"Tantalizing. . . . A provocative exporation of traps and trust, awareness and intuition." -- The New York Times Book Review

"His Dark Materials is easily the most deservedly labeled epic of contemporary epic fantasies; here as a pendant to that trilogy is a short story that even in its brevity manages to capture some of the majesty--and mystery--of the parent work."--The Horn Book Magazine

"Fans who can't get enough of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy will embrace this small volume, which packages a short story about Lyra along with such ephemera as a beautifully engraved, fold-out map of the alternate-reality Oxford which Lyra inhabits. Puzzle enthusiasts will enjoy poring over the clues."--Publishers Weekly --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Gr. 5-8. This small book, "a new episode from the universe of His Dark Materials," is an oddity and a rarity, a volume that owes as much to its packaging as it does to its story. Set a few years after Pullman's trilogy ends, this finds Lyra still in Oxford, where she and her daemon, Pantalaimon, are suddenly disturbed by a bird daemon, who has been separated from his witch. The daemon appeals to Lyra to help him find a cure for his witch's mysterious illness, and he leads her into an alchemist's house that is not what it seems. In 64 pages, Pullman offers both a crystalline story that may or may not be leading to further episodes, and bits of memorabilia that include a pullout map of Lyra's Oxford, a cruise brochure, and a postcard of Oxford sent by the trilogy's character Mary Malone. These, along with engravings by John Lawrence, help the book achieve a distinctive look and feel that enhances the sentiment Pullman offers in his introduction: "All these tattered old bits and pieces have a history and meaning . . . perhaps the future affects the past in some way we don't understand." To be continued. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

An exciting new tale set in the world of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials saga. This collectible hardcover volume includes a short story by Mr. Pullman, plus a fold-out map of Oxford and various "souvenirs" from the past. The book is illustrated throughout with woodcut illustrations by John Lawrence.


From the Hardcover edition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A BEGUILING NEW EPISODE FROM THE UNIVERSE OF HIS DARK MATERIALS

 

Lyra's Oxford opens two years after the conclusion of Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass in the comfort and familiarity of Jordan College, where Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon, sit on the sun-drenched roof looking out over all of Oxford.

 

But their peace is shattered when a strange bird - a witch's daemon, on it's own - tumbles out of the sky, in search of a healing elixer to cure his witch of a strange new disease. Lyra and Pan decided to help - witches are friends, of course - but the closer their winding walk leads them towards the infamous Oxford alchemist, the stronger Lyra's sense that something is amiss.

 

INCLUDES FOLDOUT MAP AND OTHER MATTER NEVER BEFORE SEEN IN THIS WORLD

(20040224) --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Philip Pullman is the Whitbread Award-winning author of the bestselling His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spylass, and Lyra's Oxford. His books for young readers also include I Was a Rat!,Count Karlstein, and Spring-Heeled Jack. In 2005, Pullman won the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in honor of the body of his work. To learn more about his books, please visit www.hisdarkmaterials.com. The author lives in Oxford, England. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

LYRA didn’t often climb out of her bedroom window these days. She had a better way onto the roof of Jordan College: the Porter had given her a key that let her onto the roof of the Lodge Tower. He’d let her have it because he was too old to climb the steps and check the stonework and the lead, as was his duty four times a year; so she made a full report to him, and he passed it to the Bursar, and in exchange she was able to get out onto the roof whenever she wanted. When she lay down on the lead, she was invisible from everywhere except the sky. A little parapet ran all the way around the square roof, and Pantalaimon often draped his pine-marten form over the mock battlements on the corner facing south, and dozed while Lyra sat below with her back against the sun-drenched stone, studying the books she’d brought up with her. Sometimes they’d stop and watch the storks that nested on St. Michael’s Tower, just across Turl Street. Lyra had a plan to tempt them over to Jordan, and she’d even dragged several planks of wood up to the roof and laboriously nailed them together to make a platform, just as they’d done at St. Michael’s; but it hadn’t worked. The storks were loyal to St. Michael’s, and that was that.
“They wouldn’t stay for long if we kept on coming here, anyway,” said Pantalaimon.
“We could tame them. I bet we could. What do they eat?”
“Fish,” he guessed. “Frogs.” He was lying on top of the stone parapet, lazily grooming his red gold fur. Lyra stood up to lean on the stone beside him, her limbs full of warmth, and gazed out toward the southeast, where a dusty dark-green line of trees rose above the spires and rooftops in the early evening air.

