YMMV / Zero Minus Ten

• Complete Monster: Guy Thackeray is a British shipping magnate in Hong Kong who is furious about the transfer to the Chinese government on account of losing his company to an obscure clause from his ancestors. Arranging terrorist attacks and many murders, including that of his board of directors, Thackeray intends to destroy Hong Kong with a nuke after fraying the tense peace to the breaking point, With this, Thackeray hopes to kick off a war between Britain and China to punish both countries and sate his spiteful ego.
• Funny Moments: At one point, Bond is left stranded in the middle of the Australian outback, and has to make his way back to civilization. Wracked with hunger and thirst after a couple days of walking, he finally comes across a friendly Aboriginal woman, who he shares a fruit with. The narrator then mentions that Bond finds the sight of the woman eating the fruit, with the juices dripping onto her breasts, to be intensely erotic. Even when horribly dehydrated and exhausted, Bond still finds time to perv on this woman. Oh, James.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Just as it was in real life, the citizenry of Hong Kong in the novel is quite fearful of what will happen to their territory under Chinese Communist rule, and it is mentioned many times, especially by Sunni Pei, that many islanders and businesses have already fled for other countries on the eve of the handover rather than live under communist rule. Bond is one of the people who believes handing Hong Kong back is the honorable thing to do and is optimistic about the island's future, betting on the outcome that its democratic and open society will change China for the better. He also brings up the fact that Hong Kong is far too important economically for China to go too far against it.^note "Bond had heard people ask, 'What will China do to Hong Kong?' He thought the more intriguing question might be, 'What will Hong Kong do to China?' " Unfortunately, as of July 2020 in the real world, the People's Republic has essentially reneged on all the agreements they made with the UK and have already moved to fully absorb the territory as part of mainland China, 27 years ahead of the 50-year agreement to leave HK's political systems alone, much to the outrage of over a million HK protesters (out of a population of 7.25 million, that is pretty significant). In addition, in 1997, HK accounted for nearly a quarter of China's GDP, which served as leverage to protect itself. However, by 2020, the PRC has diversified its economy and built up other major port cities on the coasts, and HK's significance has collapsed to the single digits of percentage, eliminating its leverage.
  • Li Xu Nan swears that the Triads will act as a force against the Communists trying to interfere with Hong Kong's politics, especially as they do need the capitalistic culture to keep their crimes going. The real world has proven the opposite: Triad gangs have been accused of being complicit with pro-CCP police forces attacking protesters and serving as unofficial muscle for mainland forces during the 2019-2020 protests.