Northern Lights (1999)
Northern Lights is a 1999 political theology book written by Philip Pullman.
In an Oxford that is almost ours, every person walks beside a daemon, an animal that carries a piece of their soul. Lyra Belacqua runs half wild through Jordan College until two visitors upend her life: her cold, brilliant uncle Lord Asriel, back from the North with talk of a strange substance called Dust, and the beautiful Mrs Coulter, who takes the girl under her wing. Children are vanishing from the city's poor quarters, snatched by figures the young call Gobblers. Armed with a rare truth-telling instrument, Lyra sets off north toward armored bears and the lights of a hidden world. Philip Pullman builds it whole.
Quick answers
What is Northern Lights about?
In an Oxford that is almost ours, every person walks beside a daemon, an animal that carries a piece of their soul. Lyra Belacqua runs half wild through Jordan College until two visitors upend her life: her cold, brilliant uncle Lord Asriel, back from the North with talk of a strange substance called Dust, and the beautiful Mrs Coulter, who takes the girl under her wing. Children are vanishing from the city's poor quarters, snatched by figures the young call Gobblers. Armed with a rare truth-telling instrument, Lyra sets off north toward armored bears and the lights of a hidden world. Philip Pullman builds it whole.
When was Northern Lights published?
Northern Lights was published on 31 October 1999.
Who made Northern Lights?
Northern Lights was written by Philip Pullman.
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A few thoughts on Northern Lights
BioShock Infinite chases the same idea of worlds folded beside our own, its tears in the air a violent cousin to the shimmering aurora that hides Asriel's city; a floating world, a fierce girl, and a father's guilt bind them. The BBC and HBO series His Dark Materials films Lyra's journey faithfully, daemons and all, and is the surest way to see this world move.
Continuing deeper into a multiverse where every world hides another
Lyra's search for Dust and her father barely finishes by the last page of Northern Lights, and the true multiverse of Pullman's Oxford keeps widening across The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. That same sense of worlds folded inside worlds turns up in BioShock Infinite's floating, reality-tearing Columbia and Stargate SG-1's gate-hopping expeditions.
A bonded companion creature that reflects exactly who you are
Lyra is never without Pantalaimon, the daemon whose shifting shape carries a piece of her own soul, exactly as Philip Pullman describes it. That same idea, a bonded animal or spirit that reflects who its person really is, shapes Charlotte's Web's quiet friendship, Sailor Moon's guiding companion cat Luna, Miraculous Ladybug's kwami spirits, and Eragon's saga of a boy and his dragon in Brisingr.
Kids swept into a war between secretive, all-powerful authorities
Lyra gets pulled into a fight between Jordan College, the Gobblers, and the Magisterium long before she understands the stakes, a shape shared by Percy Jackson's collision with warring gods in The Lightning Thief, Katniss's fight against the Capitol, Harry Potter's discovery of a hidden magical authority, and Alina's entanglement with the Grisha and the Darkling in Shadow and Bone.