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Review: Liu Cixin (劉慈欣) - The Dark Forest (黑暗森林) (2008, Translated in 2015 by Joel Martinsen)
This book was interesting, but I found it more difficult to grasp than the Three Body Problem. I think that the characters in the Dark Forest were not as likeable as the characters in the Three Body Problem, which was why the book wasn’t as engaging at times. While the Three Body Problem was completely focused on the two main characters, there were times in the Dark Forest when the main characters were mainly in the backseat, which made it difficult for me to understand what I should be paying attention to.
Considering how much information was given to us in the Three Body Problem regarding this world, I don't think that the Dark Forest would be very satisfying if the reader hadn't read the Three Body problem. And while I didn't enjoy the Dark Forest as much as the Three Body Problem, I'm still going to read on.
So my opinion for this book was that it had a lot of interesting concepts, but it didn’t exhibit the qualities that made the Three Body Problem such a great science fiction story, particularly its main characters and their strong values.
Spoilers.
Story
While the Three Body Problem was about Earth learning of the existence of Trisolaris and its plans to destroy Earth, the Dark Forest was about Earth's preparations for the impending attack.
The first part, pre-time skip, took place on an Earth that was in panic. The world was first learning the basic facts about Trisolarans. The major facts were that Trisolaris was far more technologically advanced than Earth, and that for Trisolarans, there was no difference between internal thought and external communication. In Earth's panic, they created the Wallfacer project, which tried to take advantage of the fact that Trisolarans could not read thoughts.
The second part, post-time skip, took place on an Earth that was very optimistic. Earth's technology had advanced significantly, and they'd observed that Trisolarans weren't approaching Earth as quickly as they'd thought. That optimism was shattered when Trisolaris sent a probe that destroyed Earth's entire space fleet, minus a few ships that escaped.
At the end of the novel, it was revealed that Luo Ji set up bombs that would broadcast Trisolaris' location to the entire universe. These bombs would detonate if Luo Ji's heart stopped. Luo Ji used this mechanism to threaten Trisolaris into stopping their attack. This also allowed Luo Ji to finally be reunited with his family.
The other thing that happened was that two spaceships split off from Earth when the first probe attacked Earth. They had no choice but to continue away from Earth and to start new Earth colonies elsewhere.
Now that I think about it, it was a bit strange that the end of the Dark Forest felt like it had some finality to it. As the second book to a trilogy, I thought that it would end on a cliffhanger that was even more suspenseful than the cliffhanger that the Three Body Problem ended on.
If Luo Ji was successful in stopping Trisolaris from attacking, then what will the last book be about? Perhaps Trisolarans learned to lie, and the sophons lied about changing the directions of the probes. Or perhaps the next book will be about the two splinter Earth colonies. The very last conversation Luo Ji had with the Trisolaran Observer was about how his dream was to illuminate the Dark Forest. Will the final book be about Earth being the illuminators and broadcasting the locations of all sentient life? (Which would protect itself from the chain of suspicion) I just feel a bit miffed that I'm not already gearing up for Death's End, because I am not sure what humanity's goal is now.
Luo Ji ended the novel in a domestic bliss with his family. I guess this would be in line with Luo Ji's character, as someone who never really had much ambition. And the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. He was never really a particularly ambitious person, and as a person of above average intelligence, I can see it plausible for him to use his smarts to do something for very personal reasons (i.e. using his intelligence to ward off the Trisolarans, but doing it because he wants his family back and not necessarily for humanity). So why do I feel uncomfortable with it? I think it might just be because I don't love Luo Ji.
I’m just disappointed that I wasn’t rapt by the tight story from beginning to end like I was with the Three Body Problem. There were a lot of lulls in the story of the Dark Forest. Perhaps this was due to the fact that Luo Ji, as the point-of-view character with the most spotlight, wasn’t particularly motivated, and so we never saw him going out and being proactive or even being curious. And when Luo Ji wasn’t in the spotlight, the story was usually being told by an omniscient narrator, who was not nearly as engaging as having a point-of-view character who was exploring the science fiction aspects of the story in a human way that was easy to relate to.
Writing
Narrators
In the Three Body Problem, we had two main characters, Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao. What made the Three Body Problem so strong was that we knew them intimately, from their home life to their professional lives. Based on a close observation of their actions, the reader could draw conclusions on their personalities and why they did what they did.
The 1.5 main characters of the Dark Forest would be Luo Ji and Zhang Beihai. I say 1.5 because while Luo Ji was obviously set up to be a main character, I was never really quite sure what kind of role Zhang Beihai was supposed to have. In fact, pre-time skip, when the navy was discussing defeatism, I had no idea which character I was supposed to focus on (between Zhang Beihai, Wu Yue, and Chang Weisi). Not that it's impossible to have a scene where all characters are important, but based on the format of the Three Body Problem, and the fact that Zhang Beihai had a much more important role in a few scenes later on, I felt that the book would've been more compelling if Zhang Beihai was given more focus, especially considering he'd done so many things that were influential for humanity. He was the reason that technology took the route that it took, and he was the reason that at least one space colony would survive.
I also think that the decision to use an omniscient narrator at times wasn’t the best. Sometimes, there was no choice but to use an omniscient narrator, to catch the reader up to what was happening on Earth (e.g. the introduction of the Wallfacer Project), or when describing something that no other major character would’ve known at the time (e.g. when telling the reader that the two spaceships who’d gone into deep sleep as per Ding Yi’s requests had escaped the probe attack and later had their own Battle of Darkness).
But this decision made the story more difficult to relate to. As I mentioned, the Three Body Problem had my full attention, and I think it was because Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao were determined people with strong sense of direction. For the Dark Forest, we either had an omniscient narrator whose only job was to describe, and Luo Ji, a narrator who wasn’t particularly curious about the world and was not a go-getter.
I don’t want to put too much blame on the omniscient narrator, as I think the problem lay more with Luo Ji and Zhang Beihai and the choices that Liu Cixin made in how he used them. The omniscient narrator was just giving us the facts, and I appreciate that they were as neutral as possible to give the reader their own chance to formulate an opinion on the matter. But I think Luo Ji and Zhang Beihai just weren’t able to do a good enough job giving us the human side to the story.
Translation
The translation for this book was done by Joel Martinsen. I don't have any huge complaints with the translation. I think that most of the things that made me tick were more due to the actual content than the writing.
Technical aspects
I also felt that this book had more information dumps than the Three Body Problem did. While the Three Body Problem did have information dumps, they were usually presented in a way that felt relevant and interactive, often by giving us a few characters we were familiar with to guide us. The only time this was not the case was perhaps the final few scenes when we were walked through the Trisolarans’ development of the sophons.
