His Dark Materials The Golden Compass Book 1 Northern Lights known as The Golden Compass in North America and some other countries, is the first book of "His Dark Materials" trilogy. Set in a parallel universe, it features the journey of Lyra Belacqua to the Arctic in search of her missing friend, Roger Parslow, and her imprisoned uncle, Lord Asriel, who has been conducting experiments with a mysterious substance known as "Dust". Northern Lights is a young-adult fantasy novel by Philip Pullman, published by Scholastic UK in 1995 : Praises "Arguably the best juvenile fantasy novel of the past twenty years." —The Washington Post "Very grand indeed." —The New York Times