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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe

In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell independence of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The novel opens with the finding of a set of curious openings in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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