I think the most jarring bits are plot points where some ideology crops up that's contrary to whatever goals the countries of the world have decided to pursue, so they just make that opinion illegal and that's the end of it. And then I'm like: "that's not how that works in most of the world". In North Korea that might work, and maybe in China, but not anywhere with reasonably well-established human rights.

It was also interesting how China was always saving the day. That's sort of expected of any author to make their own country the heroes, but I couldn't help but wonder if that's really what he wanted to write, or if writing a story that could be construed as a criticism of modern China would get him in trouble in some ways.

On the other hand, a big early part of the first book was about how awful the cultural revolution was. Is it considered politically acceptable these days in China to acknowledge the past failings of communist government, even if criticizing the current policies often is not?