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astute and even rather obtuse readers of neal stephenson's "The Diamond 
Age" and philip pullman's "The Golden Compass"/"His Dark Materials" 
series will notice that they share some similarities, namely:

a bold and intelligent young girl, is given an omniscient magical 
artifact, which only she can read. this artifact communicates primarily 
in symbols, and points/leads our precocious heroine into a parallel 
universe, which is almost, but not entirely unlike her own quaint 
victorian english yet also somehow futuristic world.

the scientist/inventor father figure who is inadvertently behind 
all this manages to stay far out of the way during her adventures

she is generally abused and neglected by her mother, runs away from 
home, and manages to meet a new, kinder, gentler motherly figure, who 
becomes entwined with our heroine's fate in supposedly epic ways

a crude quiet young man to escort the lass, who often attempts to defend 
her by employing underwhelming physical violence

some friendly cowboy who manages to get into a gunfight, against all odds

the sky is filled with magic irridescent dust, which and can be seen 
with special glasses, or by eye under the right circumstances. the dust 
not only drives all the magic artifacts, but it also happens to drive 
the plot

talking pseudo-animals that embody personality traits of the girl

a knife that can cut through anything is acquired

some crap about shamanism made by possible by technology

dirigibles, lots of them