She was waiting for the starlings. That year an extraordinary number of them had come to roost in the Botanic Garden, and every evening they would rise out of the trees like smoke, and swirl and swoop and dart through the skies above the city in their thousands.
“Millions,” Pan said.
“Maybe, easily. I don’t know who could ever count them. . . . There they are!” They didn’t seem like individual birds, or even individual dots of black against the blue; it was the flock itself that was the individual. It was like a single piece of cloth, cut in a very complicated way that let it swing through itself and double over and stretch and fold in three dimensions without ever tangling, turning itself inside out and elegantly waving and crossing through and falling and rising and falling again. “If it was saying something . . . ,” said Lyra.
“Like signaling.”
“No one would know, though. No one could ever understand what it meant.”
“Maybe it means nothing. It just is.”
“Everything means something,” Lyra said severely. “We just have to find out how to read it.” Pantalaimon leapt across a gap in the parapet to the stone in the corner, and stood on his hind legs, balancing with his tail and gazing more intently at the vast swirling flock over the far side of the city.
“What does that mean, then?” he said. She knew exactly what he was referring to. She was watching it too. Something was jarring or snagging at the smokelike, flaglike, ceaseless motion of the starlings, as if that miraculous multidimensional cloth had found itself unable to get rid of a knot.
“They’re attacking something,” Lyra said, shading her eyes. And coming closer. Lyra could hear them now, too: a high-pitched angry mindless shriek. The bird at the center of the swirling anger was darting to right and left, now speeding upward, now dropping almost to the rooftops, and when it was no closer than the spire of the University Church, and before they could even see what kind of bird it was, Lyra and Pan found themselves shaking with surprise. For it wasn’t a bird, although it was bird-shaped; it was a dæmon. A witch’s dæmon.
“Has anyone else seen it? Is anyone looking?” said Lyra. Pan’s black eyes swept every rooftop, every window in sight, while Lyra leaned out and looked up and down the street on one side and then darted to the other three sides to look into Jordan’s front quadrangle and along the roof as well. The citizens of Oxford were going about their daily business, and a noise of birds in the sky wasn’t interesting enough to disturb them. Just as well: because a dæmon was instantly recognizable as what he was, and to see one without his human would have caused a sensation, if not an outcry of fear and horror. “Oh, this way, this way!” Lyra said urgently, unwilling to shout, but jumping up and waving both arms; and Pan too was trying to attract the dæmon’s attention, leaping from stone to stone, flowing across the gaps and spinning around to leap back again. The birds were closer now, and Lyra could see the dæmon clearly: a dark bird about the size of a thrush, but with long arched wings and a forked tail. Whatever he’d done to anger the starlings, they were possessed by fear and rage, swooping, stabbing, tearing, trying to batter him out of the air.
“This way! Here, here!” Pan cried, and Lyra flung open the trapdoor to give the dæmon a way of escape. The noise, now that the starlings were nearly overhead, was deafening, and Lyra thought that people below must be looking up to see this war in the sky. And there were so many birds, as thick as flakes in a blizzard of black snow, that Lyra, her arm across her head, lost sight of the dæmon among them. But Pan had him. As the dæmon-bird dived low toward the tower, Pan stood up on his hind legs, and then leapt up to gather the dæmon in his paws and roll with him over and over toward the trapdoor, and they fell through clumsily as Lyra struck out with her fists to left and right and then tumbled through after the two dæmons, dragging the trapdoor shut behind her. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

In "Lyra and the Birds," Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon, are swept up in an adventure that takes them from the rooftops of Jordan College to the streets of Oxford. The short story is set sometime after the events of THE AMBER SPYGLASS. Jo Wyatt and Richard Pearce are back as Lyra and Pan, as is narrator Pullman, but otherwise the cast is comparatively small. The CD package includes a map of Lyra's Oxford, as well as "souvenirs" such as a postcard and cruise line brochure, items that, as Pullman's introduction says, "might be connected with the story, or they might not . . . It's not easy to tell." LYRA'S OXFORD is essential listening for His Dark Materials fans, but be warned--it will only leave you wanting more. J.M.D. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.