By which I mean it's long and has an interesting idea for a plot, but is written in a way that isn't always interesting.

There's something didactic about KSR's novels. He does a lot of telling rather than showing. There are pages and pages of this. Some of it was so tedious that in the last 20% of the book I skipped over parts. I longed for it all to be over so that I could move on to something more interesting and better written.

There are chapters narrated from the point of view of unidentified people who are scientists, refugees, etc. A lot of these all sound like the same rather breathless, over-excited person.

Because of these faults I wouldn't particularly recommend this book.