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Philip Pullman's The Rose Field - not yet, but soon

57 replies

TheRavenKingsDaughter · 05/10/2025 09:27

Such a long wait.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg25k199geo.amp

But I have just this moment pre-ordered the book, due out on October 23rd. There is the slight issue of having pretty much forgotten where we’d got to in the last one …

Phillip Pullman, wearing a blue shirt and burgundy jacket

Philip Pullman announces The Rose Field, the final novel in the Book of Dust trilogy - BBC News

The author's new book The Rose Field will end the His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust trilogies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg25k199geo.amp

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Civilservant · 28/11/2025 12:59

There’s a spoilers thread @Toucan2

Toucan2 · 28/11/2025 12:58

Anyone else finished it yet? It feels so flat. So many unanswered questions. Is this really the end?

Portakalkedi · 02/11/2025 22:55

Agree that the narration by Michael Sheen is fab, was hoping it would be him. Mine is from the library.

Portakalkedi · 02/11/2025 22:53

DameWishalot · 25/10/2025 11:43

I’m about halfway through and I really miss Lyra’s world feeling really different from ours. Pullman seems to have given up on that other than people having daemons and writing anbaric instead of electric. He also writes about Aleppo like it’s a Poirot or one of those endless mid-century/interwar novels about white men finding themselves in the oriental/greek/turkish fleshpots.

It’s just so weird that Lyra literally killed god and everyone seems to have forgotten about it.

It’s much better than the Secret Commonwealth so far and I’m enjoying the plot. Onwards!

That's exactly what I was thinking - the amazing things that Lyra and Will achieved by the end of the original trilogy don't seem to have had any mention since then, but surely would have had quite an impact on the Magisterium at least?

OrsolaRosso · 28/10/2025 10:16

I have been waiting for this book for a long time! So far I am really enjoying it. It's slow and steady, and I feel like I am savouring it. And also luxuriating, as I am listening to it on Audible. Michael Sheen's narration is quite sublime!

Troubledwords · 28/10/2025 08:11

I'm only about 100 pages in, and it's not exciting me, I think it'll be one I pick up and put down over the week. It's already feeling like there's too many threads, and I want it to be Lyra's story.

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TheRavenKingsDaughter · 27/10/2025 22:00

Good thought!

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CalmConfident · 27/10/2025 21:20

I’ve started a new thread for us to discuss views so we don’t give spoilers here @TheRavenKingsDaughter and @OakleyStreetisnotinChelsea

CalmConfident · 27/10/2025 21:16

Glad we can talk about it now…should we move to a spoiler thread so we don’t give anything away ?

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TheRavenKingsDaughter · 26/10/2025 22:47

Also - if my daemon wasn’t a snow leopard I’d refuse to have one at all!

(Maybe an Irish Wolfhound. Or a swift but deceptively gentle falcon of some kind.)

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OakleyStreetisnotinChelsea · 26/10/2025 22:26

Finished mine tonight. I have mixed feelings. I feel there are various threads he started but still hasn't brought in to the story and I'm not sure why they are there. It doesn't really feel like a conclusion......

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TheRavenKingsDaughter · 26/10/2025 22:05

Finished!

Or, at least, I’ve finished reading the book; if Philip Pullman refuses to compete the story I’ll just have to do it in my head.

He’s very lucky. Millions of us will buy this out of loyalty to characters and world building we may have known for decades … And of course he’s under no obligation to satisfy each of our individual yearnings for the perfect ending. My feeling was that he was writing because a book had been promised, and he had one overriding idea. But the rest just felt plodding.

And I never got Malcolm. Across my 60 odd years of reading fiction, Will has been one of my all time favourite characters, ever, ever, ever. Any book without him in it is missing something. I’m still, occasionally, out of nowhere, rendered breathless thinking of his love for and protection of his mother, his personal quest, the knife … And the Angels. There was nothing even a fraction as powerful here. I don’t deny it was absorbing. And there were glimpses of female characters I’d have liked more of. But I essentially read it to get to the end.

All the while thinking I really must re-read The Magician’s Nephew. It’s been at least ten years …

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BastardtheCat · 26/10/2025 15:44

It’s been so long that I feel I need to re-read the last book before reading the Rose Fields. Bought it in the airport before I flew out on my holiday but I honestly can’t remember the last book properly.

