The novel got better over the pages, but I wish I didn't have to work through half the book to make it to more interesting parts. To me, the story got much more interesting when

the time jump to the future where people lived underground came up.

Some of the writing was very good, but not as many good bits as the first book in the series. Some people have speculated that this is due to the change in translator; I don't think anyone can say for sure unless they have read the original source material. Overall, this was a harder book to read than the first simply because it was much more depressing. If the goal was to paint a dark picture of civilizations (human and otherwise) then the goal was more than met. I do suspect that this was the goal because of the title.