The Dark Forest

WOW. Just WOW.

This was a delightful followup to The Three-Body Problem entering yet another depth I was not ready for in a science fiction book. There were parts of this book, however, that I felt were a little forced to get a point across or move the narrative along... there were also some mysteries left up in the air that I felt should have been answered. Definitely give this a read if you liked the first book in this trilogy!

I didn't see it coming, any of it.

Edit: I pushed through and I'm so glad I did! Because the second half of this book really redeemed itself for me. So good! And that ending 👌


Got through about 35% of the way through and it's been a struggle. I have absolutely no motivation to read it. The story has been moving super slow and I really don't like any of the characters in this one. I'll keep it on my list and maybe give it a chance some other time. 

I wish I liked this book more than I did.

The pacing grates; the plot doesn't really get going until page 200 or so. Meanwhile, technological breakthroughs and huge historical advancements are skimmed over with only the barest detail.

The treatment of women throughout the book had me constantly thinking “ah yes, this was written by a man.” Amongst a massive cast, there are few female main characters. Many statements reduce women to their looks. Our protagonist / “mouth of God” character fails to acknowledge Ye Wenjie, the woman who at the start of the book introduces him to the breakthrough which ends up saving human civilization. And don't get me started on the 100 pages of Luo Ji's fantasy-girlfriend-come-to-life wife. Sooo cringey and dehumanizing.

The last 200 pages of the book were more fun, but I found myself having to re-read passages multiple times to understand what was happening. This didn't happen much in The Three-Body Problem, which makes me wonder if it is an issue with this book's new translator.

Characters felt flat throughout. Often felt myself unmoved over real or threatened character deaths. No matter how innovative the sci-fi concepts, a story doesn't compel if all characters sound the same.

Considering how much I enjoyed The Three-Body Problem, disappointed. Onto Death's End...

Given how terrific Book 1 was, I'm gonna blame the translation for this one. Lacked cohesion, read so mechanical it felt like I was taking apart a space shuttle. While gripping in certain chapters, it dragged in others & I wondered if I should give up. 3 stars only cuz I'm still convinced of the potential of the series.

I really hope Ken Liu translates this one as well. Will re-read.

Erstmal sammeln, durchatmen, nachdenken....

Der zweite Band wirkte anders auf mich als der erste, ich weiss nicht ob es am neuen Übersetzer liegt, aber die Sprache las sich so ganz verschieden im Vergleich zu Band 1. Es gab ein paar Längen und zumindest eine Storyline hätte etwas kürzer sein können - looking at you Zhang Beihai.

Auch hat mich die Buchstruktur hart genervt. Ich mag gleich lange Kapitel, nicht Abschnitte mit einer Länge von 100-200 Seiten. Viel zu schnell wechseln Protagonisten und Orte, ich bin Mitte 30, ich mag Struktur, verdammt nochmal.

Aber - nach dem Gemecker: Wenn das Buch mich nicht gerade mit den erwähnten Punkten genervt hat war es spannend. Sehr sogar. Insbesondere das letzte Drittel zeigte die Brillanz die ich im ersten Band so mochte.
Zumindest größtenteils: Ein wichtiges Storyelement konnte ich schon nach 50 Seiten fast genauso vorhersehen. Eigentlich schon nach der Einband Beschreibung. Einfach diese nicht lesen.

Glatte 4 Sterne. Freu mich auf Band 3.

Anmerkung: Wenn ich schon Übersetzer und Struktur bemängele, diese Auflage hat so einen seltsames Softtouch Umschlag. Man sieht jeden Fettfleck und bevor man liest sollte man sich die Hände waschen, da sich das Buch sonst ziemlich eklig anfühlt (Händewaschen ist in diesen Zeiten aber sowieso nicht verkehrt).

Anmerkung 2: Wollte eigentlich nur drei Sätze zu den Buch schreiben, und jetzt bemängele ich schon den Einband. Facepalm

Not something I'd recommend for everyone, but for me this was almost perfect science fiction. It's full of wild and mind bending ideas and it will keep your imagination running at top speed the entire time.

My only critique is that I didn't connect well with the characters, but then again they aren't really the focus of the book either. They are mostly there as a vehicle for the story of humanity and the Trisolarians and that's fine.

