I've finally finished reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, OK it's essentially a children's book and I know some people will turn there noses up at it because of that, but they would be fools. This is a series that owes more to Paradise Lost (not that I've read it...) than Harry Potter, it doesn't hold it's punches; death, the afterlife, the fall from Grace, a healthy attitude of contempt towards any sort of higher being/authority, parallel universes - it's all here kids!