His Dark Materials

Y'know what? I liked the first two books, I really did. I was all happy with the world building and the characters and the idea of daemons and all. But the third one? It drags and it's so, so, so slow and it totally fails at making me care. :/ I was reading the second half of it out of stubbornness, just to know how it ended, until it dawned on me that I could go to the Wiki and read the summary. I'm still not sure if it was disappointing to find out said summary was more exciting than the actual text.

Besides, Pullman's thoughts on religion, which he makes clear and obvious at every paragraph, are basically bashing and I hate bashing. From that perspective, I've to say I can stand C.S. Lewis better. And that Kingdom Come was way subtle in comparison. :P

Totally unrelated: does anyone know a good Gustave Doré gallery?