His Dark Materials

The first volume is thrilling and moving, with the unsentimental brutality of the best young persons' adventures (and like the very best children’s books this is for unfossilized grown-ups as well.) The second volume is intriguing and disturbing. The third volume was emotionally weaker: one cares much less for the people and races as the action widens to cosmic scope. Everything wraps up quite neatly if unsettlingly. (This review is written in August of 2020, ten or more years after reading the books.)