The author responsible for it (and for the other two books in this tri-part series) is Philip Pullman.

Philip Pullman, 61, is a contentious atheist whose mind bubbles with acrid hostility against religion, organised Christianity in particular.

- He told the U.K.'s 'Daily Telegraph,' "... If there is a God, and he is as the Christians describe him, then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against. As you look back over the history of the Christian church, it's a record of terrible infamy and cruelty and persecution and tyranny. How they have the ... nerve to go on Thought for the Day and tell us all to be good when, given the slightest chance, they'd be hanging the rest of us and flogging the homosexuals and persecuting the witches."