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Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm

In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to open into other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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