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Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.

Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the