Hello lovely humans of Book Break!
I'm Elizabeth and over on my channels booksandpieces
I talk about science fiction and fantasy books.
And today I'm partnering with Pan Macmillan to celebrate the release of the His Dark Materials
TV show.
I've been a fan of the His Dark Materials series of books since they started coming
out
and I'm so excited to see them come alive on screen.
But today I'm here to talk about books,
and more specifically, to recommend you
some more things that you can read if you also love this fantastic series.
So whether you want more brave young women tackling big adventures,
more complex questions about God and power,
or more parallel universes and magical mysteries,
we've got something for you.
Now as I said, I first read His Dark Materials when I was a little kid,
and I know it was probably right at the top of my reading level at the time.
So I wanted to offer something for younger readers who are maybe just about ready to
tackle His Dark Materials,
or who you are starting to introduce to the amazing world of fantasy adventures.
And for that I offer you Shadows of Winterspell by Amy Wilson.
Like His Dark Materials, we start with a young girl whose parents are not present.
Stella has lived with her grandmother all her life, in a little cottage hidden by spells
on the edge of the magical forest,
for she is the secret daughter of the shadow king of the fae,
who brought darkness to the woods.
But Stella is lonely and decides to enrol in the local school,
so she has someone to talk to.
There she discovers the power of friendship,
but must also face up to her dark family secrets
in order to save those around her.
It's a wonderful story about the power of friendship,
about being different, about finding yourself,
about being brave,
and all set within this magical, creepy, fairytale framework that works perfectly.
Next up, one of the big themes in His Dark Materials is that of death and the afterlife,
and my next recommendation is for the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix,
which picks up this theme perfectly.
In the first book, Sabriel, we follow a young woman who is at a boarding school,
when a strange undead monster appears in her dorm room.
Luckily, Sabriel is the daughter of the current Abhorsen, a Necromancer whose duty it is to
lay the undead to rest.
Unfortunately for Sabriel, the creature carries a message from her father,
he has passed beyond the seventh and final gate of death,
and now she must take up the mantle of Abhorsen,
kill the evil Necromancer who murdered her father,
and who is now wreaking havoc across the old kigndom.
Like His Dark Materials, the Old Kingdom books are a YA series that doesn't shy away from
tackling a dark and difficult subject,
and takes you on a magnificent journey whilst doing so.
Next up, we have this gorgeous duo of books, Sorcerer to the Crown, and The True Queen,
by Zen Cho.
These are fantasy books set in a regency England where magic abounds,
but where women are forbidden from practising it.
Enter Prunella Gentleman, young lady whose magical powers refuse to stay hidden,
and who doesn't understand why she shouldn't use them.
She ends up in contact with the new sorcerer royal,
who is scandalously unpopular because he is not an old white man
as has always happened before.
Their meeting may just end up changing the face of magic forever.
The True Queen continues and deepens our emersion in this magical world.
They are light and fun regency romps that will make you laugh
whilst also still having loads of room for exploration of deep issues like colonialism
and power structures
and the struggle to get out of them.
Or how about some more amazing parallel world shenanigans
in Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series?
These are, as a series, much lighter than His Dark Materials,
but I know that when I first read about that ability to cut through into other worlds
I just wanted more of it.
And damn, this series delivers that.
And there's a whole beautiful bunch of them, which is perfect.
The series starts with a librarian called Irene, who works in a library, or should I
say, The library.
This is a magical library that exists between all of the alternate worlds,
and librarians have a mission to go to the various alternates and look for unusual or
unique books
and to bring them back to the library so that they can be preserved.
There's a lot going on in all of these worlds,
plus loads of stuff about books and libraries.
I mean, come for the books, stay for the adventures.
Next I want to recommend you to the legend that is Frances Hardinge.
Like Philip Pullman, she has won the very prestigious Costa Book of the Year award,
and her writing does in some ways remind me of Pullman's.
They are serious and dark and complex and full of big difficult ideas
but that are so beautifully written that you're just swept away on this amazing story.
The Lie Tree, which was the book that won her the Costa Book of the Year,
was my introduction to her work, and it features a young girl whose love of science is oppressed
by the strictures of Victorian society.
One day she finds the journals of her disgraced scientist father,
and she discovers this idea of a magical tree that when she's told lies, it reveals a truth
of equal size.
And this leads her down a strange and dark path.
But excitingly, Hardinge has a brand new book out called Deeplight.
This is apparently the story of a young man who's determined to save his friend no matter
what,
even if it means a journey into the strange dark light of the undersea
with its old and murderous gods.
There he must face not only who but what his friend has become.
I'm super excited for this one, it couldn't sound more perfect for some His Dark Materials
type literary feels
in between episodes.
Next I want to recommend N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance trilogy, starting with the Hundred Thousand
Kingdoms.
In this, we follow a young woman called Yeine,
who has been outcast from her family for years
but then one day she is summoned back and, to her shock, declared the heir to the kingdom.
But the throne is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle,
made all the more dark and dangerous by the revelation that her family's power over the
world comes from the enslavement of gods.
This one reminds me of His Dark Materials because of this idea of a young woman forced
to come face to face with what her family really is,
of what they've been doing,
of all these power structures and the huge oppressive systems that they have been upholding,
and how you can face that,
because that's exactly what Lyra is doing when she learns about who her parents are,
and what they've been doing.
If you like those ideas, you're definitely going to love this one,
but be warned, this one contains some romantic adult scenes, it is not for kids.
Another very very grown-up recommendation is for The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman.
In this, we follow a young 20-something man called Quentin,
who discovers one day that magic is real, because he is invited to attend a magical
university.
He then goes on to find out that magical parallel worlds are also a thing,
and that all his childhood favourite stories are very real
and that living in them?
Really not as nice as he'd imagined when he was a kid.
Like His Dark Materials, this series tackles big, complex, dark, gritty stuff about growing
up and facing up to these big nasty complex systems of belief and power,
and oppression, and what they mean and how you're going to face that.
However, unlike His Dark Materials, you will not come out of this loving the characters,
you will come out of it hating them.
They are awful people and awful things happen in these books,
but they are magnificent none-the-less.
After all that darkness, I do want to finish with a little bit of light, and hope, and
love,
as answers to it.
Just like His Dark Materials does.
And for this I offer you Witchmark by C.L. Polk.
This is a beautiful kind of Edwardian style England, but with magic,
and we follow the adventures of a young doctor,
who is hiding the fact that he has magical powers,
because of the awful societal manipulations that go around having it.
In this world, having magic is considered to be a kind of deviant madness that will
get you locked into an asylum,
except that all of the upper classes secretly have magic.
But even then, only those with specific types of powers are allowed to cultivate it.
All those who have magic but not the right kind of power are kept as kind of familiars,
or even just batteries,
for their more privileged partners to use against their will.
This darkly occult, social manipulation and power struggle, in ways reminded me of Mrs
Coulter and her deeds in the Arctic.
And also that kind of Edwardian England setting is very reminiscent of Lyra's Oxford.
But it's not all awfulness I promise you, this whole thing is wrapped in a blanket of
light with a huge side order of queer romance, and a fight against the system.
Hell yes.
So there you go lovely humans of Book Break,
eight fantastic ideas of more stuff to read if you love His Dark Materials.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I have,
thanks for watching,
and happy reading.