It's terrible sci-fi but the sci-fi bit is only there to draw moralistic parallels between aliens and the Chinese. Some gruelling stories about China's culturual revolution that were pretty interesting but otherwise it's pretty bad. I'm sure the quality of the writing is lost in translation so I'm not complaining about that - just talking about the story.

Yes. It's excellent sci Fi with some fantasy elements. There's a completely different writing style that is a bit reminiscent of Asian movies, which I thought was pretty cool.

I thought it was quite fascinating, both the sci-fi and the storyline. Strong recommend