Philip Pullman Announces Follow Up to ‘His Dark Materials’
The final book in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy was published back in 2000, and for many it was assumed that this was the end of the series. Well, it’s seventeen years later, and it appears that we were all wrong. Earlier today, it was announced on Pullman’s website that a new trilogy in the same continuity is in the works, currently titled The Book of Dust.
According to the news post, Lyra will be the main character, and The Book of Dust will not be a prequel or sequel to His Dark Materials. Pullman instead describes it instead thusly:
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.
The first book in the series doesn’t have a title yet, but it will be released on October 19th. Expectations from fans are probably pretty high, and here’s hoping the new trilogy will live up to them.
