The Republic of Heaven

Most of the responces I've seen so far have been delighted that this book is coming-but does anyone else feel slight apprehensive and negtive towards it? I felt that Lyras Oxford was a slight let down, and though I still love Pullman and read every book he releases I feel that the HDM seris should ahve been stopped after TAS and that these later books take some of the gloss of the magnificent serise. There is too much of a good thing...

i think LO was a let down because the plot wasn't what we would've hoped. lee and iorek on the other hand seem a lot more exciting story-wise, and maybe more like something pullman was always eager to tell when he was first thinking up HDM. also the extras are fun and, in my eye, redeemed LO of its less-than-exciting story.

jessia wrote:i think LO was a let down because the plot wasn't what we would've hoped. lee and iorek on the other hand seem a lot more exciting story-wise, and maybe more like something pullman was always eager to tell when he was first thinking up HDM. also the extras are fun and, in my eye, redeemed LO of its less-than-exciting story.

Agreed, I enjoyed Lyras Oxford but I would still have preffered for it not to have come out. I udnerstood the motivation behind the book of dust as well-to tie up lose ends and to rpovide some background, but a trilogy is far to much.

One of the greta thigns about Lee and Iorek is that we don't know huge amount about there background-its one of the things that makes there freindship and characters so facinating. Having a book on them would destroy this mystery.

but that follows in line with "ignorance is bliss," i think. but he's mentionned this as a story he has wanted to tell anyways. it was meant to be included in TBOD but i guess it's not happening now.

jessia wrote: It was meant to be included in TBOD but I guess it's not happening now.

Do you mean The Book Of Dust won't happen? It's beginning to look that way to me. First the Lyra story, then this one - both things that were mentioned as being part of TBOD.

furbaby wrote:Do you mean The Book Of Dust won't happen? It's beginning to look that way to me. First the Lyra story, then this one - both things that were mentioned as being part of TBOD.

i just meant the inclusion of the story about lee and iorek actually. there's still farder coram and serafina left and he says he's been working on it. that said, he never mentionned OUATITN (that abbreviation's really not going to stick) until it was actually finished and off to the publishers. we technically haven't even seen a press release for it, but given that the news was direct from the source...

Personally, I loved LO, it's such a puzzle of a book. I don't think of it as a novel, thats all. It's a vignette, chapbook, even just a little piece of art. The book is so nice just as an object, with its cloth binding and all the little maps and fold outs and such. The story is good, but it's one element of all that LO is. And so I am looking forward to another in the same vein.

AUST wrote:Agreed, I enjoyed Lyras Oxford but I would still have preferred for it not to have come out.

I think you've missed the point of Lyra's Oxford, as has everybody who feels cheated that it wasn't another full-length epic. Nobody ever pretended it would be.

Its nature is made quite clear. It is an artefact which contains amongst other things a short story. It also contains a map of Oxford, a catalogue of travel equipment, a catalogue of books, a catalogue of maps, a brochure for a Mediterranean cruise, an extract from a travel guide. The reader with no imagination will take them as just that. The more curious will realise that there's something distinctly rum about each and every one of them.

Egypt and the Coptic Kingdoms? No Islam, then. So Marisa Coulter has a previously unknown side, she writes learned books on anthropoloigy. Whi is Athanasius Kircher? Why has Mary's postcard got a funny postmark? What happens between Famagusta and Latakia? Which is the only street in Oxford which has a different name in the L-World?

Until you know about all these, you haven't exhausted the possibilities of LO. It's no accident that, while my copies of the main books have moved on, I'm hanging on to Lyra's Oxford.

Enitharmon wrote:

AUST wrote:Agreed, I enjoyed Lyras Oxford but I would still have preferred for it not to have come out.

I think you've missed the point of Lyra's Oxford, as has everybody who feels cheated that it wasn't another full-length epic. Nobody ever pretended it would be.

Its nature is made quite clear. It is an artefact which contains amongst other things a short story. It also contains a map of Oxford, a catalogue of travel equipment, a catalogue of books, a catalogue of maps, a brochure for a Mediterranean cruise, an extract from a travel guide. The reader with no imagination will take them as just that. The more curious will realise that there's something distinctly rum about each and every one of them.

Egypt and the Coptic Kingdoms? No Islam, then. So Marisa Coulter has a previously unknown side, she writes learned books on anthropoloigy. Whi is Athanasius Kircher? Why has Mary's postcard got a funny postmark? What happens between Famagusta and Latakia? Which is the only street in Oxford which has a different name in the L-World?

Until you know about all these, you haven't exhausted the possibilities of LO. It's no accident that, while my copies of the main books have moved on, I'm hanging on to Lyra's Oxford.

I never said i felt cheated-I would have preferred it hadn't come out. I did find it very intresting to read and look through adn work out, but I'm not in favour of there being too many HDM books, especally not ones that meerly seem to be filling in backstory like this.

is this book already out or is it being published... little confused here?

yesac113 wrote:is this book already out or is it being published... little confused here?

It's not out yet. Scheduled, I believe, for April 08.

*tic toc tic toc*

Enitharmon wrote:

AUST wrote:Agreed, I enjoyed Lyras Oxford but I would still have preferred for it not to have come out.

I think you've missed the point of Lyra's Oxford, as has everybody who feels cheated that it wasn't another full-length epic. Nobody ever pretended it would be.

Its nature is made quite clear. It is an artefact which contains amongst other things a short story. It also contains a map of Oxford, a catalogue of travel equipment, a catalogue of books, a catalogue of maps, a brochure for a Mediterranean cruise, an extract from a travel guide. The reader with no imagination will take them as just that. The more curious will realise that there's something distinctly rum about each and every one of them.

Egypt and the Coptic Kingdoms? No Islam, then. So Marisa Coulter has a previously unknown side, she writes learned books on anthropoloigy. Whi is Athanasius Kircher? Why has Mary's postcard got a funny postmark? What happens between Famagusta and Latakia? Which is the only street in Oxford which has a different name in the L-World?

Until you know about all these, you haven't exhausted the possibilities of LO. It's no accident that, while my copies of the main books have moved on, I'm hanging on to Lyra's Oxford.

I'm completely with you Rosie - I loved LO to bits (preferred it, in all its brevity, to TAS, quite frankly. Now that Once... I love that too but whereas most people seem to think Once.. is a return to form I still prefer LO. So there

whats wrong with filling out the backstory of the characters, we cant expect every story he writes to a be an epic like the trilogy, its nice to get tiny snipets that flesh out our characters, if it bothers you that much just dont read it.....

All I can say is that I take this post that. I brought Once... today and it was supurb, absoloutly brilliant.