However, the Dark Forest just felt a lot more impersonal and drier, and I found myself really struggling to keep up with the more technical parts of the story. An example of me wanting to follow the story but finding it difficult would be during the scenes when the Wallbreakers confronted their Wallfacers. In theory, it should’ve been clear, as the Wallbreakers’ responsibility was to completely disclose the Wallfacers’ plans. However, by nature of the Wallbreaker having hidden things from the public, it was hard to follow when the Wallbreaker brought up something that the reader knew nothing about. I admired the Three Body Problem because even though it had a lot of hard and technical science involved, I found it relatively easy to grasp, but it was not the case for the Dark Forest. Perhaps it was because while the Three Body Problem followed individuals and small groups carrying out plans, the Dark Forest tended to feature all of humanity carrying out various plans.
Characters
Luo Ji
Luo Ji was a classmate of Yang Dong, and at the very beginning, he had a brief conversation with Ye Wenjie, Yang Dong's mother. As we know, Ye Wenjie was one of the main characters of the Three Body Problem, and the main reason that Trisolaris came to target Earth. She raised the concept of Cosmic Sociology to Luo Ji. Luo Ji was a sociology teacher and former astronomer. He was not ambitious, but he was smart.
The only reason Luo Ji was given the time of day was because Trisolaris viewed him as a threat. As the reader, I was very much anticipating Cosmic Sociology to make an appearance, but given the direction of the novel, I think it was fair to not anticipate it until later.
I think one of the main difficulties in this novel was the persisting theme of lack of communication and chain of suspicion. One of the main differences between humans and Trisolarans was that humans could think without others knowing their thoughts, whereas for Trisolarans, to think was to be heard. So the point of the Wallfacer project was to act with thoughts only, and to keep the reader on their toes, some parts of the story had to be hidden. In theory, this makes sense, but in practice, it was clumsy. I already mentioned above how hiding things made the Wallbreaker reveals a bit hard to engage with from a technical standpoint.
With regards to Luo Ji, because he was a Wallbreaker, I felt that he was difficult to grasp as a character, and that is a problem because the Three Body Problem was so successful precisely because we could see how Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao developed into the people that they were. But for Luo Ji, even when I thought I’d understood him as a person, I always wondered if he was hiding something, which is the point of the Wallbreaker project, but it made it difficult for me to like him.
In the early days of the Wallbreaker project, Luo Ji absolutely abused his position and used his powers to create a comfortable life for himself. It did not appear that he was actually working on the Wallbreaker Project, and yet many of his requests were met because of the power that he held. While feeling unambitious and hopeless wasn’t a crime, it was difficult for me to sympathize with Luo Ji at this time, because I couldn’t even tell if Luo Ji was changing as a person. During this time, at the sacred Garden of Eden he’d created for himself, he had Shi Qiang fly in his ideal woman. I was actually quite surprised when Luo Ji actually did manage to have Zhuang Yan fall in love with him. After all, she’d flown in under the impression that she was here for a job, not as a blind date.
Eventually, Zhuang Yan did sort of become disenchanted with Luo Ji, but we only saw a glimpse of it. Basically, she was skeptical that Luo Ji was actually working on the Wallfacer project, and the authorities put her and their child in hibernation to try to motivate Luo Ji.
I felt like the only times that we actually saw Luo Ji at work was the short period of time after Zhuang Yan and Xia Xia were put into hibernation and before he himself went into hibernation, and when he was working on the Snow project. At those times, I was actually interested in reading because Luo Ji was giving us a glimpse of why Trisolaris might’ve considered him a threat. It’s not a secret that he was probably still more focused on getting his family back than he cared about humanity, but the fact that we saw him while he was working gave us a lot more to see from his character.
Sorry that my writing is kind of messy, but let me try to summarize the reasons why Luo Ji didn’t work for me as a main character.
I think that we spent too much time on his personal life and not enough on his professional life (whereas I felt the opposite for Zhang Beihai). For Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao, we saw how their personal and professional lives intersected, and it gave us a really good grasp on who they were as people.
While I understood that Luo Ji was not an ambitious person and just wanted to live a good life, I wanted to understand why Trisolaris saw him as a threat. That would require us delving into his professional life, which on principle Luo Ji refused to engage in, and when he did, as a Wallfacer, we were always second-guessing his intentions for doing the things he was doing.
By the end of the novel, I couldn’t really tell what journey Luo Ji had gone through. We know that Luo Ji had concocted his dream woman before the start of the novel and had found her during the novel, so perhaps the one main journey he’d gone through was actualizing his dream life, but that was very disconnected with the rest of the plot. Unlike Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao who were significantly changed through the events of the Three Body Problem, I struggle to understand what Luo Ji had learned, or how he’d changed as a person.
Yes, Luo Ji saved humanity, but is humanity the main character, or is Luo Ji? I know humanity is important, but I want to know more about Luo Ji.
So overall, I am kind of disappointed with Luo Ji’s execution. As a person, I think he makes sense. He doesn’t really care much about humanity, he just wants to live a good life. That actually makes for a very interesting character in this science fiction apocalyptic scenario.
But the writing prevented me from caring about him. There was a lot of dialogue from him that actually made me interested in what he was going to do, and I kept hoping for Luo Ji to show us a different dimension of himself. But throughout the novel, he kind of just stayed in his box. I never felt like he was particularly challenged, and when he was challenged and motivated, it was not shown on screen (e.g. him working on the Snow Project).
I probably have more to say about why Luo Ji disappointed me, but this is what I have so far.
Zhang Beihai
Zhang Beihai was as close to a second main character as we were going to have in this book. As I mentioned, I didn’t even know whether he was going to be an important character. Early on, Zhang Beihai was introduced to us through the navy talks. There was a defeatist sentiment going around and he was staunchly against that. Though he was proactive, he hardly felt like the center of attention. His coworker, Wu Yue, admitted to being a defeatist, and I thought that these two were going to be main characters of this setting together.
Over time, Zhang Beihai rose in the ranks, and his first major deed was when he killed some scientists so that research into chemical propulsion would be weakened and that instead humanity would pursue fusion-drive. I don’t know if I missed anything, but this kind of just came out of nowhere. I didn’t know that Zhang Beihai was that deeply invested in the technological part of the space fight, and all along, we were only shown him in a military strategy setting. So where did this come from?
I understand that Zhang Beihai wanted humanity to pursue fusion-drive, but I was also a bit confused about the specifics of why. Did he just think that fusion-drive was better and more sustainable overall? Or did he prefer fusion-drive because it worked better with his eventual plan of creating a splinter colony?
After hibernation, Zhang Beihai was back in the military. He was very much revered, which made sense considering how he was responsible for the triumphalism movement across the navy. Post time skip, the space fleets were very confident about the impending attack from Trisolaris as well.
As soon as Zhang Beihai learned the ropes and was granted the position of acting commander, he took the ship Natural Selection far away from the Solar System. He was apparently a defeatist this whole time, and his triumphalism was probably just a tool for him to gain power within the military. This ended up being a good move as the Trisolaran probe had destroyed the rest of Earth’s space fleet.
After the creation of Spaceship Earth, a new human colony that would sever ties with Earth, Zhang Beihai did one more significant deed, which was to launch an attack on the other four spaceships that had pursued Natural Selection, as the only way for this new human colony to survive was if there were fewer people to survive on the resources available among the five spaceships.
