This last book in the
His Dark Materials trilogy is the culmination and unravelling of much of the setup in the first and second books. It is nigh impossible to
coherently summarize or indeed read it
out of context, so I shan't try here. The series in its entirety is highly recommended in every way for both children and adults, and although the last book is indeed a little
dense, I don't agree with the WU above that this is due to Pullman's having "run out of space".
It would have been impossible for Pullman to write some of the prophetic content of Northern Lights if he didn't have a pretty shrewd idea, and quite likely a first draft of the next two books already. As he himself calls the trilogy "a story in three books", my assumption while reading was that he simply cut the story up into three parts, unequal in size, according to an internal narrative logic. In any case the trilogy is already in the shops in collected form (no doubt for a silly amount of money, but what can you do), and I rather suspect it will in time become a single work in the public imagination, much in the same way as the Lord of the Rings trilogy has done.
In recent news, The Amber Spyglass yesterday won the Whitbread Prize for Best Children's Book and Book of the Year. In previous years Pullman objected to his books being shortlisted for the prize as the regulations meant if he won the Best Children's he wouldn't be considered for best book. The regulations were amended, in part owing to his protests, and in fact J.K. Rowling was considered for Book of the Year herself a couple of years back. This is the first time in the award's history, however, that a children's book has won the prestigious overall prize.