Once Upon a Time in the North
- 112
- Pages
- about 2 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Once Upon a Time in the North” is a slim, entertaining prequel to Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”. It tells how Lee Scoresby first met Iorek Byrnison, and young Lee and his daemon Hester carry the tale with charm, true to the man he becomes. Some readers wish there were more of Iorek. It means most to those who already know Lee from the trilogy.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Once Upon a Time in the North is a 2008 novella by Philip Pullman. The book serves as a prequel to Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The premise of the story involves the meeting of Iorek Byrnison and Lee Scoresby:I've just finished a short book which will be coming out next spring, probably March or April in this country. It's called Once Upon A Time in the North, and it's about Lee and Iorek. When we see them for the first time with Lyra, Lee is not that old; he's fifty, sixty, something like that, so they know each other for a long time. But I wanted to write a story when they first met as they were young, and I've just written it. I'm making a little book like Lyra's Oxford.
Reading order · His Dark Materials
Full order & progress →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.4 across 81 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 36% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 9.2 | 5 | 6% |
| Hardcover | 7.3 | 76 | 94% |
Frequently asked
How long is Once Upon a Time in the North?
It has 112 pages — shorter than 98% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 7.8, the closest to this book.
