Published: 28th October 2003
Publisher: Knopf Books
Pages: 64
Format: Hardback
Genre: Fantasy
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ – 5 Stars
Lyra’s Oxford begins with Lyra and Pantalaimon spotting a witch’s daemon. Lyra shelters the daemon from the pursuit of a frenzied pack of birds, and then attempts to help by guiding the daemon to the home of an alchemist living in a part of Oxford known as Jericho. The journey through Oxford reveals more dangers than Lyra had anticipated.
This is a great little story and reads just as if it had been plucked from the trilogy itself, Pullman falls back into Lyra’s world wonderfully and from the beginning it’s easy to lose yourself in the world and the characters that are so familiar.
In true Pullman style he holds nothing back and keeps the story as honest and realistic as need be. While it may be a quick story, it is one that is filled with important detail, information, and insight. Lyra is two years older and settling into her life back at Oxford, but Pullman demonstrates that Lyra is still Lyra, while more mature and grown up, wiser and respectful, she is just as curious and just as willing to help.
It’s hard to imagine anything substantial could happen in such a brief snippet of Lyra’s life and yet in a small number of pages, Pullman adds another layer of complexity and mystery to Lyra’s world and her place within it, raising many more questions than answers, making it much more than a short story.
There is a feeling as you read that it’s acting as an introduction into something bigger, whether this will be seen in The Book of Dust is uncertain, but even if it isn’t, the things implied is enough to surprise and mull over, pique interests, and realise that Lyra’s importance and the layers of meaning in the world did not end at the conclusion of The Amber Spyglass.
Pullman manages to provide intrigue and mystery, as well as depth, understanding, and information from the first page to the last. It is a joy to have further closure and new details, no matter how small, and it once again a delight to lose yourself in the world of daemons and Oxford, even if it’s only for 64 pages.
You can purchase Lyra’s Oxford via the following
Lost in a Good Book 