For me its even the plot. I mean scientific parts are very fine, but human parts are meh at best.
[minor spoilers below]
It is practically a racist book where everybody non-chinese is evil, conspires to harm chinese in a comical villain fashion, should be killed, and is killed eventually. I get that 100 years ago similar literature was OK in the west too, but we moved our societies quite a bit since then.
> I get that 100 years ago similar literature was OK in the west too, but we moved our societies quite a bit since then.
100 years ago? Today, the ratio of militaristic "America F** Yeah!" sci-fi vs every other language is probably 100/1 and the amount of times the Chinese and Russian are the ones portrayed as evil in that literature is literally orders of magnitude greater. Are those also racist books?
> Chinese and Russian are the ones portrayed as evil in that literature
I've not noticed that. OTOH as a brit, the number of times I see us portrayed in American films as cold, unemotion, untrustworthy, manipulative, I could go on...
Edit: on reflection that does seem to have died down a bit in recent years.
[minor spoilers below] It is practically a racist book where everybody non-chinese is evil, conspires to harm chinese in a comical villain fashion, should be killed, and is killed eventually. I get that 100 years ago similar literature was OK in the west too, but we moved our societies quite a bit since then.