Can somebody tell me what all the hubbub is about with The Golden Compass?
It’s an explicitly athiestic book — the author imitated C.S. Lewis’ fiction that provided allegory to Christian themes and instead made them atheistic; I think he even kills God or some such nonsense. He’s just doing what “not God” told him to do I guess; his great calling. They supposedly toned it down in the movie but I’m not watching it.
It's a trilogy ("His Dark Materials") comprising "The Golden Compass", "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber Spyglass". The books are well-written and likely to appeal to the sort of person who likes Narnia, LOTR, or Harry Potter.
The first book is pretty inoocuous. There is evil in the world. There is a girl named Lyra who seems to be in a position to fight the evil. In part, she does this to rescue (IIRC) a member of her family. She becomes allied with a talking polar bear who has been cast out from his own kind. They have adventures.
About halfway through the second book (when you're emotionally invested in the final outcome) it starts to become clear that the source of evil in the world is God. If God can be destroyed, all will be well with humans. So, the question becomes: can brave little Lyra kill God?? Yes. She does.
Now, I never finished the series. I saw where it was going and I stopped. The author, Philip Pullman, was also invovled in a re-issue of Milton's "Paradise Lost" in which he makes it clear that he was cheering for Lucifer in that monumental work. Pullman is not alone in that, since Milton provides wonderful characterization of Lucifer. But the overall point is that Pullman wants to see organizaed Christianity destroyed. He's cheering for the other team.