The Atlantic has a good story about the making of the Golden Compass into a film. I've yet to see the movie but I plan on going soon.

"The Narnia series, in his (Pullman's) view, embraces a worldview that comes close to “life-hating ideology”—punishing, misogynistic, racist, and death-obsessed. By contrast, his own books are filled with a kind of warmth, an exuberance for finding utopia in this life."