His Dark Materials
Phantasmagoria, Mortal Combat (forgive me for the ‘C’!) and Twisted Metal!
These have two things in common. First, they are all old games that I found exceptional in some way and enjoyed very much. It was at least 10 years ago since I played any of them for the first time (and many years since I played them last) but their effect is still etched upon my memory. Mortal Kombat, the first two installments on SEGA Genesis, is the easiest of them all to recognize for even non-gamers (who could forget “Sub-Zero Wins” or “Fatality” in that deep voice?)
“Twisted Metal II” on the PlayStation (or PSOne if you prefer) was an immensely fun game (search Wikipedia yourselves; I’m not providing the link!) and the memory of the school hours I ditched (or the after-school hours I didn’t) to play at the arcade nearby with a couple of friends gives me a welcome nostalgic pang.
Phantasmagoria is the far lesser known of the three. It was a multi-CD (Wikipedia says 7(!) but I can’t say I remember exactly, since I was never able to finish it) interactive-movie (like Hard Line, or the Mad Dog series) adventure game. Very dark and scary and disturbing.
The other thing these three phrases have in common is that they are all used in the book “Northern Lights“, the first book of the fantasy trilogy “His Dark Materials” by Phillip Pullman. It’s not every day that one encounters an (allegedly) children’s book with genuine cruelty, malice and violence (another notable exception is Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events”.)
I’ve only finished the first book, and just begun the second, but it seems hard to me that the series can arrive to a conclusion in merely three short books! In any case, His Dark Materials is an entertaining series with some unique features (e.g. the introductions of “daemons”.) Anyone interested in short fantasy series should give HDM a try.
Another interesting feature of the series for me is Pullman’s opposition to organized religion, in this case Christianity. The “Church” in his books is somewhat reminiscent of what the church would have been like at the beginning of 20th century if it had survived the Renaissance.
