bewal416 reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Review of 'The Dark Forest' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
“The sun will set soon. Isn’t your child afraid?”
“Of course she’s not afraid. She knows that the sun will rise again tomorrow.”
English language
4 stars
(189 reviews)
The Dark Forest (Chinese: 黑暗森林, pinyin: Hēi'àn sēnlín) is a 2008 science fiction novel by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin. It is the sequel to the Hugo Award-winning novel The Three-Body Problem (Chinese: 三体, pinyin: sān tǐ) in the trilogy titled "Remembrance of Earth's Past" (Chinese: 地球往事, pinyin: Dìqiú wǎngshì), but Chinese readers generally refer to the series by the title of the first novel. The English version, translated by Joel Martinsen, was published in 2015.
Library Liberty Zed reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
The Dark Forest
3 stars
The book's premise is fascinating, it tackles quetions about life, cooperation and conflict. But I agree with kab, the author writes misogynisticly with very objectified female characters.
Phillip J reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Review of 'The Dark Forest' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
MUCH better than the first book in the series. The author was able to weave grandiose fantastical situations, with small personal intimate ones. The first book was hard sci-fi, and this one is even harder. I had an issue with the time skips in the first book, but this one was executed much better in my mind.
kab reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
The Dark Forest
2 stars
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 …
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.
m9p909 reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Review of 'The Dark Forest' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Great book, very logical hard sci-fi. Really makes you think.
perfischer reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Review of 'The Dark Forest' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Unbelievably good. Even better that Three-Body Problem, and that's something.
chomwitt reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Very interesting
4 stars
No spoilers!.
The author manages to create suspense and a believable hostile universe based on our current scientific theories (well stretched too far.. one could say). Its the second part of the trilogy and i found it as interesting as the first.
chomwitt reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Very interesting
4 stars
No spoilers!.
The author manages to create suspense and a believable hostile universe based on our current scientific theories (well stretched too far.. one could say). Its the second part of the trilogy and i found it as interesting as the first.
moving to outside.ofa.dog reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Wow
5 stars
This book is in a lot of ways more of everything that Three Body Problem was. It's a huger sweep, a pretty intense exploration of how getting thrown into responsibility can break people, and it builds on a lot of the ideas of the first book about how ununified people would be in response to a threat like this - stuff that now looks rather prescient after a year and a half of covid. It does also suffer from the same weaknesses, perhaps even intensified. In particular there's not much dialogue that is really characters being theirselves as opposed to Liu exploring an idea through his characters. But the good parts were so compelling that this was far from ruining the book for me.
I was left with a few questions, two of which seem like weaknesses of the book: 1) Why did Ye pick Luo to have the conversation …
This book is in a lot of ways more of everything that Three Body Problem was. It's a huger sweep, a pretty intense exploration of how getting thrown into responsibility can break people, and it builds on a lot of the ideas of the first book about how ununified people would be in response to a threat like this - stuff that now looks rather prescient after a year and a half of covid. It does also suffer from the same weaknesses, perhaps even intensified. In particular there's not much dialogue that is really characters being theirselves as opposed to Liu exploring an idea through his characters. But the good parts were so compelling that this was far from ruining the book for me.
I was left with a few questions, two of which seem like weaknesses of the book: 1) Why did Ye pick Luo to have the conversation with that she does in the preface? 2) How did any other humans know that Luo would be important? (that conversation with Ye explains Trisolaris's interest - clearly they'd have been surveilling her intensely) 3) How is there a third book? Three Body Problem left the story with an obvious lead in for a sequel, but the ending to this book could have been a series ending. I am now intrigued and want to see where Liu takes this next.
outofrange reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Review of 'The Dark Forest' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Emphasis shifts from the wild science to the thorny moral problems, and the story holds. Dark indeed but not exclusively, with some great epic drama.
Richard reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Review of 'The Dark Forest' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Too dry/slow, gave up 1/2 way.
Paudie reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Review of 'The Dark Forest' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Some great ideas, but it did drag a lot in the middle section
Ika Makimaki reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Review of 'The Dark Forest' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
This is the second book of teh trilogy that began on The Three Body Problem. And it is mindblowing. This is probably my favourite book this year, it is clever hard scifi that approaches the biggest questions about contact and proposes a "Cosmic Sociology", a science to understand other possible civilizations in the universe. And it actually makes sense!
I won't give it away, because it is just too much fun to to find it on the book, but if you have heard of Fermi's Paradox, and the idea that mathematically there should be lots of alien civilizations out there yet we seem to find none of them... well, the Dark Forest is a very good answer to those questions. This book is surprising fun, deep and even romantic in a weird way. You do need to read the first book of the series first, otherwise the Trisolarans and their …
This is the second book of teh trilogy that began on The Three Body Problem. And it is mindblowing. This is probably my favourite book this year, it is clever hard scifi that approaches the biggest questions about contact and proposes a "Cosmic Sociology", a science to understand other possible civilizations in the universe. And it actually makes sense!
I won't give it away, because it is just too much fun to to find it on the book, but if you have heard of Fermi's Paradox, and the idea that mathematically there should be lots of alien civilizations out there yet we seem to find none of them... well, the Dark Forest is a very good answer to those questions. This book is surprising fun, deep and even romantic in a weird way. You do need to read the first book of the series first, otherwise the Trisolarans and their whole sophon lockdown make no sense at all. But, trust me, it is worth it!
This is one of those books that stay in your mind and keep you wondering for days and weeks.
If you like scifi at all, you need to give this a read. (Also I hear a movie is coming up and all the cool kids will know the story before hand) :)
Yuri Krupenin reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Review of 'The Dark Forest' on 'GoodReads'
2 stars
Где-то на девятой странице пролога вы подумаете, что прочитали достаточно, чтобы предугадать основную сюжетную линию, главный твист, и концовку. Потом может быть отбросите эту мысль из-за банальности догадки, но нет, вы всё поняли правильно.
Переводчик на этот раз несколько меньше похож на робота, но ситуацию это в целом не спасает.
SharonC reviewed The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
Review of 'The Dark Forest' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Maybe too many committee meetings to be truly riveting?
