This novella and prequel, set some time before Lyra’s birth, features Pullman’s favourite character Lee Scoresby, aged 24 and flying the balloon he has recently won in a poker game. A difficult landing finds him in the imaginary harbour town of Novy Odense, set on an island in the Muscovy White Sea. Wandering into town Lee soon becomes aware of the hatred directed at a group of dispirited working bears, despised by some as ‘worthless vagrants’. There is also an unmistakable whiff of corruption surrounding a populist mayor seeking re-election and in the pay of Larsen Manganese, a ruthless and dishonest mining company.
Things come to a head when Lee enables a Dutch skipper to rescue his illegally embargoed cargo. Lee is also by this time up against some local ruffians led by his old enemy and hired gun-man Pierre Morton, who had tried to kill him some years before. A protracted gun fight around the city’s harbour follows, and Lee is wounded, losing part of an ear. But killing his man in return and now with the help of that great fighting bear Iorek Byrnison, another favourite character, he just escapes in his balloon, taking Iorek with him to pastures new.
This little book, the same size and format as Lyra’s Oxford, contains more spoof newspaper cuttings and other examples of past printed ephemera. There is also a board game tucked in at the back with the title Peril of the Pole. Lovingly devised and clearly written as much for Pullman’s own pleasure as anything else, it has no higher purpose than general entertainment. Two intriguing hand-written letters at the end of the book, written as if from Lyra, now a mature student, reveal that she is currently at St Sophia’s College, Oxford, studying for a master’s course in the history faculty.
The dissertation she has chosen is on: ‘Development in patterns of trade in the European Arctic region with particular reference to independent cargo balloon carriage (1950–1970).’ A newspaper cutting she refers to as one of her sources is included in the book on the previous page. It is a hugely biased account of the harbour fight, written the day after by the journalist Oskar Sigurdsson, still smarting from having been kicked into the sea by Lee Scoresby as punishment for his lying and dishonesty. Lee Scoresby, misspelled as Leigh Scroby, and his great bear companion in arms are also mentioned. So once again Lyra has managed to make contact, albeit at an academic distance, with two of her greatest friends and allies of before.
Of greater significance is the fact that Lyra, seen as a hard-working school girl in Lyra’s Oxford, is now a successful college student with eventual plans to become a university teacher. She has therefore fulfilled the promise she made to herself and Will years ago to work hard and lead a productive life. She also refers to her continued quest to research into how her alethiometer works, reporting good progress here too. Any mention of Will would have been inappropriate in the two business-like letters from her reproduced here. But the energy and feeling of general engagement with life that comes across in them suggests that she is surviving well. For readers who have followed her turbulent life from a ten-year-old girl onwards, this final positive image of a busy, committed student makes for a pleasantly reassuring last word after the multitude of highs and lows that have taken place around her before.