It clearly isn't a character-based story. But the aliens aren't clearly our foes, males and females do good and bad, and it explores some themes in relation to

It clearly isn't a character-based story. But the aliens aren't clearly our foes, males and females do good and bad, and it explores some themes in relation to the "Great Leap Forward" and societal hierarchy that weren't so badly written... I guess my own critique would be that the style maybe didn't survive the translation. To each his own :p