The Ruby in the Smoke

Another Philip Pullman book, another young heroine - and another almost impossibly clever one, at that - no mother, a hidden father ...

Don't get me wrong. I like his writing, and I like strong female leads. And, like the His Dark Material trilogy, this first book in the Sally Lockhart series is a great read. I'm just left wondering what the story is behind the almost-formulaic plot. Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, thinks his mom hung the moon and stars; he describes her as "extraordinary, inspirational, tough, cool, sexy, funny woman" and credits his father and stepfather with showing him that was not only okay, but desirable. So I now why he writes strong female characters. Pullman's father died when he was 7 (there's some suspicion he killed himself by crashing his RAF plane), and his mother remarried, to a friend of his father's. Since his mother seems to be the most consistent adult in his life - and he's said he often imagines what his father was like, and wonders if he's still alive ... actually, that kind of makes sense - he creates a real father because he needs to, and allows the mother to be more of a shadow.