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Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The book opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the