It starts with a horrifying dive into '60s Revolutionary China, then veers off into an extremely surreal and nerdy anime plot, and proceeds on a very cool and foreboding sci-fi arc (I think; I don't remember how much of the sci-fi it has vs. how much of it is in the two sequels).
That's a good way to put it. The novel series manages to have 1) brilliant and highly imaginative set-piece sci-fi events 2) ruminations on the possibly dark nature of humanity in space 3) amateurish characters - save two or three 4) universal-scale scope 5) awareness of just 6 countries in the world : all at the same time.
