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His Dark Materials sequel trilogy: The Book of Dust


Werthead

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Well, that just happened.

Philip Pullman has written (and possibly completed) The Book of Dust, a prequel and sequel trilogy to His Dark Materials. It starts with Lyra as a baby and explores how she ended up at Oxford, and then jumps forward to 30 years after the original trilogy. Pullman has indicated that numerous other characters from the first trilogy will return and the focus will be on a confrontation between totalitarianism and liberty.

This started off as a very modest companion book/short story collection over a decade ago, but it sounds like the story grew in the telling.

Book 1 will be out in October.

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Nice! I recall some discussion about the Book of Dust some time ago on the forum. It had totally slipped my mind, but I'm still fairly excited to see how this turns out. Hopefully it's more Northern Lights than Amber Spyglass (though I did actually enjoy The Amber Spyglass, it was significantly inferior to The Northern Lights). 

I would hope 'characters from the first trilogy' includes Will and Mary

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5 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I would hope 'characters from the first trilogy' includes Will and Mary

And those beings on wheels, those were great.

I enjoyed the Amber Spyglass a lot too. I did not see it as inferiour to Northern Lights. The beings on wheels were more interesting to me than armed polar bears.

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I'll definitely do a reread before the new one comes back and quite eager to see what lies ahead.

I agree that Will needs to be present somewhere in the new trilogy.

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

Also sounds like the TV series is moving closer. Casting is underway at the moment and they're going to film it in Wales, so I suspect a mid-to-late 2018 airdate.

Must be nice for them to know there's more material to potentially adapt if need be. There may even be some new material in the show if it runs parallel.

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2 hours ago, unJon said:

Put me in the camp of loving the first book, but feeling the second two didn't live up to the potential I thought this trilogy had. 

I enjoyed the whole thing. Book 3 was a bit trippy but Will really clicked with me as a character as I loved how he contrasted Lyra. But any scenes with Daemons were great as I just always had daemon envy when reading.

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1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

I'm with you, except I think my hatred for book 2 and 3 far exceeds yours, but I've gone off on that at length before in other places.

Hmm, maybe once or twice :P 

Thinking back this is one of the series I actually reread the most as a child/teen. I know I first read Northern alights when I was 8/9 (only because I distinctly recall taking the book to school for World Book Day, and who my teacher was at the time) and that I reread that book a lot before I read the Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass. and then I know I reread the whole series several times too. Yeah I got a lot of enjoyment out of these, especially the first book. I loved the idea of having a daemon and used to fantasize about what mine would be. 

 

Okay, still do fantasize about having a daemon. Judge away

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Read the trilogy 5 times in a row when I was 12 and I've never loved a book as much as Northern Lights. I've been unwilling to return because it played such a formative role in my adolescence that it's almost became sacred territory in my memory that I don't want to disturb.

What with this and the TV series I may have to dip a toe back in. Hopefully I'll be able keep my sanity this time because I'm not as young and impressionable?

 

ETA: Nope I've just read that Lyra will be 20 in the second book i.e. my age. Bollocks. Looks like I'm going back down the rabbit hole.

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Gee, I never even heard of His Dark Materials until I was about 50 and just loved the fuck out of it, all the books and still do.  Love the daemons and Serafina Pekkala.  Loved the witches.  Can't wait for the new book to be out, hope Serafina Pekkala shows up again too.

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