Thursday 16 August 2007

Glendon's Daemon

The movie adaptation of the Golden Compass comes out in December this year. At the movie website, you can find out what your personal daemon would be.

Here's mine:


My daemon is Desra, and it coalesced into a raccoon.

The His Dark Materials books are popular with older children and adults, and would be enjoyed, I think, by most Harry Potter fans. The author, Philip Pullman, is an atheist, and the books are fantasy with some science fiction thrown in. There are witches, talking blacksmith polar bears, and discussions of dark matter and quantum entanglement.

The first story, The Golden Compass, was originally published as The Northern Lights. The two sequels, which take you places you'd never thought of in the first book, are titled The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. There is also another book featuring main character Lyra Belacqua that followed, called Lyra's World.

The daemons are a mystery if you are new to the story. Without too many spoilers, they seem to be people's souls or conscience, on the outside of their bodies in the form of animals. Until puberty, the daemons can change into any animal shape at any time. They can speak out loud, and it is considered to be the most heinous of acts to touch another person's daemon, and act which even causes physical shock. Daemons, though regulary touch and interact with each other.

I love these books, and the movie looks like it will be excellent.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is going to be a spectacular movie, I think. I haven't read any of the books, but will now seek them out. I have a racoon, too, for a daemon, albeit a male one, Personia (sp?)
Are you familiar with Steampunk stuff? Find steampunk on my blog and look around if you aren't familiar. The golden Compass is very Steampunk. Beautiful! Thanks for those movie trailers.

Glendon Mellow said...

I'll take a look for the steampunk stuff on your blog too, thanks Leslie.

The daemons are usually opposite the gender of their person. My wife got a tiger, but I think you'll agree, raccoons are way cooler. Heh.

The books are very very good. I just finished The Amber Spyglass yesterday, and the ending was amazing. They ae kind of subversive and some areas of the Catholic Church are not exactly thrilled about them.

The story ends up not where you thought it would...

Anonymous said...

Of course the Raccoons are the best :)
Is The Amber Spyglass a "first" in a series, or should I read something else beforehand?

I like subversive...

As for how I came to find you originally, it may have been Frozen Toothpaste. I read comments, and if I see one that sounds good, I click on the name to find the commenter. I'll see if I can figure it out.

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