While Luo Ji’s story focused a lot on his personal life, Zhang Beihai’s story focused overwhelmingly on his professional life. I barely knew anything about his life outside of the navy. That being said, I wasn’t as frustrated with his character because his professional life had a big impact on the direction of the story and vice versa. Through the novel, Zhang Beihai faced several big challenges, and we got to see who he truly was under these times of high stress.
Zhang Beihai was a kind of cold, ultra-logical person. He cared only for the good of humanity, but ironically, it made him a bit insensitive to the humans around him.
He raised the fact that Wu Yue was a defeatist and how that made him unfit to stay in the military. I think it would’ve been safe to assume they were at least friends, but Zhang Beihai needed Wu Yue to go for a couple of reasons. One was so that he would seem like the paragon of triumphalism and be trusted in the military. And a second possible reason was that only when the military was so confident, would the technology progress quickly enough for Zhang Beihai to carry out his plan post-time skip.
Seeing the interactions between Zhang Beihai and Dongfang Yanxu on the Natural Selection was so interesting. Zhang Beihai was kind of in a state of zen. Nothing could phase him. I think at this point, he knew that no matter what happened to earth, he at least knew that the technology was advanced enough that he could drive the spaceship away to safety.
Dongfang Yanxu, the original commander of Natural Selection, noted that Zhang Beihai probably saw them as children, as he was from a different time, a time of turmoil and uncertainty. And he probably did. Zhang Beihai was essentially fathering a new civilization. He created it by driving the spaceship away, and he had a big part in setting up a government system for it. And I think from the beginning (when he had come up with his plan), he was prepared for the Battle of Darkness, in which he would have to kill or die to ensure that the new colony would survive.
I think there was potential in Zhang Beihai as a character. I think Liu Cixin could’ve explored Zhang Beihai’s character to explain how he’d become the person that he was. But now that I think about it, the Three Body Problem was about origin stories, whereas this theme was not as prominent in the Dark Forest. The world was no longer questioning how Earth came to be like this, it was more a time of action, the how, so I guess even without explaining Zhang Beihai’s character, I could still see him as someone interesting.
I thought Zhang Beihai was an interesting character because while having these ultra-logical thoughts about humanity was not rare, he was one of the few who had the conviction to carry them out. It’d probably be difficult for someone to pose as a triumphalist all these year while actually being a defeatist, and it probably takes a special kind of determination to carry out killing people (both when he shot the scientists, and when he engaged in the Battle of Darkness).
I also really enjoyed Zhang Beihai’s conversations with Dongfang Yanxu. They were both commanders, but from very different times. Dongfang Yanxu had never lived in a world where humanity was not confident, and very easily panicked, whereas for Zhang Beihai and many from his generation, being afraid was just a fact of the matter.
Though Zhang Beihai was a defeatist, he channeled that fear into something more constructive. He went from a defeatist, to an escapist, but he concocted a bold but viable escape plan to deal with his fears of being crushed by the Trisolarans.
So overall, I liked Zhang Beihai’s character more than Luo Ji’s, because there was just more to think about when it came to his thoughts and actions. I guess my only disappointment with Zhang Beihai was that the set up for his character could’ve been more interesting (i.e. most of his story line before he went into hibernation).
Shi Qiang
Shi Qiang was the only major character who carried over from the Three Body Problem. He was the grounded police detective who didn’t worry so much about the fate of humanity and just focused on living his life day by day.
Before the time skip, when Luo Ji was a Wallfacer, Shi Qiang acted as a kind of liaison/assistant. Shi Qiang didn’t say anything to Luo Ji about the fact that it hardly looked like he was working. Shi Qiang actually helped Luo Ji find Zhuang Yan. That was very in line with Shi Qiang’s personality. He was just the kind of guy to focus on his own job.
Post time skip, Shi Qiang remained a sort of bodyguard for Luo Ji. Well, at first, he helped Luo Ji to adapt to post-hibernation life, and then he just sort of followed Luo Ji around. His status as Wallfacer was kind of unstable during that time, so that’s why it’s hard to define what Shi Qiang was.
Shi Qiang remained one of the more interesting characters of this series, even if he was more of a narrative tool than an actual character in this book. Among a sea of intellectuals, he was almost always the most practical. He didn’t have as important of a role in the Dark Forest compared to the Three Body Problem though, so the comparisons weren’t as stark. We mostly learned about Shi Qiang’s thoughts through his conversations with Luo Ji.
Shi Qiang didn’t really care what Luo Ji did, whether he was actually fulfilling his responsibilities as a Wallfacer or not, and through Shi Qiang, we were able to tell that Luo Ji was really not an ambitious person. At times, Shi Qiang even encouraged Luo Ji’s lax attitude (like helping him to find Zhuang Yan), and I think it was because Shi Qiang saw Luo Ji like a friend more than a saviour.
After the time skip, we didn’t really learn much more about Shi Qiang. He’d only been out of hibernation a short period of time before Luo Ji, and we heard a lot about the world through him. The only other significant conversation he had that I can recall was when Luo Ji explained cosmic sociology to him. Shi Qiang was pretty good at grasping what Luo Ji wanted to tell him. While reading it though, I felt like it was a weird conversation to have. Why did Luo Ji decide to explain cosmic sociology to Shi Qiang of all people? Was it just because they were friends? For the reader, the conversation was just an excuse for Luo Ji to finally explain his theories, but Shi Qiang didn’t seem to have any reason to know other than out of friendship.
Though Shi Qiang didn’t have as big of a role in terms of the world-saving side of things, I still enjoyed his very practical character in a very strange world, both the panic-stricken pre-time skip world, and the very futuristic and surreal post-time skip world.
Zhuang Yan
Zhuang Yan was the woman who’d matched Luo Ji’s idea of the perfect woman. Years ago, Luo Ji had dated a writer who’d asked him to imagine his perfect woman. Luo Ji’s imagination got away from him to the point that this imaginary woman felt very real to him. She’d move on her own and not with Luo Ji directing her.
When given Wallfacer status, Luo Ji abused his privilege to try to find his ideal woman. It was all rather slimy when Zhuang Yan was invited to his secret abode, because Zhuang Yan truly thought she was to help Luo Ji with a job. Luo Ji told Zhuang Yan that her job was to make herself as happy as possible.
There was a short time skip in the novel, and after the time skip, we found out that Zhuang Yan and Luo Ji had fallen in love and had a child. This was rather surreal to me, because...how the heck did Luo Ji manage to charm her? I’m going to assume that with his Wallfacer privileges, Luo Ji just spent all of his time and money showering Zhuang Yan with all of the gifts and things that she wanted. After all, they did fly to the Louvre for Zhuang Yan to admire the art there.
I’ll talk about this later, but Luo Ji called their home the Garden of Eden because it was paradise. He lived in a beautiful place, accompanied by his ideal woman. And it was, but then reality caught up to him.
