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Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The story opens with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is set.

Story Tempo and Character Development

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the