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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm

In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, her actions and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story opens with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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