This book is a bit hard to speak about - I went into it knowing it was the sort of thing I was going to dislike even as I liked it.
So first the story - in terms of narrative voice, which is the best part, Yu does a great job capturing his character (or possibly himself) and the wonderful absurdity of the background is exceptionally fun to wander around in. The story itself is nearly absent, shunted aside in favor of watching Yu play with language.
My biggest problem with it is that it's either a postmodern exploration of self masquerading as a scifi novel or the reverse. It SHOULD be a marriage of the two, but it just fails to bring them together. If anything, I think Yu was trying a bit too hard to make sure he had, in fact, written something literary and the book suffered especially in the beginning as he swung between the voice of more traditional genre and the conventions of pomo fiction. He did get his stride later in the book, though.
It was good, I'm glad I read it, but sometimes I wonder if this book could have been so much more.