“There’s always more to explore,” he writes on his website: Pullman is aware of the level of expectation around his work – and the same questions that bother fan fiction writers have bothered him. Fans, though, can breathe new life into existing texts and fill a gap that the author can’t always fulfil. There are occasional skirmishes between JK Rowling’s huge fan community and the tightly controlled world of Pottermore. Some authors police their creations more fiercely than others. Readers want to find out more, put right plot twists they disagreed with, and – in the salacious sub-genre of slash fiction – create sexual partnerships the author might never have envisaged. Are Lyra and Will really separated for ever at the end of The Amber Spyglass? What happens to Lord Asriel after his deathwards plunge? Richly created fantasy worlds encourage new invention, following a tradition of “ minor characters having their day”. His Dark Materials has provided much for fans to work on.

The advent of digital technologies have enabled fans to write, upload, share and comment upon work inspired by traditionally published writers, most notoriously with the work that would eventually become Fifty Shades of Grey, which began life as Twilight fan fiction. And Pullman has not been the only writer working on the worlds of His Dark Materials between since they were published. This continual invention already spawned two short and beautifully produced associated books, Once Upon a Time in the North and Lyra’s Oxford. Dust is a complex entity, an idea of consciousness connected to human evolution and the development of the human body during the course of adolescence, revisiting and rewriting philosophical ideas of the spilt between the material body and the soul.Īs Pullman wrote on his blog recently: “I always wanted to return to and discover more”. Daemons are the animal alter ego, external soul, and constant companion of each character. This autumn Pullman fans will be able to take an exhilarating dive back into the fictional worlds of a master storyteller, whose audacious imagination brought us both “daemons” and “dust”. Pre-orders have already propelled the first title to the top of the bestseller lists, and speculation is running riot. The Book of Dust had been referred to as early as the publication of The Amber Spyglass in 2000, but at last the first in a new trilogy is confirmed for publication in October. Millions have been thrilled to hear that His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman is back with the long-awaited follow-up to the infamous trilogy.

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