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Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world

In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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