The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really interesting read. As the sequel to the three body problem, which primarily focuses on how to human ingenuity can help solve the Three Body Problem for beings on that planet, this one focuses much more on humanity’s hubris. This manifests in a number of ways. First, is the fact that humanity has the audacity of believing that even in 400 years, with the cards stacked against us, that we can defeat a civilization so technologically advanced, that they seemingly have magical abilities to block the frontier of physics.

To take on the Trisolarians the UN commissions a project called the Wallfacer, which is was a project designed to ensure the Trisolarians had no idea what Humanity’s plan was to defeat them. There were four in total. each one pursued a different tract than the others. However, the Trisolarians had their own plan, the Wallbreaker project which was designed to uncover the true plan the Wallfacers developed.

The ideas were all interesting and all desperate, but Humanity in its hubris truly believed there was a solution that would have left them with minimal risk. Which leads to interesting problems in the book.

Overall, the book was well written, but there’s a big problem with the book. The characters don’t really speak differently nor do they really feel different. There are a few exceptions Da Shi and Luo Ji being the most obvious. Aside from their interactions, it’s easy for the reader to get lost in determining who is speaking whenever there’s extensive exposition or explanation of a Wallfacer plan or someone’s specific ideology. Compared to a philosophy book, like the Republic, this isn’t really out of line. However, more many sci-fi readers this might be difficult to follow.

Overall, I really enjoyed what I read and once I got back into the world, I quickly finished the book.

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