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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe

In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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