If this was his first book, it is a good book and a great sci-fi book anyway. More tech-y science fiction as opposed to dystopian! (which has been really overdone) I thought his idea was pretty amazing for a genre that was non-existant/underdeveloped. 
 Read this knowing that it is his first book, that it was one of the "early sci-fi" books, and that sci-fi books are sometimes/usually (well for this book at least) not read for the characterisation or whatever element or even plot but for the concept.