I didn't finish this book because I lost interest to the plot entirely - Poppy War kept me entertained on a train crash level, but this one didn't even do that. But anyway, both novels were proper old school racist in a way that's actually pretty rare these days. In Poppy War the fantasy-Japanese were depicted like from actual WWII propaganda films- machine like automatons of torture without any humanity. In here we have the fantasy-Europeans who mix stereotypical Christian missionary zeal with laughably stereotypical racist theories that were IRL more common in 18th-19th century than later and would have definitely never been dared to mention in to IRL Chinese. Come think of it, even the missionaries were not that fanatical in the era we are supposedly dealing with. Just laughable stuff.
But anyway, both novels were proper old school racist in a way that's actually pretty rare these days. In Poppy War the fantasy-Japanese were depicted like from actual WWII propaganda films- machine like automatons of torture without any humanity. In here we have the fantasy-Europeans who mix stereotypical Christian missionary zeal with laughably stereotypical racist theories that were IRL more common in 18th-19th century than later and would have definitely never been dared to mention in to IRL Chinese. Come think of it, even the missionaries were not that fanatical in the era we are supposedly dealing with. Just laughable stuff.