First instalment of new Philip Pullman trilogy, The Book of Dust, out in October

Writers pay tribute to His Dark Materials author’s exquisite storytelling and ‘daring heresy’

It feels like a long time since the final volume in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, but when you think about what the writer has to achieve with a follow-up – the recreation of Lyra Silvertongue’s alternate universe, the scientific investigation of the strange matter known as “dust”, the genesis of totalitarian regimes and the answer to the question what happens when God dies – 17 years is nothing.

The first instalment of The Book of Dust will be out in October and stands alongside Pullman’s epic first trilogy. Pullman has said it will begin and end with Lyra, the heroine of the previous books, and will feature other familiar characters. Speaking this week on Radio 4’s Today programme, he said the story reflected the vision of William Blake; “his idea of a fiercely reductive way of seeing things: it’s right or wrong; it’s black or white. He said that was far too limiting and we should bring out truer human vision when we see things, surround them all with a sort of penumbra of imagination and memories and hopes and expectations and fears and all these things. It’s an attack on the reductionism, the merciless reductionism, of doctrines with a single answer.”

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