rich with humor, danger, and discovery.

We have 11 read-alikes for The Amber Spyglass, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Philip Pullman
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

The only completely consistent people are the dead

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..