I enjoyed the film when it came out (probably because I was about 8 and hadn’t read the book yet), but on rewatch it is really quite bad. The opening act is decent enough and does well to capture the feel of Lyra’s world, but the pacing later on is atrocious. The last half hour of the film probably needs to be three times as long, it’s just so rushed. And I’m not sure why they removed the ending of the book, especially since it would make it very difficult to set up a sequel
A Desert Called Peace by Tom Kratman (Space Marine!). It was gifted to me as a joke a while back and it is, without question, the worst book I have ever read. The background is that human colonists settle a far off planet through a wormhole, the colonists become detached from Earth (which is under the control of the liberal, paedophile UN) and proceed to go through all of Earth history (because the author believes history is cyclical or something?).
The plot is that 9/11 (in Space!) happens, killing the main character (a blatant self insert)'s wife. He then proceeds to go on a roaring rampage of revenge, building a mercenary army and turning the middle east (in Space!) to glass and basically genociding muslims (spelled Moslems for some reason).
https://www.reddit.com/r/badscificovers/comments/f277b7/a_desert_called_peace_by_tom_kratman/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
A link to a post discussing the cover