When is The Book of Dust out? Philip Pullman’s new His Dark Materials book release date

When is The Book of Dust released?

The first book in the new trilogy will be released on Thursday October 19, 17 years after the last book in the His Dark Materials series, The Amber Spyglass.

Its title will be revealed in the coming months.

The BBC have reported that Pullman has already written the second book in the trilogy and is currently working on the third.

What is the Book of Dust about?

The new series is a companion to Pullman’s best-selling trilogy His Dark Materials. 

The author has described the story as neither a sequel or prequel, but an “equel”.

The first book will take place around 10 years before Northern Lights, with the second and third books set roughly 10 years after His Dark Materials.

Publisher Penguin has revealed that the story centres on “the struggle between a despotic and totalitarian organisation that wants to stifle speculation and enquiry, and those who believe that thought and speech should be free”.

Pullman has said that Dust – the conscious particle that links humans to their daemons – will be explored in further detail.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Dust is an analogy of consciousness, and consciousness is this extraordinary property we have as human beings.

“The story I’m telling in this book is more about in terms of William Blake’s vision, 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.”

His Dark Materials is to be turned into an epic new BBC series.

Which characters will appear? Will Lyra be in The Book of Dust?

Pullman has confirmed that Lyra Belacqua will be a central character in the new trilogy.

“The first thing to say is that Lyra is at the centre of the story,” he said in a statement. 

“Events involving her open the first chapter, and will close the last. I’ve always wanted to tell the story of how Lyra came to be living at Jordan College and, in thinking about it, I discovered a long story that began when she was a baby and will end when she’s grown up.

“This volume and the next will cover two parts of Lyra’s life: starting at the beginning of her story and returning to her 20 years later. “

There will also be a new hero, “an ordinary boy who eagle-eyed readers may have spotted in Lyra’s story before”.

Pullman added: “With Lyra, he is caught up in a terrifying adventure that takes him into a new world.”

There will be a host of new characters, however there is no word as to whether characters such as Will Parry, Lord Asriel or Mrs Coulter will return.

Penguin has revealed that the Magisterium, daemons and alethiometers will also be featured in the new trilogy.

Do you need to have read His Dark Materials?

Pullman has said that The Book of Dust will work as a stand-alone story.

“It’s a different story, but there are settings that readers of His Dark Materials will recognise,” he said.

Keen readers can immerse themselves in Pullman’s world by reading his original trilogy: Northern Lights, The Subtle Night and The Amber Spyglass.

There are also three short companion books: Lyra’s Oxford – set two years after The Amber Spyglass, Once Upon a Time in the North – about Iorek Byrnison and Lee Scoresby, and The Collectors – which was released exclusively as an audiobook narrated by Bill Nighy.