The Dark Forest

by Cixin Liu

English language

ISBN:: 978-1-4668-5343-0

(222 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.

10 editions

zemoko reviewed La forêt sombre by Cixin Liu

Beaucoup de longueurs, une structure du roman trop linéaire et une écriture vraiment aride m’ont empêché de vraiment apprécier ma lecture

3 stars

J’ai lu le premier tome en 2021… mais il faut croire que je n’étais pas pressé de lire la suite puisque je viens seulement de m’y atteler (et de me rendre compte que je n’avais pas rédigé de billet sur le tome 1, oubli réparé hier). Ce qui m’a sans doute convaincu de reprendre la trilogie, c’est l’adaptation Netflix du Problème à trois corps (adaptation très libre mais que j’ai vraiment bien aimé).

Ce 2e volume du Problème à trois corps se passe juste après la découverte de l’arrivée de la flotte trisolarienne venue envahir la Terre, et couvre les 4 siècles qui vont s’écouler avant leur arrivée. Faut-il se battre, sans espoir de victoire ? S’enfuir ? Mais qui partirait ? Qui resterait ? Vivre comme si ne rien n’était car pourquoi s’inquiéter de ce qui pourrait arriver dans quatre siècles ?

Les trisolariens ont un avance technologique majeure, …

Les trisolariens ont un avance technologique majeure, avantage qu’ils se sont assurés de conserver en verrouillant les sciences fondamentales avec les intellectrons.

Face à l’omniprésence de ces intellectrons, et à l’impossibilité de conserver le moindre secret, l’ONU a décider de lancer le programme « Colmateurs » en confiant à quatre hommes la tâche d’élaborer un plan de défense, dans le plus grand secret puisque rien ne doit en être révélé, que ce soit à l’oral ou par écrit, pour empêcher les trisolariens d’en prendre connaissance. Trois sont des militaires, hommes d’État ou scientifiques reconnus, mais le dernier, Lio Ji, sociologue et astronome chinois. est un parfait inconnu.

L’intrigue est toujours aussi complexe, mais j’ai eu plus de mal à me projeter, j’ai trouvé certains passages vraiment longs et je n’ai pas vraiment apprécié le style, trop aride à mon goût.

J’ai, par contre, été séduit par les thématiques scientifiques. Le premier tome s’appuyait sur des analyses scientifiques très concrètes, ce qui m’avait plu, mais j’ai vraiment apprécié la relecture du Paradoxe de Fermi par Liu Cixin.

Là où Fermi se contentait de s’interroger sur l’absence de contact avec des civilisations extraterrestres…

"S'il y avait des civilisations extraterrestres, leurs représentants devraient être déjà chez nous. Où sont-ils donc ?"

… Liu Cixin va plus loin en appliquant des principes sociologiques aux civilisations galactiques, et en comparant l’univers à une forêt sombre dans laquelle chaque civilisation est un chasseur, qui se déplace silencieusement pour éliminer toute présence afin de ne pas lui-même devenir une proie. Liu Cixin formalise ces principes sous la forme de deux règles très simples exprimées par Lio Ji :

"Premièrement : la survie est la nécessité première de toute civilisation ; deuxièmement : une civilisation ne cesse de croître et de s'étendre, tandis que la quantité totale de matière dans L Univers reste constante."

Beaucoup de longueurs, une structure du roman trop linéaire et une écriture vraiment aride m’ont empêché de vraiment apprécier ma lecture… Je pense que je lirais tout de même le troisième tome… mais pas tout de suite. J’ai besoin de faire une pause, mais je serais sans doute curieux de terminer la trilogie d’ici quelques temps.

po3mah reviewed The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (Remembrance of Earth's Past, #2)

Excellent. On par with Asimov.

5 stars

The second part is as good as the first one. A great combination of astrophysics, sociology, philosophy. Luckily I read Asimov's Foundations before Cixin books and I see there are alot of references and parallels with them. The translation to EN was better and more understandabla in the first part. I had big difficulties imagining characters. Maybe because of Chinese names, or because of their one-dimensionality.

sifuCJC reviewed The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (Remembrance of Earth's Past, #2)

A dense continuation

4 stars

I tried to read this book earlier but put it down. This time, I listened on audio. The ending this book, or beginning of the next installment, was worth it.

This is a very dense text. It is almost pure plot and setup. But like the first installment's ability to give a sense of cosmic unease just by talking about physics, this book can tip you into dread with exposition. I caught myself creeping into despair yesterday; I had to shake it off.

I can see there is a point to the gloom though. We have to hit the depths before we can be raised back up. I have hope for the next book!

bewal416 reviewed The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

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.”

Douglas Camata reviewed The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

Review of 'The Dark Forest' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Great follow up to the first installment in the series. I love the author's vision and the basis for all the science fiction in this story. Can't wait to get through the third book.

Library Liberty Zed reviewed The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

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 Cixin Liu (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)

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 Cixin Liu

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 …

m9p909 reviewed The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)

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 Cixin Liu (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)

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 Cixin Liu (Remembrance of Earth's Past, #2)

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 Cixin Liu

Very interesting

4 stars

No spoilers!.

moving to outside.ofa.dog reviewed The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (Remembrance of Earth's Past, #2)

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 …

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.