Unfortunately, this instalment felt like an action sequel without much of the literary meat that the first and to a lesser extent the second instalments had. Tally Youngblood is once again transformed and manipulated and Westerfeld once again expands the curtain covering the world a bit more. However, by this point this is the third time we have been through this character development arc, and Tally has become a less empathetic character. Though given her forced transformations at this point, there isn't much humanity left, which may have been one of Westerfeld's points, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

I still tore through the book quickly and Westerfeld does a good job of pulling the reader along despite shallowness of the characters at this point. I'm just a little disappointed that it didn't have the punch and commentary of the first book in the series.