[Drolefille]

No I think it's better than Eragon. I've read both series... (yeah I can be a bit masochistic and/or obsessive I haven't figured out why)

Eragon is, IMO, an undeveloped, poorly written, story by a bad author. There's potential, but it is so obvious the kid is 15 and if it weren't for Harry Potter and the fact that his parents self-published him, Eragon wouldn't exist.

His Dark Materials is a cool idea. I love Lyra's world, I love the concept of daemons and the subtle knife and all of the environment, and Golden Compass/ Northern Lights is not bad at all. However I think the series is a downward slope where it becomes less about the story and more about Pullman's point. Narnia was so good because you didn't need to read the allegory to love the books. There's no way to avoid the "message" behind HDM because it's so.... OMG in your face.

And I say this as a person who's very fond of alternate reality novels, dystopias, post-apocalyptic, other-worldly fascist societies etc... so the fact that "The Church" is the "bad guy" doesn't inherently bother me. But it was less "Look a story" and more "don't you see my POINT, it's BIG, and DRAMATIC, Religion is BAD"

That said, YMMV, because I've heard some people who love it, some who hated it and they ran the gamut from Conservative Christian to atheist on both sides. I'm just kind of "meh" about it.