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Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The story starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is set.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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