And all the really bad guys got dead and all the good guys survived and they all lived happily ever after. Well, maybe. There is a major loose end left hanging - the Vord are still occupying the continent which was the home of the Canim - the aptly named dog/wolf people, and inevitably, they will someday want the rest of the world.
As for the strands running into this book from the previous one: my not exactly a prediction turned out to be correct - Aquataine's Vord-controlled wife, Invidia, does do him in in the end - making it unnecessary for Tavi/Octavian to do it. But they did NOT name the baby Nonus, I suppose because they are building a new Alera, based on Truth, Justice, and something or other and it was a good time to stop numbering the generations. Decius wouldn't be too bad, but Undecius - or, horrible thought - Duodecius?
In all fairness, I enjoyed this more than I usually do these monster series. (I finished it, didn't I?) Butcher held it together quite well, and the pattern wasn't too dreadfully obvious. You know - just when things are absolutely at their worst, they get even worse and Our Hero must save the day.
His nonhumans were quite creative, ranging from the merely different Marat, the quite likeable canim, the eerie Icemen, and the monstrously alien Vord. The Roman names and stuff went unexplained - at one point someone is reading a book on military strategy recognizeable as Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars. There is a hint at the Pern thing - the human civilization originated on another world but it is merely mentioned and dropped.
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