The story seems to turn harsher, and humans once again play a major part. There seems to be little enough actual action, which makes this book appear to be more like book one of part two of the series than book four of the series, but the supposed cliffhanger at the end most likely is no cliffhanger at all. Truth be told, I finished it quite some time ago and I barely remember anything about the first half of it, so it's a very important part of the overall story and reveals even more about the characters, but the action is not so memorable in itself.