No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. As can be expected, the plotting is fairly simplistic, the ending abrupt, and the characterizations pretty much glossed over. However, in the introduction, Pournelle notes, and attributes to Robert Heinlein, the idea that in juvenile fiction one can do more teaching than in adult fiction. The book postulates an ecology based around, and run by, intelligent entities formed of aggregate creatures. An interesting means of communication is proposed between individual creatures.
Environmentalism is a weak subsidiary theme.
Some explanation of the complexity of ecological interactions is given, but a number of opportunities for fuller development are abandoned. Most of the plot turns on the existence of an artificially intelligent program, and on communications. In these areas, the book is extremely weak. First there is data security. The AI program has presumably been designed by a very able computer scientist.