From: <akt@attglobal.net>
Subject: (urth) Pullman
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 16:08:30 

vizcacha:

> The witches reminded me of the witches in the Kalevala, which is a
nice change
> from the usual witches one meets in fantasy. The concept of the
daemons was
> well-done and well-elaborated, with some unexpected but
well-thought-out
> twists in the later books (e.g., why do _we_ not have daemons?).

Well, sure! They're Lapland witches! Shakepeare, Milton and Goethe all
refer to Lapland witches and I couldn't have been more thrilled to meet
them, and so wonderfully described. A couple of the very best Xena eps
have her running up against a Northern shamaness/witch. (I hope you
appreciate the cultural juxtaposition.) There is also a rather
pornographic Fuseli painting of them; you can find it on the Web--not
Pullman's witches, for sure. And, hey, vizcacha, some of us on this list
*do* have daemons--you do youself ;-)

> Unfortunately, starting even in the first book, but getting worse in
the
> second and still worse in the third, Pullman lets his fantasy get out
of
> control. What many authors of fantasy forget is that if anything is
> possible, nothing is interesting. Eventually so many rabbits are
pulled out
> of so many hats that the dramatic tension in the story just vanishes,
and
> all you are doing is following the plot to see how it works out. (The
SF
> equivalent, I suppose, is the "inventing a space-drive using the
contents of
> your junk drawer" story, or any Star Trek episode).

To which Adam replied, making me LOL:

> Or the protagonist suddenly discovering he can travel in spirit to
other
> planets? <g>

Actually, the only place in the second book (perhaps aside from the many
coincidences) that I thought went too far was the angels sending a
message via Dr Malone's computer OTOH many people do find gremlins in
their computers!

Did you all like Hester? She was my favorite daemon. (I haven't yet read
Book 3.)

-alga


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