A critical investigation of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials Trilogy", and the insights it offers to today's world. A UK and American best-seller as well as the basis for a major film to be released in 2007, "His Dark Materials" trilogy is an unusual sort of young adult series: one that appeals to adults as much as (if not more than) to their children thanks to its richly imagined world, rigorously explored cosmology and unflinching confrontation of the modern answers to the Big Questions. The film promises to reignite a firestorm of controversy. Contributors with backgrounds in philosophy, theology, science fiction and children's literature help readers find their way through Pullman's trilogy, from the streets of Lyra's Oxford to Dr. Malone's lab in our own world, from the republic of Heaven to the harpy-ruled pit of Hell.