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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The novel begins with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is established.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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