Latest news with #TheBookofDust
BBC News
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Philip Pullman announces The Rose Field, the final novel in the Book of Dust trilogy
Author Philip Pullman has revealed details of the sixth and final book in his series about Lyra Silvertongue, the character at the heart of His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust Rose Field will be published on 23 October, and will follow his heroine's story up to her early was 11 when she was introduced in the best-selling and award-winning first His Dark Materials book, Northern Lights, in 78, said he was "relieved" to have "come out of the end alive and able to see it being made into a book and published". The Rose Field refers to a magnetic or gravitational field, and was mentioned in the opening chapters of Northern Lights, when scholars at Lyra's Oxford college secretly discussed a mysterious phenomenon called Dust."In this final book, Lyra is on the verge of discovering what Dust is and what it means, and the story is about how that happens," the author told BBC Radio 4's The World At story also deals with the nature of imagination, the former Oxford English teacher said. "I've got a view of what the imagination is, and Lyra discovers what she thinks the imagination is, so we're talking about that as well." The Book of Dust Beyond the world of Dust and daemons, this book has been influenced by real-life global events, including the rise of tech billionaires, Pullman revealed."It has become clear to me in the last 10 years that the influence of money and the power of the billionaire class, the power of the tech industry and all those extractive things like oil and gas and so on, have a much deeper effect on the world than I had thought," he said."And in thinking about that, and seeing the way the story's gone, and seeing what Lyra has to face and endure and decide about, I've thought about it more deeply myself."The world has changed enormously. We're either at the end of a long period of American power, which will end, presumably, like the end of any empire, in chaos, destructiveness, and then the gradual coming together of nations in a new form. That'll be interesting to watch, if I'm still alive to watch it."But we're also at a time when we can look back, with the resources of the internet and so on... We're at an age where we've got the wisdom of centuries and millennia to draw on. It'll be interesting to see if we do or we don't. I suspect that most of us won't, but some of us might."The Rose Field comes six years after the publication of the previous book in The Book of Dust trilogy's first two books have sold 49 million copies around the world, publisher Midas said. Pullman said he would now turn his attention to planning a memoir, which would be titled Before I Forget."I've been talking for quite a while about writing a memoir before I forget everything, and that's something that's possibly on the horizon," he said."I was born in 1946 I was brought up as a child of the British Empire, which still existed then. And I've seen a very great number of changes, as everyone of my age has."There's nothing remarkable about that, but I've seen a lot of things that I loved, enjoyed, made me happy, made me excited in various ways. And I'd like to remember those and write them down, because I think it's a shame if they're not celebrated and remembered."
The Guardian
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Philip Pullman announces The Rose Field, the final part of Lyra's story
Philip Pullman has revealed he will tell the final part of Lyra Silvertongue's story in The Rose Field, which will come out this autumn. It has been six years since a book about Lyra has been published – and 30 since readers first encountered her in Northern Lights, the first in Pullman's His Dark Materials children's fantasy trilogy. The bestselling novels, which have since been adapted into a TV series by the BBC, take place across a multiverse and feature 'dæmons' – physical manifestations of a person's soul that take the form of animals. The Rose Field will be the third volume in the author's The Book of Dust series, which expands on the His Dark Materials trilogy. It began in 2017 with La Belle Sauvage, set 12 years before Northern Lights, and continued with The Secret Commonwealth in 2019, set after the events of the original trilogy. This new book will pick up where that one left off, with Lyra alone in the ruins of a deserted city, where she has gone in search of her dæmon. Another important character from the previous books, Malcolm, has travelled towards the Silk Roads to look for Lyra. 'Their quests converge in the most dangerous, breathtaking and world-changing ways,' reads the publisher's description of The Rose Field. 'They must take help from spies and thieves, gryphons and witches, old friends and new'. Pullman said he thinks of the forthcoming book 'as partly a thriller and partly a bildungsroman: a story of psychological, moral and emotional growth. But it's also a vision. Lyra's world is changing, just as ours is. The power over people's lives once held by old institutions and governments is seeping away and reappearing in another form: that of money, capital, development, commerce, exchange.' Above all, though, Pullman hopes 'that fundamentally and permanently The Rose Field will be read as a story'. 'I think of myself a storyteller rather than a novelist or a writer of literary fiction, belonging among the tellers of folk tales, fairytales, ballads and myths,' he said. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion The author's books have amassed a loyal fanbase over the years, with more than 49m copies of His Dark Materials and the first two volumes of The Book of Dust sold globally so far. Commenting on the announcement of The Rose Field, head of books at Waterstones, Bea Carvalho, said: 'One would be hard pressed to dream up a publication which could be met with such anticipation.' David Fickling, Pullman's longtime editor at David Fickling Books, which will be publishing the new novel in association with Penguin Random House, said he remembered the moment Pullman first showed him his 'vision of a universe' that became His Dark Materials. ''What do you want to write next?' I asked Philip Pullman over a bangers-and-mash editorial lunch in 1995,' he said. ''Well, he said, I was thinking of setting a novel in the universe of John Milton, author of Paradise Lost.' I nodded as if that was perfectly normal and then he began quoting effortlessly, gloriously, from that great poem.' 'Three thousand pages and 30 years later I realise without fear of contradiction that the publication of The Rose Field this autumn is a moment of cultural importance that reaches far beyond books,' Fickling added. Pullman 'shows us a world brimming with wonder' and 'gives us hope.' In a first glimpse of the text of The Rose Field, Lyra is asked: 'What will you do when you find this place in the desert, the opening to the world of the roses?' 'Defend it,' she replies. 'Die defending it.' The Rose Field: The Book of Dust Volume 3 will be published on 23 October 2025 (Penguin £25). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