After the Wallfacer project was created, the book would mention the “Wallfacer smile.” It was something that Wallfacers would be on the receiving end of, signifying that the other person wasn’t sure if the Wallfacer was telling the truth or not.
I don’t remember if Luo Ji used the term “Wallfacer smile” to describe Zhuang Yan, but it was clear that after a while, Zhuang Yan started to disbelieve Luo Ji when he told her that something she was to do, which was very clearly for her own happiness and well-being, were part of the plan.
I think that my issue with Zhuang Yan and the romantic subplot (if you could call it that) of the novel was that if we were meant to sympathize with Luo Ji’s love for Zhuang Yan, I wish Liu Cixin would’ve made the story more immersive and believable. I couldn’t see how Zhuang Yan would fall in love with Luo Ji, but I could definitely see how she could fall out of love with him.
I guess Zhuang Yan was supposed to function as a symbol of what Luo Ji wanted in life, a perfect love and a perfect family. But it was just so hard for me to believe in their love.
Frederick Tyler
Frederick Tyler was the first Wallfacer. On the surface, he had planned to launch a sort of suicide squad against the Trisolaran fleet. Behind the scenes, I think he was planning a sort of deal/truce with the ETF to appease the Trisolarans, but he would turn on them when presented with the opportunity.
In my opinion, what his plan was was not as interesting as the fallout. Frederick Tyler was the first Wallfacer to have his strategy revealed and published by the ETF. Tyler’s plan would normally be tried for war crimes, but because he was a Wallfacer, there was no knowing whether this was part of his plan, and so he was not tried. Tyler was extremely frustrated because even when he owned up to his plan, no one would believe him, and in the end, he committed suicide.
Tyler was more of a tool to show us the consequences of such a role as the Wallfacer. Tyler was given all of the freedoms and privileges in the world. He was even given the opportunity to not be held accountable for his crimes. Because there was supposed to be a total disconnect between what he thought and what he said, Tyler actually lost his ability to have a voice.
Manuel Rey Diaz
Manuel Rey Diaz was the second wallfacer. On the surface, his plan was to bomb the Trisolaran fleet. But his actual plan was to take down the entire Solar System and the Trisolaran fleet with it. Actually, the Wallbreaker revealed that the amount of bombs he had would not be able to achieve what he wanted to do, but it probably would make no difference now that the Wallbreaker had revealed his plan.
Unlike Tyler, Rey Diaz was going to be tried for war crimes, but he conned his way out of it so that he could go home and be killed on home soil instead.
Rey Diaz’s approach to battling the Trisolaran fleet was extremely nihilist. He was going to take them down, and the human race with them. Technically, he would achieve the goal of battling the Trisolaran fleet, but at a very high cost. In terms of why he felt this way, we don’t really have much information to deduce.
Rather, I think his story focused more on his plans to get out of the trial. He’d pretended to have a detonator that would set off the hydrogen bombs if he’d died, and that way, he was able to fly home, where he knew that his fellow Venezuelans would kill him.
I think Rey Diaz said that he was just tired of the entire endeavour, and that was why he wanted to go home, even if he was going home to sure death. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, mostly because we didn’t know Rey Diaz that well. But his plan was certainly a terrifying one.
Bill Hines
Bill Hines was the third Wallfacer, and the only one who didn’t die after his plan was revealed. Originally he’d wanted to develop human intelligence, but what came out of his project was the Faith Center, where thoughts could be implanted. The plan was initially to implant triumphalist thoughts in those who’d lost hope, but the project was shut down.
It was revealed that his wife, Keiko, was his Wallbreaker, and she revealed that he’d instead used the thought implant mechanism to implant defeatist thoughts in people, in order to fuel an escapist movement.
I didn’t think that Hines’ situation was as striking or shocking as those of the first two Wallfacers, but rather, Hines offered a sympathetic ear to Luo Ji, as the only two living Wallfacers.
Keiko Yamasuki
Keiko Yamasuki was Hines’ wife, and long time research partner. Even after the dissolution of the ETF, she stuck to her responsibility of being Hines’ Wallbreaker.
The fact that they seemed so affectionate with each other up until the revelation made me a bit curious, but like the romantic subplot between Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan, I don’t think romance is Liu Cixin’s strong suit, and we weren’t really going to get much about their relationship.
Wu Yue
Wu Yue was Zhang Beihai’s fellow navy officer who was a defeatist. Zhang Beihai specifically reported him as being unfit for duty because of his defeatist attitudes, and Wu Yue agreed. However, Zhang Beihai was also revealed to be a defeatist.
I think the difference between Zhang Beihai and Wu Yue was that Zhang Beihai was just a lot more careful about his defeatist attitude. What’s also important was that though Zhang Beihai didn’t believe the Earth fleet to be a match for the Trisolaran fleet, he had a very extensive plan to ensure humanity’s survival.
Dongfang Yanxu
Dongfang Yanxu was the commander of the spaceship that Zhang Beihai was assigned to after awakening from hibernation. She was under review for being a defeatist, so Zhang Beihai was given the role of acting commander. She revered Zhang Beihai, but Zhang was pretty unwilling to take on much authority, except in the specific function of carrying out his plan.
To Dongfang Yanxu, Zhang Beihai was an enigma, but as the average reader, we weren’t any better. But Dongfang was the only point-of-view character we had that was not a hibernator, which made for interesting narration.
For the record, I did enjoy Dongfang and Zhang’s conversations a lot. They were both commanders, but from completely different time periods, and it was interesting to see how differently they acted.
Zhang was wary of taking responsibility except in the critical moments, whereas Dongfang was wary at the critical moments because she lived in a time when humanity was extremely confident. I did wish we got to know more about Dongfang, but she perished in the Battle of Darkness, along with the rest of Natural Selection.
Ding Yi
Ding Yi was Yang Dong’s boyfriend in the Three Body Problem. He was also a scientist, and a hibernator. By the time the first Trisolaran probe arrived on Earth, he was an old man. Ding Yi forced his way into being allowed to see the probe when it first came. While everybody felt that the probe was harmless, Ding Yi did not feel the same.
Ding Yi asked that the personnel of two spaceships be put into deep sleep. Everybody thought he was being paranoid, but they respected his old age and experience, and did so. It ended up being a good idea because the fact that those two ships were in deep sleep meant they could escape quickly when the probe began attacking.
Ding Yi died as he was part of the team that made first contact with the probe, but he had expected this.
Bai Rong
Bai Rong was an ex-girlfriend of Luo Ji, the one who suggested that he tried to think of his ideal girlfriend. As mentioned, Luo Ji’s imagination became very vivid and this imaginary woman started to do things out of his control. Similarly, Bai Rong had her own dream boyfriend who’d begun to take on a mind of his own.
I went back and flipped through this part of the story a bit, and I think the point was the fact that Luo Ji and Bai Rong had given their complete love to a figment of imagination. Because the objects of their affection were not real, their love was not communicated explicitly, and remained in their minds. However, by the end of the book, Luo Ji had actualized his love, transferred his love from his mind to his actions.
