I just finished the first His Dark Materials book and started the second today. I don't think any of it is unlike other stuff I've read before, but I do like it nonetheless.

There was a play in York (where we live) of the whole trilogy, I only heard about it after the event but I probably wouldn't have gone anyway so as not to ruin the story for me. I was told that they used a real cat for Lyra's daemon, so that kind of tells me a bit about the future that I didn't already know.