In a word: meh. First of all, I thought this was the third book chronologically in the series, and I remember really enjoying the second book. 
 Well, it turns out that this book is a sequel to the first book. To be fair, I barely remember the first book at all. I liked the second book because it was a crazy space opera. This book and the first one are first contact with aliens on a planet books. The ideas such as group mind animals that communicate via ultrasound are interesting, but the story gets bogged down with frankly mediocre character development. 
 Even more annoying, this book doesn't wrap anything up, and is clearly to be continued in another novel. So, you've got a ho-hum story with boring characters and nothing gets resolved. Ugh.