If there is perhaps one way to best describe this book, it is by calling it "The End". Everything of note that has been left open in the previous three novels in the series is wrapped up by the time this one finishes. From complications that have troubled the lives of some of these characters for as long as we've known them, to major wars. There may be some room to complain about the... realism of how everything wraps up. To use a poker analogy, you don't need a royal flush to win every hand. Sometimes a full house will do.

If the author ever decided to come back to this setting (perhaps for some Tales of the Century Knights) I would definitely be interested in seeing where he went from here.