While Phillip Pullman's fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials, examines the "big old metaphysical questions," the big Miltonic questions of free will, love and of obedience among others – also concerns the act and art of reading. Or as Shelley King describes it, it focuses on “the process of textual interpretation and the role it plays in framing metaphysical issues within a culture” (106). The fantasy worlds of His Dark Materials are shaped by history and textual interpretations as much as our own. The first book, The Golden Compass, is an extension of Paradise Lost, leaving the reader in the same moral confusion at the end as Milton's. As the series continues, it further amplifies a “latent” Milton orthodoxy; creating a Satanist reading that intends (and succeeds in) overthrowing God. All the texts follow a model of literary history, drawing on and commenting on those that preceded them; Simply put, the new lyrics focus and amplify the resonance of the old lyrics. To do this, Phillip Pullman creates a close relationship between his trilogy and Milton's Paradise Lost. Through an intimate relationship with the original text, Pullman explores the methods of reading the text, of writing a variable text, and the nature of repeated stories, to present His Dark Materials as a response to and cognate with Paradise Lost. Pullman's series is an unfaithful retelling of Paradise Lost, itself an unfaithful version of the Bible, and this is what makes his retelling a fruitful endeavor. Published between 1995 and 2000, Pullman's trilogy includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Subtle Knife. Amber telescope. Set in a multiverse, the reader is first introduced to Lyra, a young girl living in an alternate universe, Europe, which is... center of paper... Eds. Laura Lunger and Gregory M. Colon Semenza. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006. Print.King, Shelley. “'Without the Lyre we would understand neither the New nor the Old Testament': exegesis, allegory and reading the golden compass.” His Dark Materials Illuminated: Critical Essays on the Phillip Pullman Triology. Eds. Millicent Lenz and Carole Scott. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005. Print.Milton, John. Paradise lost. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1993. Print.Pullman, Phillip. The golden compass. New York: Knopf, 1995. Print.---. The thin knife. New York: Dell-Laurel Leaf, 1997. Print.---. The amber telescope. New York: Knopf, 2000. Print. Shohet, Lauren. "His Dark Materials, Paradise Lost and the Common Reader." Milton in popular culture. Eds. Laura Lunger and Gregory M. Colon Semenza. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006. Print.