To be honest I can't remember right now exactly. It was years ago. But I remember being bored by a few pages devoted to how a ship worked or something similar. That then made me notice all following technobabble stuff. In fairness this is just a question of taste. I just prefer the way people like Iain Banks approached that side of things.

As for the racism stuff I think there was a world or habitat populated by black people which was rife with stereotypes. Hope I'm not confusing it with some other book now. Apologies if so.