It succeeds on two counts. First of all, it successfully imagines a near-future tech revolution in a relatively believable way, which I think is difficult to do. The details of the tech require some suspension-of-disbelief, but this is very neatly contained - everything that builds on top of that is very well painted, even for a slightly nit-picky geek like me. Secondly, the portrayal of life in a (fictional), poverty stricken developing country near China is fascinating. I'd love to hear from someone who has more experience of similar places than I do, as I wonder if it's as lifelike as it seems to my naive mind. Perhaps a one or two of the subplots felt a bit unnecessary and misplaced, otherwise this would have been a 5-star book (hard to go into without spoilers). ★★★★☆