THE NEXT HARRY POTTER?

• Author: LIPSON, EDEN ROSS
• Position: Review

Everyone knows that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was the most exciting publishing event of the summer. But wait--there's another big, dense, imported British series title this fall that has also excited a large crossover audience. It's the release of The Amber Spyglass (Random House), the third and final volume of Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials.

Pullman began the first book in the series, The Golden Compass, with a loose structure for the entire trilogy, and it's profoundly influenced by Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, grappling with issues of good and evil, God and totalitarianism. But even the author admits to being surprised by what has happened since to his lead character, Lyra Belacqua, an 11-year-old orphan girl who rides a great white bear.

She seems to live inside a college in Oxford, England, yet it's a world where science, magic, and theology are...