Themes
Cosmic Sociology
The two axioms that Ye Wenjie mentioned were as follows:
(1) Survival is the primary need of civilization
(2) Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant
Before Ye Wenjie and Luo Ji parted ways, Ye also mentioned the chains of suspicion and the technological explosion, though she didn’t have time to explain them.
Luo Ji explained all of these concepts to Shi Qiang by the end of the book.
The chain of suspicion was the idea that two civilizations would never know the intentions of the other, particularly because they were separated so distantly in space. The technological explosion is pretty self explanatory. It was the idea that civilizations could develop technology at a very quick pace in a short period of time. From these two concepts, came the idea that as long as one civilization knew of the existence of another, it would have to destroy it, as it did not know its intentions, and at any point, that other civilization could develop the technology to crush their own. These two concepts explained why Trisolaris and Earth had no choice but to destroy each other.
The chain of suspicion was the source of the title of this book. Civilizations were swimming in a dark forest. Because they did not know much about one another other than their existence, they had no choice but to eliminate all the other civilizations before they became threats.
Ironically, Luo Ji saved the day by avoiding an attack altogether. However, he told the Trisolaran observer (from the Three Body Problem) that he wanted to live in a world where the forest was illuminated. That would prevent all of this suspicion and pre-emptive attacking. Because the bombs with Trisolaris’ location are tied to Luo Ji’s heartbeat, I think that Trisolaris’ location will be revealed eventually, and I guess we will see the fallout from that in the next book.
Communication
One of the key differences between humans and Trisolarans were the fact that humans could hide information and lie, but Trisolarans could not. Mike Evans, one of the first to contact Trisolaris, spent some time trying to teach Trisolarans about hiding information and lying. At one point in the book, I think the Trisolarans had started to hide information, but not saying what they didn’t want others to know.
Initially, this was the only advantage that humans felt they had over Trisolarans, and out of that came the Wallfacer project. However, through the Wallfacer project, we saw how dangerous things could become when thoughts and verbal communication were completely distinct.
Tyler grew mad after nobody would believe his words, even when he confessed to the crimes against humanity. It was maddening that nobody would listen to him, because everybody assumed that what he said was not what he thought, which is the complete opposite of how Trisolarans behave (believing that what one says is exactly what one thinks).
In the book, there were many instances in which high levels of communication led to loss of power. In the chain of suspicion, all other civilizations are deemed threats because we don’t know much about them. If we were to know more about them, humanity would have a better idea of whether they were a true threat. In the case of Luo Ji when he was a Wallfacer, he was considered more respectable when people thought he was hiding something. They thought that he had some grand plan. But as people lost trust in him, his social authority plummeted.
Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan had a conversation about the possibility of communicating without words, such as communicating purely through facial expressions. Of course, humanity had not advanced to that stage yet, but there were definitely instances in which humans communicated messages without saying anything. The most obvious example was the “Wallfacer smile.” When the Wallfacers said anything that was a bit strange or outrageous, other people would give them a sort of smile, indicating that they weren’t sure whether they were working or not. It was what drove Tyler to madness, to know that nobody would take his words at their face value.
Many life forms on our Earth communicate without words, but of course, humans need a way of communicating very sophisticated knowledge to one another, not simple things related to survival and such. Thus, is the Trisolaran way of speaking the way of the future? The best way to communicate my thoughts to other people is to let them take a look inside my brain, but then it compromises privacy. But why is that bad? Knowing the truth would help eliminate those who are dangerous to a civilization, would it not? This was just a thought I had just now.
Sacrifice
Ensuring the safety of the future always includes some aspect of sacrifice. I sacrifice my time now to work, so that in the future, I will have free time to relax. This is a very simple example, but it demonstrates a give and take relationship. The second axiom of cosmic sociology is that matter in the universe remains the same. In the same vein, if we want something for the future, something must be given up now.
Tyler’s plan initially revolved around finding fighters who were willing to sacrifice their lives to fight the Trisolarans and to protect Earth. However, Tyler was unsuccessful in his searches for kamikaze fighters,
Zhang Beihai had a very clear mind when it came to sacrifice. He knew what he needed to do, and he wasn’t particularly selfish about it. You could say that perhaps he had an ego about seeing himself as the messiah, as the father of a new civilization, but in his mind he no doubt had a clear idea of what had to be given up, even if it was his own life and the lives of everybody else on the other ships that did not survive the Battle of Darkness.
Defeatism
Defeatism was looked down on all across Earth. It was bad for morale, particularly in the military. However, defeatism isn’t necessarily a bad sentiment. Backup plans are never bad.
Those who were not hibernators had fallen into the trap of overconfidence, and thus they were completely unprepared when the probe had turned out to be far more dangerous than any of the non-hibernators had ever expected.
Zhang Beihai took his defeatist thoughts and created a solid backup plan with it. Even if nothing bad were to happen, even if the probe turned out not to be dangerous, it wasn’t necessarily a bad idea for humans to split off into other colonies, provided that there were enough resources.
So I guess the lesson here is that it’s not bad to have doubts when they lead to productive and well-thought-out backup plans.
Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden was referenced in two situations in this book.
The first situation was Luo Ji’s estate which was presumably in Northern Europe. It was his dream home, and every day he lived without a care in the world. His paradise became even more lovely when Zhuang Yan came, and he had all the resources in the world to shower her in gifts.
I guess the forbidden fruit in this situation would be the looming fact that Luo Ji technically had a responsibility, and it was hard for Zhuang Yan to believe that Luo Ji was actually working. When Frederick Tyler visited Luo Ji, he mentioned that Zhuang Yan was often spending time with their child. Perhaps Zhuang Yan was trying to give Luo Ji time to work, or perhaps it was her trying to nudge him towards spending more time on work.
It was unclear under what circumstances Zhuang Yan and Xia Xia were taken away. I’m not sure whether it was suggested to them that they leave so that Luo Ji could work, or whether they were coerced into leaving, but ultimately, they had to leave the Garden of Eden.
The second time the Garden of Eden was brought up was when Zhang Beihai was thinking about the dawn of this new human civilization he had begun. Well, I think his metaphor might’ve been more related to Noah’s Ark, as he’d thought about how to decide who would get to leave and who would be banished.
Bugs
At the end of the Three Body Problem, Shi Qiang took Wang Miao and Ding Yi out to the fields to see how locusts had ruined farms, intending to instill in them a sense of courage, that even if humanity were bugs compared to the Trisolarans, humanity was still capable of taking them down.
The beginning and ending scenes of the Dark Forest featured Luo Ji conducting his business, and ants would be nearby. In both cases, the ants were simply following along a path. “In huge quantities of purposeless turbulence, purpose took shape.”
I guess the point of this quote was to mirror this era of humanity. Though humanity was moving in all directions due to their panic, they came out of it with purposes. For the splinter colonies, it was to find new homes, and for those on Earth, specifically Luo Ji, he would work to illuminate the dark forest.
