WINDS OF CHANCE

In an exclusive extract from his new book, Once Upon a Time in the North, Philip Pullman takes readers back to the very beginning of His Dark Materials Saturday March 22, 2008 ...from

The Guardian

The battered cargo balloon came in out of a rainstorm over the White Sea, losing height rapidly and swaying in the strong north-west wind as the pilot trimmed the vanes and tried to adjust the gas-valve. The pilot was a lean young man with a large hat, a laconic disposition and a thin moustache,and at present he was making for the Barents Sea Company Depot, whose location was marked on a torn scrap of paper pinned to the binnacle of the gondola. He could see the depot spread out around the little harbour ahead - a cluster of administrative buildings, a hangar, a warehouse, workshops, gas storage tanks and the associated machinery; it was all approaching fast, and he had to make quick adjustments to everything he could control in order to avoid the hangar roof and make for the open space beyond the warehouse.

The gas-valve was stuck. It needed a wrench, but the only tool to hand was a dirty old
revolver, which the pilot hauled from the holster at his waist and used to
bang the valve till it loosened all at once, releasing more gas than he really
wanted. The balloon sagged and drooped suddenly, and plunged downwards,
scattering a group of men clustered around a broken tractor. The gondola
smashed into the hard ground, and bounced and dragged behind the emptying
balloon across the open space until it finally came to rest only feet away
from a gas storage tank.
The pilot gingerly untangled his fingers from the rope he'd been holding on to, worked out which way up he was, shifted the tool box off his legs, wiped the oily water out of his eyes,
and hauled himself upright.

"Well, Hester, looks like we're getting the hang of this," he said.
His dæmon, who looked like a small sardonic jackrabbit, flicked her ears as she clambered out of the tangle of tools, cold-weather clothing, broken instruments and rope.
Everything was saturated.

Rest of extract...........

Philip Pullman's Once Upon a Time in the North is published by Random House in the UK on April 3. Release date in NZ 4 April, rrp $29.99 and in Australia $29.95 1 May.