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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The story begins with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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