meets a boy and a gang in a very unlikely dimensional hole in search of her uncle and discovering more about Dust and what it has to do with life.

The Subtle Knife is an instrument that can cut between dimensions. However, there has been a lot of "cutting" in the last century or two and this is having a destabilizing influence on the worlds affected.

I like Lyra in these stories. Phillip Pullman has been criticized for his apparent anti-Church themes, but I'm inclined to believe that those who accuse him of that have not read the book and are only reading the criticisms.

Pullman paints a dark Church in a dimension similar to ours, that's true. They are attempting to suppress the knowledge of other dimensions and those whonature and perhaps her grave,Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,But all these in their pregnant causes mixedConfusedly, and which thus must ever fight,Unless the almighty maker them ordainHis dark materials to create more worlds,Into this wild abyss the wary fiendStood on the brink of hell and looked a while,Pondering his voyage...

--John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II

For The Amber Spyglass:

The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations;The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up;The bones of death, the cov'ring clay, the sinews shrunk & dry'dReviving shake, inspiring move, breathing, awakening,Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds & bars are burst,Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field,Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in