Shemer Kuznits creates another thrilling addition to the series. Oren finds himself falling in and out of his human self and ends up making cocky decisions because of it almost dooming his hunting team and even his entire klan a couple of times. If not for his trusty sidekick, Vic, things came close to collapse a number of times. As the title implies, there is lots of progression on environment building that while a bit tedious, was understandable to anyone familiar with civilization-guilding gaming. Again, more stat-bane spewing than I preferred but, as with book 1, not intolerable.
One thing I found particularly enjoyable was the traitor-in-the-midst story-arc. The author took care to develop several characters ahead of time in such a way that their allegiance remained dubious throughout the story, allowing one to place bets with themself as to which one was the traitor. It was not until near the end that their identity became known. This was a particularly well-crafted bit of intrigue trajectory.
Jeff Hays, Laurie Catherine Winkel and Annie Ellicott performed quite well but I have to give Jeff Hays added recognition for his ability to add just the right inflections with various moments of character surprise and embarrassing moments.
A thoroughly enjoyable book.