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Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The book starts with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is established.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the