Book Review "The Subtle Knife"

So I just finished the second book in Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, "The Subtle Knife". My review for the first one, "The Golden Compass", is here. I dunno, I liked the first one. It had big, talking, armored bears in it. This one did not. In fact this one had very little of interest in it for me. Not very many memorable or exciting moments. Shame the first one wasn't a complete story with its own conclusion making this book (and likely the third one in the series) less necessary. I rarely have liked stories with multiple dimensions/worlds and so forth in them and this one is full of that. Apparently only one of those worlds has giant, talking, armored bears in it and they decided to ditch that one for the time being for some boring bear-less world. He introduced a couple new characters, but also killed off my favorite non-bear character in the first book. His attack on Christianity, and really organized religion as a whole, is coming into full force. It was a bit more subtle in the first one, but ironically this subtle knife thing makes Pullman's intents very blatant. It is becoming more and more difficult to see any other theme or purpose in writing these books other than to try and point out how bad religion is and that humanity can achieve more without it. I think he, or some reviewer, once said that these books are the "anti-Narnia". At least C.S. Lewis wrote something that exists as a simple fairy tale first and foremost with some rich symbolism that is open to interpretation. Pullman is almost trying to force you to see it his way. Oh well only one book left in this series. I hope it has giant, talking, armored bears in it. Those guys were cool.