Monster Lands thoroughly answers the questions left at the end of Crossline Plains, and then some. Even though most of the story takes place in our world, Gibson still manages to convey an impressive scope and depth of the griffin world, and never once breaks her commitment to viewing the humans as alien monsters. That does tend to muddle the story thematically, however; with the recurring thesis that humans are uniquely terrible, Gibson never quite manages to show the griffins or other sentients as being uniquely noble, instead giving them a casual brutality that is shocking to most human readers. Nor does any character seem aware of this dissonance, calling into question whether or not it is deliberate or not. In addition, though the story is full of fast-paced action, many of the scenes in the middle grow repetitive after a time. The action is the core of the book, while moments that are supposed to be emotional have little or no buildup and end up feeling hollow. Altogether it is an interesting world with a story that doesn't quite know what it wants to do.