Awesome book, and I'm looking forward to the third chapter!

So good. Immediately beginning the next one.

Absolutely brilliant.

The (audio)book itself was such a slog to get through, and the scientific developments and terminology were exhausting to listen to sometimes, but the story is compelling as hell, and it was actually really worth it in the end. The Dark Forest idea is an interesting answer to Fermi's paradox.

This is one of the greatest hard sci-fi series I've ever read, and I've not even read the final part of the trilogy.
The main problem of the previous part of the book was the characterization - this part solved it, and how! The characters are not paper cutouts, for once, and Cixin just loves to string along the reader on tangents that are absolutely relevant to the plot - you just realize it later.
And the way seemingly disparate elements like eleven-dimensional particles and cosmic sociology are harmonically merged is nothing short of mind-blowing. The sci-fi part of the book is not at all difficult to grasp, but it still manages to hold your attention all the same, since it takes every trope about sci-fi and first contact there is - and throws it out of the window.
To summarize, I would recommend this series to everyone who has the slightest bit of interest in how futuristic science will look like - this book is sheer, unadulterated delight.

A tough/hard science start, but gets picks up and good gosh, the ideas in this book are...wow, expansive!

The Three Body Problem ends in a way that left me feeling like I had to read the second book in the trilogy, and Ye Wenjie passes on the story to Luo Ji, though as the read we're not sure how or why at this early point.

I found the first chunk of the book (around 20%) pretty tough to read and very “hard science”, but then it feels like the groundwork has been laid and the story kicks into gear.

One thing I found myself thinking over and over as I read through the book are how amazing Liu Cixin's mind is to be able to create these broad, world impacting ideas founded in (what I seemed to think was) real science. The variety and twist of ideas are quite amazing - particularly as the author tells of different ways that the entirety of humanity could be obliterated!

The last 1/4 of the book sped up for me and the story galloped towards a finale that tapered off fairly nicely at the end. Certainly I feel like this ending is enough to stop at (though I'll definitely read the last in the trilogy, Death's End).

Great stuff, if a little heavy at first.

Such a slog to get through. I don't normally want to read abridged versions of books, but I'd welcome that here. Ultimately, interesting things do happen, but there's lots of tedium in between. I won't be reading book 3. I'll look for a synopsis.

I am a big fan of Cixin's skill of blending the small and personal with the philosophical and the big-picture humanity- and centuries-spanning arcs. The wallfacer challenge was intriguing and the final reveal of what the “dark forest” stands for, was fascinating. And darkly devastating.

Yet his depiction of women in this installment absolutely tainted my reading experience. His main protagonist dreams up his personal perfect woman (educated, but not too educated) and then absolutely creepily proceeds to use international funds to find a close double of this woman, and ultimately ends up starting a family with her. The woman turns out quite inconsequential and uninteresting, and the narration never condemns the act in any way. This fairy-tale style misogyny might fit into a more magical whimsical novel, but it was really off-putting and cringe-worthy here. I kept waiting for it to explode into consequences, but those never came. And henceforth, I kept noticing more and more how low in numbers and inconsequential women were to his plot. My enjoyment of the second half of the book lessened considerably. Even though I could still admire its brilliance.

Now I am not that eager to continue to the last book of the trilogy. I will probably get there eventually. To see how it all ends.

3.5

Me ha parecido mucho mas interesante que el anterior libro en la serie.
Es cierto que este libro es muy distinto al anterior asi que es posible que te encante el anterior y odies este.

Naivă și simplistă unde ar fi fost bine să fie complexă, mult prea lungă și încărcată unde ar fi fost bine să fie alertă.
Militarii atât de cretini încât sincer am fumegat de furie, ca militar.
Prea multă propagandă comunistă (un personaj pozitiv și dat dracului e un comisar politic - a existat vreodată ceva mai rău ca meserie? poate inchizitorii, dar alți rivali nu găsesc în monstruozitate).
Soluții grăbite, rapide, la probleme complexe construite lent pe sute de pagini.
Personaje mai bine decât în prima (unde erau dezastru), scriitura însă parcă și mai proastă.
În plus, mie nu mi s-a părut deloc bine legată logic teoria pădurii întunecate și nu m-a convins.
Pe partea bună, are multe de spus, trece treptat de la thriller cu fizicieni la space opera destul de complex, oferă o doză de nostalgie celor născuți înainte de 89 (m-am simțit de parcă citeam SF în anii 80, scris în lagărul comunist), stă foarte bine pe partea de știință și inginerie. Și e cu totul altceva decât SF-ul anglo-saxon sau lălăielile europene smiorcăite care se pretind SF.
Din fericire, se ia în serios. Din păcate, o face chinezește

The pace was slower than the previous book. I was getting bored, but the ending was superb. I still don't think it compares to the first book, but I'll finish this series anyway.