I’m quite intrigued by the bug comparisons, as humans are bugs compared to the Trisolarans. But just as bugs cause great trouble to us, how can humanity cause the same trouble to Trisolarans? It’s fun to think about.
Overall
Overall, this was still an interesting book with interesting concepts, but I felt that the execution wasn’t as tight as it was in the Three Body Problem. But having read two books, I have gotten a sense of Liu Cixin’s writing patterns, and I think I have a better idea of what to expect in Death’s End.
I think it’ll be set near doomsday, when the Trisolaran fleet finally arrives, and I think we will have new main characters. I am expecting some heavy science once again, and I think it’ll mostly come in the forms of military technology and some sort of cartography (to map out the civilizations).
Hopefully we will also get a glimpse of how Spaceship Earth is doing, as I am very intrigued in their journey. However, I remember reading that the spaceship would take 60,000 years at its current pace to reach the star for refuelling, so we might not get to see them reach their destination, but instead only see how their civilization has grown.
I do admit that my thoughts on this book are more jumbled than they were for the Three Body Problem, mainly because I felt that it wasn’t as tight of a narrative experience, so I am sure there are several themes that I have missed, and may come to me in the next few days/weeks.
Nevertheless, despite the writing decisions that I didn’t agree with, I still found the scientific concepts created by Liu Cixin to be extremely interesting and thought provoking, and for that, I would still consider this book to be worth a read.
Considering how much information was given to us in the Three Body Problem regarding this world, I don't think that the Dark Forest would be very satisfying if the reader hadn't read the Three Body problem. And while I didn't enjoy the Dark Forest as much as the Three Body Problem, I'm still going to read on.
So my opinion for this book was that it had a lot of interesting concepts, but it didn’t exhibit the qualities that made the Three Body Problem such a great science fiction story, particularly its main characters and their strong values.
Spoilers.
Story
While the Three Body Problem was about Earth learning of the existence of Trisolaris and its plans to destroy Earth, the Dark Forest was about Earth's preparations for the impending attack.
The first part, pre-time skip, took place on an Earth that was in panic. The world was first learning the basic facts about Trisolarans. The major facts were that Trisolaris was far more technologically advanced than Earth, and that for Trisolarans, there was no difference between internal thought and external communication. In Earth's panic, they created the Wallfacer project, which tried to take advantage of the fact that Trisolarans could not read thoughts.
The second part, post-time skip, took place on an Earth that was very optimistic. Earth's technology had advanced significantly, and they'd observed that Trisolarans weren't approaching Earth as quickly as they'd thought. That optimism was shattered when Trisolaris sent a probe that destroyed Earth's entire space fleet, minus a few ships that escaped.
At the end of the novel, it was revealed that Luo Ji set up bombs that would broadcast Trisolaris' location to the entire universe. These bombs would detonate if Luo Ji's heart stopped. Luo Ji used this mechanism to threaten Trisolaris into stopping their attack. This also allowed Luo Ji to finally be reunited with his family.
The other thing that happened was that two spaceships split off from Earth when the first probe attacked Earth. They had no choice but to continue away from Earth and to start new Earth colonies elsewhere.
Now that I think about it, it was a bit strange that the end of the Dark Forest felt like it had some finality to it. As the second book to a trilogy, I thought that it would end on a cliffhanger that was even more suspenseful than the cliffhanger that the Three Body Problem ended on.
If Luo Ji was successful in stopping Trisolaris from attacking, then what will the last book be about? Perhaps Trisolarans learned to lie, and the sophons lied about changing the directions of the probes. Or perhaps the next book will be about the two splinter Earth colonies. The very last conversation Luo Ji had with the Trisolaran Observer was about how his dream was to illuminate the Dark Forest. Will the final book be about Earth being the illuminators and broadcasting the locations of all sentient life? (Which would protect itself from the chain of suspicion) I just feel a bit miffed that I'm not already gearing up for Death's End, because I am not sure what humanity's goal is now.
Luo Ji ended the novel in a domestic bliss with his family. I guess this would be in line with Luo Ji's character, as someone who never really had much ambition. And the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. He was never really a particularly ambitious person, and as a person of above average intelligence, I can see it plausible for him to use his smarts to do something for very personal reasons (i.e. using his intelligence to ward off the Trisolarans, but doing it because he wants his family back and not necessarily for humanity). So why do I feel uncomfortable with it? I think it might just be because I don't love Luo Ji.
I’m just disappointed that I wasn’t rapt by the tight story from beginning to end like I was with the Three Body Problem. There were a lot of lulls in the story of the Dark Forest. Perhaps this was due to the fact that Luo Ji, as the point-of-view character with the most spotlight, wasn’t particularly motivated, and so we never saw him going out and being proactive or even being curious. And when Luo Ji wasn’t in the spotlight, the story was usually being told by an omniscient narrator, who was not nearly as engaging as having a point-of-view character who was exploring the science fiction aspects of the story in a human way that was easy to relate to.
Writing
Narrators
In the Three Body Problem, we had two main characters, Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao. What made the Three Body Problem so strong was that we knew them intimately, from their home life to their professional lives. Based on a close observation of their actions, the reader could draw conclusions on their personalities and why they did what they did.
The 1.5 main characters of the Dark Forest would be Luo Ji and Zhang Beihai. I say 1.5 because while Luo Ji was obviously set up to be a main character, I was never really quite sure what kind of role Zhang Beihai was supposed to have. In fact, pre-time skip, when the navy was discussing defeatism, I had no idea which character I was supposed to focus on (between Zhang Beihai, Wu Yue, and Chang Weisi). Not that it's impossible to have a scene where all characters are important, but based on the format of the Three Body Problem, and the fact that Zhang Beihai had a much more important role in a few scenes later on, I felt that the book would've been more compelling if Zhang Beihai was given more focus, especially considering he'd done so many things that were influential for humanity. He was the reason that technology took the route that it took, and he was the reason that at least one space colony would survive.
I also think that the decision to use an omniscient narrator at times wasn’t the best. Sometimes, there was no choice but to use an omniscient narrator, to catch the reader up to what was happening on Earth (e.g. the introduction of the Wallfacer Project), or when describing something that no other major character would’ve known at the time (e.g. when telling the reader that the two spaceships who’d gone into deep sleep as per Ding Yi’s requests had escaped the probe attack and later had their own Battle of Darkness).
But this decision made the story more difficult to relate to. As I mentioned, the Three Body Problem had my full attention, and I think it was because Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao were determined people with strong sense of direction. For the Dark Forest, we either had an omniscient narrator whose only job was to describe, and Luo Ji, a narrator who wasn’t particularly curious about the world and was not a go-getter.
I don’t want to put too much blame on the omniscient narrator, as I think the problem lay more with Luo Ji and Zhang Beihai and the choices that Liu Cixin made in how he used them. The omniscient narrator was just giving us the facts, and I appreciate that they were as neutral as possible to give the reader their own chance to formulate an opinion on the matter. But I think Luo Ji and Zhang Beihai just weren’t able to do a good enough job giving us the human side to the story.
