The alien development in Children of Ruin wasn't quite as good as the Portid chapters of "Children of Time", but the overall pacing of the book was much better with no boring human chapters to break up the palp-quivering goodness of the Portid and Cephalopod chapters. The ending of the book, despite sharing a similar flavor to the first book, still hits just as hard. These-of-We are looking forward to going on another adventure with the third book.