As with the first one, it just...ends...It's quite good as character studies and quite life-like in that we don't get the awesome reader's bird's-eye view. There is still stuff kept from us. Still, as a reader, that's quite annoying. And fascinating as the universe is, it still tends to leave me with more questions than were answered (not really, but that sounded dramatic. I do have some questions that seem like they'll never be answered, though).