First things first, let's get the rating out of the way. I give this book four stars simply because it isn't long enough. And I was a little disappointed when I'd finished it because I just didn't want it to stop. Perhaps that's a sign of how good the book actually is. But to take off that star, one has to consider the reasons why it deserved the full five in the first place. The title should give things away just a little; this is essentially a western short story. And a rollicking good one too, because this is the tale of how Lee Scoresby the aeronaut and the bear Iorek Byrnison first met. The events take place a full thirty-five years before the climax of His Dark Materials, when Lee is but a young man of 24 and newly introduced to the balloon he has recently won in a poker game. As a result his flying is best described as inexpert. So it is that Lee (and his daemon Hester) arrive in the town of Novy Odense and become involved in a stand-off between a put-upon sailor named van Berda and the power of corporate privilege. After meeting a shady figure from his past, Lee decides he must choose a side, which is how he comes across Iorek. As you'd expect from something written by Pullman, the story reads with an effortless grace and is beautifully and finely observed and constructed. The extras, like Lyra's Oxford before it are in turn intriguing and useful, including documents and artefacts connected to the narrative itself, as well as a board game, 'Peril At The Pole'. The last couple of pages are especially curious and relate to Lyra and her correspondence with a minor character from book one. As with Lyra's Oxford, the slight disappointment is that there isn't more to read but it seems as if, for the moment, this is the way Pullman will realise this world: in fits and starts, and I suppose this is better by far than nothing at all. An essential purchase for fans of His Dark Materials.