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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe

In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The book begins with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. A particular window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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