Would you recommend his dark materials?

[TheRealJoeFish]

I read the first one and was bored to tears.

WHAT

I found His Dark Material to be fantastic.  I was absolutely enthralled.

That being said, I'm a fan of serial child/YA literature in general (ie Narnia, Chronicles of Prydain, Series of Unfortunate Events), so I was predisposed to it.

Also, if you want to talk boring, LOTR is... well, boring.  Very very good.  But very very boring.  They're not mutually exclusive.  (summary of 90% of Fellowship: the nine walked west, and the river lay in front of them.  They continued, and then the river was behind them, and they kept walking, for there were many miles to go and dozens more rivers to cross.)

(Another disclaimer:  His Dark Materials incorporates some imagery/content from Paradise Lost by John Milton.  I bought the two together (the HDM trilogy and Paradise Lost), and read Paradise Lost first.  I didn't find that boring at all.  So my boring meter might be wayyyy off)