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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 universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world

In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book begins with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that look to lead to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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