ABSTRACT
Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials (1995–2000) is distinctive as a series that locates human-animal partnerships as vital not only in childhood but throughout adolescence and into adulthood. Pullman's daemons can be read as offering a fantastical enhancement of the kinds of "companion species" relations that posthumanities scholar outlines in her work on species interrelation, where the domesticated "posthuman" animal is a far cry from a trotting mirror of man. Yet despite an apparent distaste for the restrictive nature of pet-human relationships, Pullman nevertheless seems attuned to the fact that it is primarily through relating with the domesticated pet that humans, and particularly children, come to know the animal. Donna Haraway suggests that we must think "about animals as 'other worlds' in a science fictional sense"; Pullman has animals actually take us to them, becoming a conduit for exploring our own humanity and wider ecological networks.