Translation
The translation for this book was done by Joel Martinsen. I don't have any huge complaints with the translation. I think that most of the things that made me tick were more due to the actual content than the writing.
Technical aspects
I also felt that this book had more information dumps than the Three Body Problem did. While the Three Body Problem did have information dumps, they were usually presented in a way that felt relevant and interactive, often by giving us a few characters we were familiar with to guide us. The only time this was not the case was perhaps the final few scenes when we were walked through the Trisolarans’ development of the sophons.
However, the Dark Forest just felt a lot more impersonal and drier, and I found myself really struggling to keep up with the more technical parts of the story. An example of me wanting to follow the story but finding it difficult would be during the scenes when the Wallbreakers confronted their Wallfacers. In theory, it should’ve been clear, as the Wallbreakers’ responsibility was to completely disclose the Wallfacers’ plans. However, by nature of the Wallbreaker having hidden things from the public, it was hard to follow when the Wallbreaker brought up something that the reader knew nothing about. I admired the Three Body Problem because even though it had a lot of hard and technical science involved, I found it relatively easy to grasp, but it was not the case for the Dark Forest. Perhaps it was because while the Three Body Problem followed individuals and small groups carrying out plans, the Dark Forest tended to feature all of humanity carrying out various plans.
Characters
Luo Ji
Luo Ji was a classmate of Yang Dong, and at the very beginning, he had a brief conversation with Ye Wenjie, Yang Dong's mother. As we know, Ye Wenjie was one of the main characters of the Three Body Problem, and the main reason that Trisolaris came to target Earth. She raised the concept of Cosmic Sociology to Luo Ji. Luo Ji was a sociology teacher and former astronomer. He was not ambitious, but he was smart.
The only reason Luo Ji was given the time of day was because Trisolaris viewed him as a threat. As the reader, I was very much anticipating Cosmic Sociology to make an appearance, but given the direction of the novel, I think it was fair to not anticipate it until later.
I think one of the main difficulties in this novel was the persisting theme of lack of communication and chain of suspicion. One of the main differences between humans and Trisolarans was that humans could think without others knowing their thoughts, whereas for Trisolarans, to think was to be heard. So the point of the Wallfacer project was to act with thoughts only, and to keep the reader on their toes, some parts of the story had to be hidden. In theory, this makes sense, but in practice, it was clumsy. I already mentioned above how hiding things made the Wallbreaker reveals a bit hard to engage with from a technical standpoint.
With regards to Luo Ji, because he was a Wallbreaker, I felt that he was difficult to grasp as a character, and that is a problem because the Three Body Problem was so successful precisely because we could see how Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao developed into the people that they were. But for Luo Ji, even when I thought I’d understood him as a person, I always wondered if he was hiding something, which is the point of the Wallbreaker project, but it made it difficult for me to like him.
In the early days of the Wallbreaker project, Luo Ji absolutely abused his position and used his powers to create a comfortable life for himself. It did not appear that he was actually working on the Wallbreaker Project, and yet many of his requests were met because of the power that he held. While feeling unambitious and hopeless wasn’t a crime, it was difficult for me to sympathize with Luo Ji at this time, because I couldn’t even tell if Luo Ji was changing as a person. During this time, at the sacred Garden of Eden he’d created for himself, he had Shi Qiang fly in his ideal woman. I was actually quite surprised when Luo Ji actually did manage to have Zhuang Yan fall in love with him. After all, she’d flown in under the impression that she was here for a job, not as a blind date.
Eventually, Zhuang Yan did sort of become disenchanted with Luo Ji, but we only saw a glimpse of it. Basically, she was skeptical that Luo Ji was actually working on the Wallfacer project, and the authorities put her and their child in hibernation to try to motivate Luo Ji.
I felt like the only times that we actually saw Luo Ji at work was the short period of time after Zhuang Yan and Xia Xia were put into hibernation and before he himself went into hibernation, and when he was working on the Snow project. At those times, I was actually interested in reading because Luo Ji was giving us a glimpse of why Trisolaris might’ve considered him a threat. It’s not a secret that he was probably still more focused on getting his family back than he cared about humanity, but the fact that we saw him while he was working gave us a lot more to see from his character.
Sorry that my writing is kind of messy, but let me try to summarize the reasons why Luo Ji didn’t work for me as a main character.
I think that we spent too much time on his personal life and not enough on his professional life (whereas I felt the opposite for Zhang Beihai). For Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao, we saw how their personal and professional lives intersected, and it gave us a really good grasp on who they were as people.
While I understood that Luo Ji was not an ambitious person and just wanted to live a good life, I wanted to understand why Trisolaris saw him as a threat. That would require us delving into his professional life, which on principle Luo Ji refused to engage in, and when he did, as a Wallfacer, we were always second-guessing his intentions for doing the things he was doing.
By the end of the novel, I couldn’t really tell what journey Luo Ji had gone through. We know that Luo Ji had concocted his dream woman before the start of the novel and had found her during the novel, so perhaps the one main journey he’d gone through was actualizing his dream life, but that was very disconnected with the rest of the plot. Unlike Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao who were significantly changed through the events of the Three Body Problem, I struggle to understand what Luo Ji had learned, or how he’d changed as a person.
Yes, Luo Ji saved humanity, but is humanity the main character, or is Luo Ji? I know humanity is important, but I want to know more about Luo Ji.
So overall, I am kind of disappointed with Luo Ji’s execution. As a person, I think he makes sense. He doesn’t really care much about humanity, he just wants to live a good life. That actually makes for a very interesting character in this science fiction apocalyptic scenario.
But the writing prevented me from caring about him. There was a lot of dialogue from him that actually made me interested in what he was going to do, and I kept hoping for Luo Ji to show us a different dimension of himself. But throughout the novel, he kind of just stayed in his box. I never felt like he was particularly challenged, and when he was challenged and motivated, it was not shown on screen (e.g. him working on the Snow Project).
I probably have more to say about why Luo Ji disappointed me, but this is what I have so far.
Zhang Beihai
Zhang Beihai was as close to a second main character as we were going to have in this book. As I mentioned, I didn’t even know whether he was going to be an important character. Early on, Zhang Beihai was introduced to us through the navy talks. There was a defeatist sentiment going around and he was staunchly against that. Though he was proactive, he hardly felt like the center of attention. His coworker, Wu Yue, admitted to being a defeatist, and I thought that these two were going to be main characters of this setting together.
Over time, Zhang Beihai rose in the ranks, and his first major deed was when he killed some scientists so that research into chemical propulsion would be weakened and that instead humanity would pursue fusion-drive. I don’t know if I missed anything, but this kind of just came out of nowhere. I didn’t know that Zhang Beihai was that deeply invested in the technological part of the space fight, and all along, we were only shown him in a military strategy setting. So where did this come from?
I understand that Zhang Beihai wanted humanity to pursue fusion-drive, but I was also a bit confused about the specifics of why. Did he just think that fusion-drive was better and more sustainable overall? Or did he prefer fusion-drive because it worked better with his eventual plan of creating a splinter colony?
