@unsuspicious@wyrms.de assuming it's a genuine question in your title (and since I adore this book): The book was meant to be the first of a trilogy, of which only the second ("Parable of the Talents") wa also written, which may explain the fizzling out you experienced. If you're more used to plot-driven, upbeat, contemporary speculative fiction (of which I read a lot), the pace and bleakness might seem odd. To me, the bleakness is necessary to appreciate the tiny little sprouts that do come up from the words and actions that are being sown by the protagonist, and in the eponymous parable, most of the seeds fail as well. If you can immerse yourself in the world enough that mere survival as a group is grand success, you might appreciate it a bit more.