Trilogy approaches and the power is shifting from the Datum because of the economic crisis, people are aware what the future hold for Datum now thus they are migrating.
The Yellowstone eruption did much damage to the human world and it is like the end of everything on the home planet. The three heroes created by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter still work for the safety of the human race. Sally, Lobsang and Joshua are trying to save more and more people but they face personal problems too which is affecting their performance.
Sally for instance all of a sudden finds her father who was supposed to be dead. It was Sally’s father who invented the gadget that made the “Stepping” possible. Joshua the man who got married in The Long War is worried more about his home, war has come to his doorstep and there is nothing he can do against the danger that approaches.
Threat approaches from all sides and though the situation looks hopeless but none of the characters seems hopeless, people like Maggie Kauffman are ready to test their full potential for the sake of humanity.
Most of the people that we see in this novel are trying to save their own skin though there are a few heroes who are trying but they are outnumbered and the only way out of this misery is a combined and selfless effort. Michael Fenton-Stevens narrates this again like The Long Earth, improvement is needed and it cannot go on like this, there had to be a spark in words along with clarity. Novel up till now is not going to a war and more destructive changes are thus expected to start a war.