Loved Golden Compass & Subtle Knife, especially the daemons and how they were shapechangers, but only for children.

I, too, loved this. I have very, very mixed feelings about the Dark Materials Trilogy. I absolutely adored The Golden Compass, but The Subtle Knife did not sit well for me. For one thing, something that happens to Will pushed a major squick button for me. For another, I read it at a time in my life where Pullman's portrayal of God (I have little trouble with his portray of organized religion) was like constant nails-on-a-chalkboard.

I want to re-read the books, but I think I would be able to turn on the "this is a novel, Pullman does not think about things the same way I do" filters more successfully.

I can see I will have to read more Tepper, stat.

I hate her. I think I hate her because I used to love her, and feel very betrayed.

I loved her YA stuff (Jinian Footseer, IIRC, etc). And then some of her adult stuff was engaging too. And then I landed in one of her screeds (Fresco, I think -- I keep calling it Fiasco in my head) and I'm mad at her for sucking me in with her reputation and then beating me repeatedly with an argument I basically agree with anyway.

Tepper wrote some wonderful books, but most of her most recent books have had agendas that she wrapped around giant hammers and kept thwacking you on the head with them.

I'm in the corner with Ginger, somewhere close to ita, on Tepper.

I really enjoyed Judith Merkle Riley's Oracle Glass and The Serpent Garden. Oracle is set in pre-Terror Paris and the heroine is a young girl making a career of fortune-telling; and Garden is about a young English painter of minatures, and the angel of Art who assists her in outwitting a demon.

How weighty are these? I think my brain has been sucked out by the spawn. I'm embarrassed to admit that right now I'm not up to literary or brilliant; just interesting and of a higher caliber than the average Harlequin. These sound really interesting to me though.

Those two books do sound good.

I'ma go sit with ita on Tepper, but most of you probably suspected that.

I have mercifully blanked the title from my memory, but I hit midpoint with one of her books and the only thing keeping me from running it through the shredder -- and giving some hope to the bookpaper for a better life in its next incarnation -- was the fact that Connie had lent me the book, and I would have had to spend my own money to replace it.

How weighty are these?

Not very weighty at all; I found them both light and airy pleasurable reads. In fact, I re-read Serpent Garden every so often as a comfort read. I like it when Susanna prevails, and the description of her painting is cool.

I totally missed the Christianity theme in Chronicles of Narnia as a child, having been raised without religion. I was utterly amazed when I figured out how important church was to other people - I'd no clue. This background worked for me in Compass and Knife, because that sort of thing gets by under my radar. Even I couldn't miss it in Amber Spyglass, though.

Edited for bad tagging. Oops. Really, I can preufreed gude.

ita is me on Tepper.

Aw jeez. Mlle. Tepper. Yes indeed.

I met her about 15, 16 years ago, maybe a bit longer - Nebula awards in LA, whenever that was. I liked her first book - forget the title now - and said so. We got into a discussion of feminism and she basically got on my case about how I couldn't be a feminist because what was I doing with all that makeup and those high heels? (Not her words, but her argument.) I said I felt strongly that any woman who doesn't get that dressing up as a celebration of one's own body is pure feminism needed to go home and think about it.

I haven't read any more of her. Did I miss anything? Someone said something about using a hammer, which is how I remember the conversation.

Aside from its major flaws, a total retcon..

TB, the fourth book, you mean? Not the series, I hope. I loved the first two - Hollow Hills and Crystal Cave - with a stone passion.

Sometimes I think Philip Pullman is C.S. Lewis reincarnated. They have many of the same strengths and flaws as writers, just coming from opposite ends of the spectrum on religious opinion. To judge from interviews, Pullman is completely blind to this.

I second the vote for Judith Merkle Riley. Her books are tremendously engaging and not effortful reading at all.