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astute and even rather obtuse readers of neal stephenson's "The Diamond
Age" and philip pullman's "The Golden Compass"/"His Dark Materials"
series will notice that they share some similarities, namely:
a bold and intelligent young girl, is given an omniscient magical
artifact, which only she can read. this artifact communicates primarily
in symbols, and points/leads our precocious heroine into a parallel
universe, which is almost, but not entirely unlike her own quaint
victorian english yet also somehow futuristic world.
the scientist/inventor father figure who is inadvertently behind
all this manages to stay far out of the way during her adventures
she is generally abused and neglected by her mother, runs away from
home, and manages to meet a new, kinder, gentler motherly figure, who
becomes entwined with our heroine's fate in supposedly epic ways
a crude quiet young man to escort the lass, who often attempts to defend
her by employing underwhelming physical violence
some friendly cowboy who manages to get into a gunfight, against all odds
the sky is filled with magic irridescent dust, which and can be seen
with special glasses, or by eye under the right circumstances. the dust
not only drives all the magic artifacts, but it also happens to drive
the plot
talking pseudo-animals that embody personality traits of the girl
a knife that can cut through anything is acquired
some crap about shamanism made by possible by technology
dirigibles, lots of them
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