Philip Pullman Writing New His Dark Materials Trilogy

But what about the armoured Polar bears?

By Wesley Copeland

17 years since its conclusion, author Philip Pullman has announced The Book of Dust, a new trilogy set in the His Dark Materials universe(s).

Writing via his website, Pullman explains that the first two volumes feature heroine Lyra Belacqua in two periods of her life – as a child and 10 years following the climax of His Dark Materials. The new series will include characters readers will be familiar with as well as creations such as alethimeters, daemons, and the Magisterium.

“…is it a prequel? Is it a sequel? It’s neither,” writes Pullam. “In fact, The Book of Dust is… an equel. It doesn’t stand before or after His Dark Materials, but beside it. It’s a different story, but there are settings that readers of His Dark Materials will recognise, and characters they’ve met before. Also, of course, there are some characters who are new to us, including an ordinary boy (a boy we have seen in an earlier part of Lyra’s story, if we were paying attention) who, with Lyra, is caught up in a terrifying adventure that takes him into a new world.

Pullman continues: “…why return to Lyra’s world? Dust. Questions about that mysterious and troubling substance were already causing strife 10 years before His Dark Materials, and at the centre of The Book of Dust is the struggle between a despotic and totalitarian organisation, which wants to stifle speculation and enquiry, and those who believe thought and speech should be free. The idea of Dust suffused His Dark Materials. Little by little through that story the idea of what Dust was became clearer and clearer, but I always wanted to return to it and discover more.

“Questions about our existence are infinitely interesting to me. There’s always more to explore.” The first volume in the yet-to-be-titled The Book of Dust trilogy hits bookstands on October 19, 2017.

The His Dark Materials book series has sold some 17.5 million copies to date. In our review of the movie version of the first book, we said The Golden Compass was “a film with moments of dramatic and visual splendour, but one that's never quite the sum of its parts. With a better screenplay, braver creative decisions and the steadfast courage of its convictions, The Golden Compass could have been the start of something great.”

Wesley Copeland is a freelance news writer who writes excellent bios. For more obvious statements and video game chat, you should probably follow him on Twitter.

Let's block ads! (Why?)