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Lyra and her daemon ... The first four words of this extraordinary book tell us at once that we are in a story like no other. Twelve-year-old Lyra, whose daemon Pantalaimon is part of her very self, is growing up in an ancient, ritual-haunted Oxford, when she learns that her friend Roger has been kidnapped for some evil purpose. Desperate, she sets off at once to rescue him. Her journey takes her to the far north, where she faces a horror far worse than she could ever imagine. Meanwhile, in our own world, a boy called Will has his own dangerous task to fulfil. Like Lyra, he makes surprising discoveries about his parents. He, too, is pursued by forces eager to destroy him. When Lyra and Will meet, they find out that their quests are linked together in the most astonishing way. With the double-edged help of the subtle knife, Will and Lyra open the way to many different worlds, and meet characters who have their own passionate interest in the outcome of the events. Characters such as the armoured bear, Iorek Byrnison; the Texan aeronaut, Lee Scoresby; the graceful witches who fly beyond the Northern Lights; and the most unexpected angels in fiction, Balthamos and Baruch. Their epic journey reaches its climax in the simplest of things: the impulsive response of a girl and a boy to one simple story. When it is over, everything has changed.