PositiveThe New York Times...boundlessness lie both the strengths and the weaknesses of The Amber Spyglass. Pullman's intellectual imagination has scope for inventions that can match his ambitious themes, but such freedom overrides the constraints of plot and characterization necessary to a credible and satisfying dramatic shape ...there is a corresponding expansion in the interrelationships among characters and in the potential denouements ... With his elaborate battery of imaginative constructs, Pullman is all set to make his assault on the demands of his plot ...simple terms are not feasible here, for just as Pullman's worlds abut and overlap each other, so his narrative is designed as a complex metaphor ...large and unconvincing themes, however, should not obscure a recognition of Philip Pullman's skill as an artist in the minutiae of storytelling.
