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.
Ah, thanks for the explanation. And here I thought it was just a revamping of a CS Lewis type story. I didn’t even know about the anti-God stuff.
From what a friend who is an avid reader has told me, apparently the being they kill at the end of the story *possible spoilers follow* is not actually ‘God’, but a old, decrepit angelic-level being pretending to be God. Apparently ‘God’ either does not exist or is apathetically off ‘somewhere else’, letting the world do as it pleases. So I really don’t know what to think of it - I actually haven’t heard anyone else who has a neutral standpoint (ie not atheist or Christian who have a reason to like or dislike the books before reading them) say anything about it other than lauding the writing quality and style.