The rose field

Beginning where the previous installment left off, this meandering conclusion to Pullman's the Book of Dust trilogy follows now-20-year-old Lyra Silvertongue, her daemon Pantalaimon, and academic secret agent Malcolm Polstead on separate but parallel journeys. Their destination--an enigmatic red building in the Karamakan desert--purportedly houses a portal to another world, and the first to reach it could decide what to do with the power it represents. Along their individual quests, Lyra, Pan, and Malcolm each forge their own alliances with gryphons, witches, and scientists. Meanwhile, the Magisterium, consolidated under Lyra's vengeful uncle Marcel Delamare, prepares to invade Karamakan. Throughout episodic, at times thinly built, chapters, assured prose considers the interplay between logic and imagination as well as community and exploitation, injecting further ideological complexity into the familiar world first introduced in The Golden Compass. Providing a less polished resolution to Lyra's story than the His Dark Materials series, this leg of the character's journey into adulthood immerses Lyra in deeper internal growth, subtler evils, and murkier outcomes. Ages 14--up. (Oct.)