This really was a breath of fresh air after reading The King's Councillor. First-person narrative and long sweeping paragraphs. One could almost believe that you ghostwrote this on behalf of young Peter. He is such a loveable guy. And he even has a sense of humour, something the His Dark Materials multiverse is in great need of.

Will's world in 2030 is downright dystopian if you ask me. If you don't have a phone, then you don't have an identity. And if you don't have an identity, then the houses will try and kill you. Brilliant. And the finger-slicing thing? That was just in Will's dream, right? Either way, this world has huge potential for further storytelling.

It's a shame that Lyra didn't get along with Judy. And it's a shame Will and Lyra's reunion could only be brief. So it goes.

The plot was so-so, and sometimes relied on the main character being in the right place at the right time. And he doesn't do all that much in the second half. But it was such a charming story that these things hardly mattered.

A more cynical critic would have preferred it if you'd stuck to your guns and kept Arthur dead. But since many of his best moments came after his almost-death, I can hardly blame you for keeping the man alive.

The idea that the Subtle Knife's destruction permanently altered the laws of physics is bonkers. And to suggest that it made artificial fusion easier without say, blowing up the sun, is downright laughable. But thanks for the laughs. Sometimes the science in a story doesn't have to make sense. Then again, Peter is hardly a physicist, so how do we know what really happened?

That ending was a confusing thing worthy of Studio Gainax. So does this mean that somewhere out there is a universe where Peter took a phaser to the chest to protect Lyra? And then what happened? Did that universe collapse out of existence, or carry on in parallel? And as for the alternate-reality fate of Miss Morley, let me just say I would not like to be the villain in one of your stories! In hindsight, I probably should have feared more for Liz.

I enjoy the info about clockmaking. Perhaps the characters should be introduced with a few more physical details; e.g. I think the clockmaker is middle-aged, but I'm not sure.

Well, well, well...i'm glad i read TAPJ first actually, and there definately some stuff in here i'm eager to see explained. You do take a lot of time over the deaths of your villains don't you-quite harrowing! Will's world pretty well realised, and quite a bit of good writing. Peter really is a quality narrative voice.

Oh yes - and I do like a man who uses "due to" correctly! :)

What? You mean Peter doesn't travel to Cropredy on a 1952 Vincent Black Lightning?

Cracking stuff - love the allusions and in-jokes.

Oh, and a note on censoring...

On the politcal spectrum, as my social studies teacher calls it, there is a straight line with Democracy on one end and Communism on the other. In the middle is Socialism. Now, this censoring move is a socialist one, trying to ensure quality and user-friendlyness for all. Unfortunately, the closer you go to socialism, the closer you also move to Communism. So what are they going to do after this, dole out 10 reviews maximum per story?

Whew! Brilliant, dead brilliant. I won't nitpick; it'll ruin the meaning of the post.

You know how, when something awful has happened, or it’s going to happen today – like having a tooth pulled out – when you wake up it takes a while before you realise how bad things are; and for that short while you’re happy, especially if you and your daemon have been having good dreams? You do? All I can say is that I envied you...for I’d had no such respite when I woke.

Brilliant! You had me laughing with that one.

Oh, thanks for the mind games, bumping up Authur's charactor and then killing him off! Although it did work...

Dust gathering... interesting concept. I wish Judy and Mary had gotten better parts (more central), because I would have liked to see the reactions, but you know, who am I do ask things of you?

Sigh. Chapter 14 next. Only 4 more to go.

Since I haven't been with the story this time (my excuses are crap so I won't even bother), I owe you a review a chapter like you expect. I didn't mean to ditch you like that...

Resident Evil? Brilliant! The tech-references are really funny (ok, ok, my vocabulary's slipping from lack of practice, although I did type chapter 7 of And Walls...)

Ok, I'll read the rest!

Where's this site based again? If USA, then there's your reason for the stupid censoring.

I set up my bookmarks to list with no censoring by default - at least that works for me.

Rate your stories PG-13 and head each page with an explanation that it should be rated higher...

Thanks again, Ceres! I read through some of them(the Arthur fics and a couple of others) in a couple of hours without stopping (under the pretext of looking up trigonometric equations!) This fanfiction thing is really not helping my revision!

You were right, Jopari is very good. I really, really, really enjoyed The Last Temptation. I like it that he/she(I assume Jopari is a he because he is technically named after Will's Dad) critcises PP when he doesn't agree with him; blind hero-worship just isn't my thing. He really opened up my eyes to some of the 'flaws' of the books, although I didn't agree, for example, that the ending was too contrived.

I am in total agreement with you, the new rating system is patronising and, in my view, ultimately without purpose. If you don't want to read certain ratings then check before you open the story, for God's sake! And HDM is hardly light reading in this respect; with ppl dying and battles-to-the-death between armoured bears written in glouriously bloody detail. Anyway, if you do decide to write a sequel(pleeease?) then I'LL read it, and I'm sure others will too.

Hello everybody. Thanks for your kind words - I appreciate them.

OK, let's do the pleasant bits first:

DD, thank you for your essay :) I hope you enjoy the other stories on this site. You've read DN's ONLY ONES LEFT, haven't you? Jopari's stories were originally posted here, but then he took them all down and put them up on his own site. It's joparistories. If you go there you'll soon find out how much he's influenced me. You'll also find out how it was that Lyra met Sherlock Holmes...

Oh, and I *like* negative criticism. It means you care.

Now - is this story complete? No, Jim (and everyone else) is right. There are (intentionally) lots of loose ends. Will it be completed? That's problematic - here's why. have introduced a new policy whereby stories rated R and above are not displayed in the default directory listings. That means that most readers, unless they specifically elect to list these stories *every time* they visit , will never know that such stories even exist. Look at the Movies/Trainspotting board to see the result of this misguided policy. All the stories have (apparently) gone!

I've always erred on the side of caution with my ratings, setting them one level higher than I thought was strictly necessary (esp. by UK standards). But I'm not prepared to see INTENTIONS and THREADS disappear from view, so I've downrated them both to PG-13. If you think that's wrong, tell me or .

How does this affect the continuation of my sequence? Simple - the next story (a short called THE QUEEN OF THE NIGHT) was going to be rated NC-17 for extreme nastiness. I was going to make this *very* clear in the story description. Now, I don't know if I shall bother with writing it at all. Firstly; I write to be read, and secondly; I'm not sure that a PG-13 version of it would be any good.

If you think that this new policy of amounts to (not-so) subtle censorship; that it is patronising, and an attack on the freedom of writers to express themselves appropriately and the freedom of readers to access higher-rated material in a properly informed and responsible manner, then please join me in writing to the admins and asking them to reconsider it.

CW

Well, I really wish that you would've gone more into the whole paradigm shift thing with the subtle knife and the universal constants, but, other than that, I'm satisfied. ;) Good job. Hope to see yet more HDM fanfiction from you in the future.