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People who know a lot more about literature will have much more interesting things to say about this book. Ultimately there's not much of a story to it but the characters and the thoughts, joyfulness and regrets they express about living and dying are universal and there's so many of them, you can't fail to be touched or entertained by some if not all.

Well that was disappointing. I loved the His Dark Materials books and their combination of imagination, action and big ideas and I looked forward to diving into Pullman's world again with the first in a prequel trilogy.

The story of La Belle Sauvage starts promisingly enough. Lyra is a baby and has been ordered into the protection of a nunnery near Oxford. Malcolm is a likable and plucky boy who works and lives with his parents at a nearby pub and often visits the nuns. The arrival of Lord Asriel to see his daughter draws Malcolm into a battle that is raging around the baby between the Magisterium and a secret network of spies called Oakley Street.

The witches in the north have a prophecy about the baby and others want to do her harm. During a violent storm and subsequent flood, Malcolm flees with the baby and Nancy, a serving girl, in his boat La Belle Sauvage across a drowned land.

The rest of the book - 50% of the text - centres on a series of adventures the three have, which become quite repetitive and have little to no bearing on the central plot. After a few chapters of this it begins to feel like incident for incident's sake. Filler. The central plot is also vague. There's talk of Dust and certain scientific research, but because Malcolm and Nancy are not part of the Magisterium or Oakley Street, their knowledge (and ours) is limited.

The whole series of events (it's not a plot really) peters to a predictable end with the promise that something interesting or really exciting might happen in the next book. I don't think I can be bothered.

Well that was disappointing. I loved the His Dark Materials books and their combination of imagination, action and big ideas and I looked forward to diving into Pullman's world again with the first in a prequel trilogy.

The story of La Belle Sauvage starts promisingly enough. Lyra is a baby and has been ordered into the protection of a nunnery near Oxford. Malcolm is a likable and plucky boy who works and lives with his parents at a nearby pub and often visits the nuns. The arrival of Lord Asriel to see his daughter draws Malcolm into a battle that is raging around the baby between the Magisterium and a secret network of spies called Oakley Street.

The witches in the north have a prophecy about the baby and others want to do her harm. During a violent storm and subsequent flood, Malcolm flees with the baby and Nancy, a serving girl, in his boat La Belle Sauvage across a drowned land.

The rest of the book - 50% of the text - centres on a series of adventures the three have, which become quite repetitive and have little to no bearing on the central plot. After a few chapters of this it begins to feel like incident for incident's sake. Filler. The central plot is also vague. There's talk of Dust and certain scientific research, but because Malcolm and Nancy are not part of the Magisterium or Oakley Street, their knowledge (and ours) is limited. 

The whole series of events (it's not a plot really) peters to a predictable end with the promise that something interesting or really exciting might happen in the next book. I don't think I can be bothered. 

The writing duo that is James SA Corey are 7 books in to their galaxy-spanning adventure and they know exactly where they're going. Persepolis Rising ups the stakes for the crew of the Roci and builds on seeds planted in earlier novels to bring two overpowering threats to bear. It's mind-blowingly good.

I stopped reading at about 70%. I like John Scalzi and there's a lot to like about this book, especially the dialogue full of snark. But I found it really light-on in descriptive passages. I dont need wordy tracts of description but I do need more than the bare minimum of world building required to service the plot (and to be able to picture characters, locations and technology). This feeling of 'lack' built throughout the read but I finally decided to give up when one scene presented the old chestnut of 'evil person shoots other person then wipes gun clean and presses it into the hand of unconscious dupe'. That really threw me out of the narrative not only because of the cliche, but even in today's society, let alone a future one, such a ploy is doomed to failure.