The Dark Forest
by Cixin Liu, translated by Joel Martinsen
It's possibly my favorite sci-fi story ever, and up there in my personal rankings of ANY story. To say The Dark Forest is a good book or an excellent read is a tremendous understatement. I know there is a third and final book coming up in this Three Body Problem trilogy, but it could end right here and I'd be as happy as ever.
For those unfamiliar with the books, I can reveal absolutely nothing about specifics in this brief review. Even conveying my feelings a little too precisely might spoil it for others. How can I say what makes it so special without ruining it? I mean, apart from jumping up and down like a little boy and exclaiming, "It's really, really, really, really, really good!"?
Ok, well, for starters, I can say that the major weakness of the author, Cixin Liu, in the first book was addressed and improved in this one. The character development, aside from Shi Quang, was almost non-existent before. The writer took obvious pains to improve it, so we ended up caring a lot more for a larger number of characters. This alone is something I wish I could tell the author himself. Good work, Liu!
As for the concepts in science, of civilizations in general, and the runaway train of a plot, we get the best of the best. Its brilliance is on the micro level, with what our newly beloved characters are going through, and the macro with the whole cosmic sociology thing. I do enjoy reviewing the problems of the chain of suspicion and the limited resources with unlimited growth of life. In some way, the big picture issues are relatable in our small everyday lives.
That's all I'll say. Read these books, damn it. And I have no clue how Netflix is going to try and bring THIS part of the story to the screen.