Suffers a bit from Middle Book Syndrome (in which the second book of any trilogy lags a bit, setting up the climactic battles for the story arc's conclusion) but still does some great things with establishing characters--both who the players are and the measure of them--and world-building. Looking forward to moving into Book 3. 
 (Incidentally, the audio of the first book just won an Odyssey award, or maybe an honor? Anyway, the second one is almost as good. I don't know that I'd like these as much to physically read them, if Todd's illiteracy is still captured in a bunch of phonetic, "kre8ive" spellings.)