Review of The Rose Field by Philip Pullman

Since 2020 I have been checking Locus' list of forthcoming books, looking for the third and final volume in Philip Pullman's Book of Dust trilogy. The Secret Commonwealth, second book in the series, was an excellent return to the world of His Dark Materials and ended on a cliffhanger. Six years it's been hanging, and hanging, and in 2025 Pullman finally rewarded patience with The Rose Field. Let's see if anything is left of those fingernails.

The Rose Field delivers on the cliffhanger by picking up seamlessly where The Secret Commonwealth leaves off. The Magisterium, lead by Marcel Delemare, is looking to use explosives to close all the holes to other realities. Malcom Polstead searches for Lyra, almost blindly, and encounters a society of gryphons along the way. Pan is on a quest to find what he call's Lyra's 'imagination', and he doesn't intend on returning until he has it. Lyra is alone in a city haunted by daemons, searching for Pan, and trying to find her way in an increasingly estranged world—money, real estate development, science, etc. But all the characters' trajectories come to point at one particular, lonely building in the middle of the desert of Karamakan where, through means nobody seems to understand, rose oil makes Dust visible.

The Rose Field is proper adventure. How well it aligns with The Secret Commonwealth, The Book of Dust, and His Dark Materials—however you want to slice it, will be up to the reader. For me, Pullman put a capstone on The Book of Dust. The book delivers tension, excitement, drama, wonder—what you would want in this type of novel. Where The Rose Field falls a touch flat, at least for me, is execution of theme.

One of the endearing and recommendable aspects of the His Dark Materials trilogy is the manner in which Pullman dances with explaining dust but never does. He left some of his magic trick a mystery. The Book of Dust, in its pursuit of rose oil and penetration of realities that may or may not be our own, perhaps hits theme on the nose too square. A metaphor, if I may.

A rainbow was a magical thing for thousands of years of human history. It inspired imagination, legends, myths, maybe even cosmologies. Along came science a couple hundred years ago and sapped the magic. It's just water particles reflecting the prism of light. Boring. Pullman does not make his story boring, but The Rose Field does peel back most of the series' curtains, letting readers see how the trick is done. I have to say I preferred the mystery of His Dark Materials. It aligned with what Pullman would seem to want to emphasize in The Book of Dust, i.e. the slippery nature of imagination.

The Rose Field brings to light an interesting side point, however. The Book of Dust is technically a trilogy but an odd one. The first book, The Belle Savage, takes place before the events of His Dark Materials. The second book, The Secret Commonwealth jumps to a time after His Dark Materials. And given its cliffhanger ending, there is little doubt where The Rose Field will pick up, which it does. This makes it, along with The Secret Commonwealth, a duology. A duology, preceded by a prequel to another series, making it a “trilogy”? Very minor food for thought, I know, but are we actually looking at a six-book series?

In the end, The Rose Field closes the Book of Dust trilogy in strong fashion. It completes the grand adventure begun in The Secret Commonwealth, adding bits and pieces that compel fresh story while complimenting what has come before in non-disruptive fashion. Whether the reader agrees or disagrees, it cements Pullman's desire to preserve imagination in our era of science, reasoning, and discovery, as well as criticize the excesses of consumption and authoritarianism. But the reader is not required to look into these themes. Pullman provides enough character and drama to keep the pages turning on story alone. Whether the reader likes where Lyra's world ends up will be up to them.