Diving into the Darkness: A Review of The Dark Forest

I read this book in July, and was left a little mentally depleted by it, hence the late review. The Dark Forest is the second book in the Three Body trilogy by Cixin Liu. I have reviewed the first book here.

About The Dark Forest

In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion — four centuries in the future. The aliens’ human collaborators have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth’s defense plans are exposed to the enemy. Only the human mind remains a secret. 

This motivates the Wallfacer Project, a daring plan that grants four men enormous resources to design secret strategies hidden through deceit and misdirection from Earth and Trisolaris. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer and sociologist is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he’s the Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead.

~ Synopsis from goodreads

My Review

The Dark Forest is pretty mind-bending, and it’s hard to find the words to do justice to everything happening in the book. So for this review, I “ll just focus on a few main points.

Wallfacers vs Wallbreakers

To fight the threat of the Trisolaran invasion, the Planetary Defence Council sets up four wallfacers – giving them all-encompassing powers and resources to prepare a defense against the Trisolarians.

To battle the Wallfacers, the Trisolarians set up corresponding Wallbreakers. The battle of wits between them makes up the book’s first part – and was extremely interesting if a little cerebral. This reminded me much of Asimov’s Robot or Foundation series – logical and analytical.

The Massive Timeframes

Once the Wallfacer vs Wallbreaker project somewhat resolves itself, the massive science-fiction pieces start. In this world, it still takes some time for the Trisolarians to travel from their planet to Earth.

This means that this book spans 100s of years with characters dying off, hibernating, and more. This is a vast in-scope book! At the end of part one, Luo Ji (our wallfacer) decides to hibernate and wake up 100 years later to set up the rest of his plans. And it was fascinating to view how the world changed within that time. I think this was one of my favorite parts of the book. It’s not just technological changes, but also the change in people, way of thinking, and lifestyle.

Don’t you think it would be fascinating to be able to hibernate for a few hundred years and then wake up to view the world?

The heavy action in the end

I read the book’s last portion with a heavy sense of dread and impending doom. One of the heroes Zhang Beihai (one of the commanders of the space defense forces), foresees that all the preparations made by Earth will not work against the Trisolarians, and he makes a radical escape plan.

At the same time, Luo Ji on Earth has an ace up his sleeve and suddenly turns things around for Earth at the last minute.

As I said, super-exciting stuff.

Problems with the book

So this book was wonderful, epic science-fiction of the type I’ve not read recently. Fascinating, thrilling stuff – combining hardcore action with philosophical ideas. But still, there were some problems with it.

Crappy writing/translation

This isn’t beautiful writing; it’s clunky and wordy in places. I think it could be a translation issue, as I didn’t find The Three Body Problem, which has a different translator, as hard to read.

Crappy characters

This is harder to forgive. I went in prepared to like Luo Ji (the wallfacer) in whose brain we are immersed during the book’s first half. But it was so hard! I disliked him thoroughly. There is a portion about him mooning over a dream girl. And because he’s a wallfacer, he requests the Planetary Defence Council to find his dream girl.

The dream girl is a typical man’s idea of a dream girl – sweet, pleasing, and always obedient. Ugh! I just wanted to gag! This isn’t the only thing – the women in the book (and there may be two or three only) are all disappointing.

Dense

This isn’t an easy-reading book. I had to take frequent time-outs to process what was going on. Was the book worth it, though? Yes, I would say so. However, this series is for hardcore sci-fi fans rather than someone just dabbling in the genre. For the latter type of reader, I’d suggest books like The Martian or Artemis instead.

A quote from the book

“The real universe is just that black.” Luo Ji waved a hand, feeling the darkness as if stroking velvet. “The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life – another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod – there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people.”

Overall, it’s a great if daunting work. I now look forward to reading Death’s end. I know it will be hard, but I feel it will be worth it.

Have you read this series? What do you think about it? Any other sci-fi recommendations you can give me?