What’s the name of it again ?! 🙈

janehopper · 26/10/2025 14:55

It was disappointing. I'm a bit sad about it.

elephantsinhats · 26/10/2025 09:13

EverybodyLTB · 26/10/2025 08:43

I have about 50 pages left and have to say I’m so disappointed. There’s no way that what needs tying up can be tied up in the pages left. I know it’s going to feel rushed and unsatisfying. All these years with Lyra and Pan and the brilliance of HDM as a foundation, and this is how it ends? It feels like the skeleton of a new story, like this is the first draft of a new novel about people we don’t know. It feels like it not only needs editing and redefining, but better emotional connection to the first trilogy. I’m starting to feel about it like I did about the last series of GOT - which is ‘what the fuck has happened to my beloved characters?’ and ‘is this it?’ I can’t believe I was so eagerly awaiting THIS.

This is how I feel about this whole trilogy and why I still haven’t opened this book yet. 12-year-old me would be appalled!

EverybodyLTB · 26/10/2025 08:43

I have about 50 pages left and have to say I’m so disappointed. There’s no way that what needs tying up can be tied up in the pages left. I know it’s going to feel rushed and unsatisfying. All these years with Lyra and Pan and the brilliance of HDM as a foundation, and this is how it ends? It feels like the skeleton of a new story, like this is the first draft of a new novel about people we don’t know. It feels like it not only needs editing and redefining, but better emotional connection to the first trilogy. I’m starting to feel about it like I did about the last series of GOT - which is ‘what the fuck has happened to my beloved characters?’ and ‘is this it?’ I can’t believe I was so eagerly awaiting THIS.

DameWishalot · 26/10/2025 08:15

EverybodyLTB · 25/10/2025 11:58

I’m about to settle in for another hour or so. Agree so far with the above, it’s I’m sure more simplistic than before. All the texture and understanding of the people and things is, in my mind, a hangover from the previous books.

That’s a good point. It’s noticeable that while Asta is definitely a “person”, almost all of the new characters’ daemons don’t get names or personalities.

I’ve finished it now. Pullman is a master storyteller and this was much better than Secret Commonwealth. But he isn’t a philosopher and I find that his great overarching philosophy/theology always ends up feeling disappointingly thin.

RaspberryRipple2 · 26/10/2025 06:52

I also think the world seems a lot more like ours - I don’t remember there being cars in Lyra’s Oxford but there are now? I’m finding it a good read (nearly 200 pages in).

EverybodyLTB · 25/10/2025 11:58

I’m about to settle in for another hour or so. Agree so far with the above, it’s I’m sure more simplistic than before. All the texture and understanding of the people and things is, in my mind, a hangover from the previous books.

DameWishalot · 25/10/2025 11:43

I’m about halfway through and I really miss Lyra’s world feeling really different from ours. Pullman seems to have given up on that other than people having daemons and writing anbaric instead of electric. He also writes about Aleppo like it’s a Poirot or one of those endless mid-century/interwar novels about white men finding themselves in the oriental/greek/turkish fleshpots.

It’s just so weird that Lyra literally killed god and everyone seems to have forgotten about it.

It’s much better than the Secret Commonwealth so far and I’m enjoying the plot. Onwards!

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TheRavenKingsDaughter · 25/10/2025 09:59

(I am filing a small protest at a typo in one of my posts above, which appears even though I distinctly remember quarrelling with my phone over it. I did not write unless the bears are there own daemons - and I entirely forgive anyone who has decided I am illiterate.)

Have to laugh though - after a lifetime of holding my nose over middle brow literature, my shelves have recently become filled with Robert Galbraith Strike novels, which all seem to end on the possibility of a kiss. It’s like being 12 and immersed in Georgette Heyer all over again …

As to whether The Rose Field is a children’s book - there’s quite a bit of cliche and stock writing - town squares and descriptions of how people look, for instance - that might be less tedious if you’ve only been reading for ten years rather than sixty. But the pace is quite measured; not sure a contemporary child would have the patience for it.

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pollyhemlock · 25/10/2025 09:20

Haven’t started it yet but read one review which was pretty negative so pleased to see that people on here feel differently. From what I’ve read about it I don’t think it’s a children’s book but he has said that he doesn’t write for a specific audience.

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