The 70-year-old author finished his multiverse-spanning His Dark Material trilogy almost two decades ago.
And now Pullman’s back with the first of his The Book of Dust trilogy, La Belle Sauvage. A new series that he claims is neither a prequel or sequel, but an “equel”
Set 10 years before Northern Lights, the spin-off follows 11-year-old Malcolm who lives in Oxford and learns a guest is coming to stay, a baby called Lyra Belacqua.
With the book released today, the first reviews have arrived and are mainly very positive, with four and five stars awarded.
The Telegraph
It’s batty, and rather wonderful, that these myth-fragments share space in a book where the hero can be reading Agatha Christie novels and A Brief History of Time.
The Independent
La Belle Sauvage has the feel of an extended preface; thrillingly entertaining and beautifully written, but ultimately something of an introduction to the story proper we know follows thereafter.
The Guardian
The tension in Pullman between deep attraction to magic and fierce atheistic pragmatism resolves itself into a commitment to art – especially ship-shapeliness; this is a properly Romantic attitude.
The Washington Post
The Book of Dust feels more earthbound — in the best way — than the earlier trilogy. There is plenty of magic here, too, not just daemons and startling prophecies but witches and spectres, forays into Faerie, and Malcolm’s eerie, migraine-like visions of the aurora borealis.
PHILIP PULLMAN SET TO NAME BOOK CHARACTER AFTER GRENFELL TOWER FIRE VICTIM
New Statesman
For much of the book, the narrative energy keeps up well: Pullman’s style is lively and physically specific, and the descriptions of the flood and its consequences are brilliantly done.
iNews
Such is the sense of slow dread and the liminal nature of the second half, that this isn’t, yet, quite the romping adventure we might have expected. But then, these are dark, uncertain times. Pullman has given them the brilliant, disturbing book they deserve.
La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Volume One is out now.