His Dark Materials’ author Philip Pullman announces new Lyra trilogy

Plus: Neil Gaiman announces work has started on a follow-up to Neverwhere and film rights for Paula Hawkin's new novel sold.

Author Philip Pullman. David Levenson / Getty Images

From Dark to Dust

It is the news that millions of fans of Philip Pullman's brilliant fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials have been waiting to hear for years – the English author is ready to further explore the world of heroine Lyra Belacqua, daemons and the Magisterium in another three-book series. Billed as neither prequel nor a sequel but an "equel", The Book of Dust series will cover the time when Lyra was a baby and also pick up the story 10 years after the end of His Dark Materials (the final volume of which, The Amber Spyglass, was published 17 years ago). Pullman promises "a struggle between a despotic and totalitarian organisation and those who believe thought and speech should be free". The first, as yet untitled, volume will be published on October 19.

Refugee visit inspires Gaiman to revisit Neverwhere

In further bestselling-fantasy sequel news, Neil Gaiman has announced work has started on a follow-up to Neverwhere, his 1996 television series and novel exploring the lives of homeless and dispossessed people living in the strange, magical realm of London Below, under the streets of the English capital. Gaiman told a London audience last week he had been inspired to write a sequel after visiting refugee camps in the Middle East and talking to people affected by the conflict in Syria. No publication date is set as yet – Gaiman said he is only three chapters in – but it will be called The Seven Sisters.

Film rights sold for Hawkins book

There will soon be no escaping The Girl on the Train author Paula Hawkins. The successful film adaptation starring Emily Blunt is out now on DVD and DreamWorks Pictures has just snapped up the rights to her latest mystery novel, Into The Water, which will be published in May. As we have reported before, it is set in a British town where a single mother and a teenage girl are found dead in a river within months of each other. Whether The Girl on the Train producer Marc Platt (who is up for an Oscar on Sunday for La La Land) will again insist on the action being transported to the United States remains to be seen.