I conceptually enjoy Chu's ideas in this book as well as in his other series. I like the settings and the high stakes adventure nature of his novels. The ideas are so good and they're absolutely worth reading to see what happens next.
His viewpoint characters do have a tendency to fall a bit flat for me. I might be bumping up against a gender thing-it's possible that his male characters just annoy me. I find them unrelatable since they seem to embody somewhat stereotypical geeks and they are meant to be sympathetic...but I have no sympathy for them. But I really want to know what happens next and Chu is a good enough story craftsman that I am absolutely along for the ride even if I spend missy of it thinking James is a bit of a jerk.