The Dark Forest
by Cixin Liu (2008)
2024 reads, 11/22
“The stern of the ship faced the Solar System, where the sun was by now no more than a yellow star just a bit brighter than the rest. The peripheral spiral arm of the Milky Way lay in this direction, its stars sparse. The depth and expanse of deep space exhibited an arrogance that left no support for the mind or the eyes.”
Going to keep this review a bit short, since its plot hinges on the ending of the previous book in the trilogy, The Three Body Problem. But basically, The Dark Forest takes place almost immediately following the events of 3BP, and Liu pulls out all the punches for this one.
While 3BP stood out to me due to its mystery and storytelling, there’s less of this in TDF (since you already know the circumstances of everything going on). However, TDF excels not just in its more in-depth treatment of space sci-fi, but what was more interesting to me was watching humanity deal with the earth-shattering aftermath of 3BP.
“‘When twilight fades, you can see the stars. When dawn fades, all that’s left is…’ ‘All that’s left is the harsh light of reality.’”
While the story starts off a bit slowly, it quickly picks up, and its ending blew me away. At first, I found the new main character Luo Ji hard to like (his first act as Wallfacer was weird), but after some character development I quickly came to enjoy his presence on the page. My favorite character, Da Shi, also makes his return.
I usually end these reviews with who I might recommend the book to, but if you’ve read 3BP, then I don’t need to convince you to read this one. Now it’s time to end the trilogy…
“It’s a wonder to be alive. If you don’t understand that, how can you search for anything deeper?”
Netflix series addendum: I do hope Netflix picks up their 3BP adaptation for a second season. I would love to see some of the ideas in this book put to the big screen, and the Game of Thrones team seems like the ideal duo to undertake this.