This is an amazing book. The story, the people, the science, strategy, and philosophy all push my buttons. There are some dark, bleak places in this book, but it is well worth it to me.

So far, this series reflects my own internal struggles with life in this world. Questions about whether God and whether life is worth living. Whether I value people and things for their own merit or from a bias I may have.

I borrowed the audio from the library, but I'm thinking I may purchase the physical books to read again in the future.

The book starts off from the perspective of an ant, which was certainly neat but it went on endlessly and after a while I just found it irritating. This turned out to predicate how I would feel about the rest of the book in general.
We then learn a strange new fact about the aliens: they cannot lie or deceive nor do they even understand the concept of deception. This tidbit becomes the crux of the book: how can you use deception to defeat the incoming aliens and their superior technology. Again, neat but ultimately irritating.

For mostly inexplicable reasons, the UN decides to give infinite resources to four people to deceive the aliens who are watching them, giving the hope of humanity to these people without ever knowing what they're up to. Oh and they can live for 400 years through cryotech that apparently exists now. Also, for equally logical reasons, thinking about leaving the planet is against the law. Also the entire book is 600 pages and only 4 chapters.
I enjoy a challenging read as much as anyone (maybe more), but the only thing this challenged was my patience.

The book leaves plotlines dangling all over the place, takes tangents such as 20 pages about a guy's imaginary girlfriend, and takes leaps of logic that are frankly ridiculous.

After the first book, this was an enormous disappointment. The unique combination of cutting edge science, revolutionary history and philosophy in the first book hooked me, despite some issues I had with characters and plot direction. This book has none of that, but instead inflates all the author's shortcomings by focusing on the author's Socialogical ideas and theories of what an apocalypse would look like. They are not good.
According to the author, there seems to be only two types of people in the world: nihilistic geniuses and idiots. That shallow philosophy should not be 600 pages long.
I gave up after 130 pages, and that's really upsetting because I thought this would be my next favourite sci-fi series. Oh well, better books await...

Reading about an ant painstakingly tracing each character on a gravestone signals the early slog. The flatness of the first two parts cannot be pinned entirely on the alternate translator either. The details are dull and offensive. Women squeal and fuss, and when they're overeducated they calcify. The ones with speaking parts admit that the protagonist is better at their work than they are, or are dismissed as small with no air of authority, or remain nameless and/or are dispatched by violence, or are pure fantasy, insistently innocent and childlike. Colonisers are labelled art-preservingly advanced and the colonised backwards. If you can wade through the carrying over of misogyny and non-Trisolaran imperialism in Liu's vision, there are some rewards in part three (the teardrop and the cosmic fight for resources are thrilling), still diluted by legitimising a character's manipulation by threat of suicide, a despair orgy, and rumination-attempts on the power of love.

Some tremendous ideas but I found the pacing quite erratic.

As for the portrayal of female characters, it felt very like much an SF novel coming out of the 1950's.

This book is better than I remember reading two years ago. I appreciate the world-building and the plot of the second book in the Three Body Problem trilogy and will have to rate this book 3.75 stars, but Goodreads won't let me bump up the rating. Anyway, I cannot wait to read the last book in this amazing trilogy and expect a banger ending. Looking forward to the ending!

One of my Favorite Books of 2018

This definitely felt like a dark middle chapter of a trilogy. There were long stretches where I knew there was a plan but I couldn't decipher what it was. It kept me hooked until the end where I was surprised. I like this book but not on the same level as the first book.

Although reading this book is such a hard work, the sheer insanity of it all forced me to keep faith with the story, and upon reaching the last page I was baffled. I feel so, so insignificant, but in a good and eye-opening way.

(I'll write a review later, maybe.)