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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The book begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the