After hibernation, Zhang Beihai was back in the military. He was very much revered, which made sense considering how he was responsible for the triumphalism movement across the navy. Post time skip, the space fleets were very confident about the impending attack from Trisolaris as well.
As soon as Zhang Beihai learned the ropes and was granted the position of acting commander, he took the ship Natural Selection far away from the Solar System. He was apparently a defeatist this whole time, and his triumphalism was probably just a tool for him to gain power within the military. This ended up being a good move as the Trisolaran probe had destroyed the rest of Earth’s space fleet.
After the creation of Spaceship Earth, a new human colony that would sever ties with Earth, Zhang Beihai did one more significant deed, which was to launch an attack on the other four spaceships that had pursued Natural Selection, as the only way for this new human colony to survive was if there were fewer people to survive on the resources available among the five spaceships.
While Luo Ji’s story focused a lot on his personal life, Zhang Beihai’s story focused overwhelmingly on his professional life. I barely knew anything about his life outside of the navy. That being said, I wasn’t as frustrated with his character because his professional life had a big impact on the direction of the story and vice versa. Through the novel, Zhang Beihai faced several big challenges, and we got to see who he truly was under these times of high stress.
Zhang Beihai was a kind of cold, ultra-logical person. He cared only for the good of humanity, but ironically, it made him a bit insensitive to the humans around him.
He raised the fact that Wu Yue was a defeatist and how that made him unfit to stay in the military. I think it would’ve been safe to assume they were at least friends, but Zhang Beihai needed Wu Yue to go for a couple of reasons. One was so that he would seem like the paragon of triumphalism and be trusted in the military. And a second possible reason was that only when the military was so confident, would the technology progress quickly enough for Zhang Beihai to carry out his plan post-time skip.
Seeing the interactions between Zhang Beihai and Dongfang Yanxu on the Natural Selection was so interesting. Zhang Beihai was kind of in a state of zen. Nothing could phase him. I think at this point, he knew that no matter what happened to earth, he at least knew that the technology was advanced enough that he could drive the spaceship away to safety.
Dongfang Yanxu, the original commander of Natural Selection, noted that Zhang Beihai probably saw them as children, as he was from a different time, a time of turmoil and uncertainty. And he probably did. Zhang Beihai was essentially fathering a new civilization. He created it by driving the spaceship away, and he had a big part in setting up a government system for it. And I think from the beginning (when he had come up with his plan), he was prepared for the Battle of Darkness, in which he would have to kill or die to ensure that the new colony would survive.
I think there was potential in Zhang Beihai as a character. I think Liu Cixin could’ve explored Zhang Beihai’s character to explain how he’d become the person that he was. But now that I think about it, the Three Body Problem was about origin stories, whereas this theme was not as prominent in the Dark Forest. The world was no longer questioning how Earth came to be like this, it was more a time of action, the how, so I guess even without explaining Zhang Beihai’s character, I could still see him as someone interesting.
I thought Zhang Beihai was an interesting character because while having these ultra-logical thoughts about humanity was not rare, he was one of the few who had the conviction to carry them out. It’d probably be difficult for someone to pose as a triumphalist all these year while actually being a defeatist, and it probably takes a special kind of determination to carry out killing people (both when he shot the scientists, and when he engaged in the Battle of Darkness).
I also really enjoyed Zhang Beihai’s conversations with Dongfang Yanxu. They were both commanders, but from very different times. Dongfang Yanxu had never lived in a world where humanity was not confident, and very easily panicked, whereas for Zhang Beihai and many from his generation, being afraid was just a fact of the matter.
Though Zhang Beihai was a defeatist, he channeled that fear into something more constructive. He went from a defeatist, to an escapist, but he concocted a bold but viable escape plan to deal with his fears of being crushed by the Trisolarans.
So overall, I liked Zhang Beihai’s character more than Luo Ji’s, because there was just more to think about when it came to his thoughts and actions. I guess my only disappointment with Zhang Beihai was that the set up for his character could’ve been more interesting (i.e. most of his story line before he went into hibernation).
Shi Qiang
Shi Qiang was the only major character who carried over from the Three Body Problem. He was the grounded police detective who didn’t worry so much about the fate of humanity and just focused on living his life day by day.
Before the time skip, when Luo Ji was a Wallfacer, Shi Qiang acted as a kind of liaison/assistant. Shi Qiang didn’t say anything to Luo Ji about the fact that it hardly looked like he was working. Shi Qiang actually helped Luo Ji find Zhuang Yan. That was very in line with Shi Qiang’s personality. He was just the kind of guy to focus on his own job.
Post time skip, Shi Qiang remained a sort of bodyguard for Luo Ji. Well, at first, he helped Luo Ji to adapt to post-hibernation life, and then he just sort of followed Luo Ji around. His status as Wallfacer was kind of unstable during that time, so that’s why it’s hard to define what Shi Qiang was.
Shi Qiang remained one of the more interesting characters of this series, even if he was more of a narrative tool than an actual character in this book. Among a sea of intellectuals, he was almost always the most practical. He didn’t have as important of a role in the Dark Forest compared to the Three Body Problem though, so the comparisons weren’t as stark. We mostly learned about Shi Qiang’s thoughts through his conversations with Luo Ji.
Shi Qiang didn’t really care what Luo Ji did, whether he was actually fulfilling his responsibilities as a Wallfacer or not, and through Shi Qiang, we were able to tell that Luo Ji was really not an ambitious person. At times, Shi Qiang even encouraged Luo Ji’s lax attitude (like helping him to find Zhuang Yan), and I think it was because Shi Qiang saw Luo Ji like a friend more than a saviour.
After the time skip, we didn’t really learn much more about Shi Qiang. He’d only been out of hibernation a short period of time before Luo Ji, and we heard a lot about the world through him. The only other significant conversation he had that I can recall was when Luo Ji explained cosmic sociology to him. Shi Qiang was pretty good at grasping what Luo Ji wanted to tell him. While reading it though, I felt like it was a weird conversation to have. Why did Luo Ji decide to explain cosmic sociology to Shi Qiang of all people? Was it just because they were friends? For the reader, the conversation was just an excuse for Luo Ji to finally explain his theories, but Shi Qiang didn’t seem to have any reason to know other than out of friendship.
Though Shi Qiang didn’t have as big of a role in terms of the world-saving side of things, I still enjoyed his very practical character in a very strange world, both the panic-stricken pre-time skip world, and the very futuristic and surreal post-time skip world.
Zhuang Yan
Zhuang Yan was the woman who’d matched Luo Ji’s idea of the perfect woman. Years ago, Luo Ji had dated a writer who’d asked him to imagine his perfect woman. Luo Ji’s imagination got away from him to the point that this imaginary woman felt very real to him. She’d move on her own and not with Luo Ji directing her.
When given Wallfacer status, Luo Ji abused his privilege to try to find his ideal woman. It was all rather slimy when Zhuang Yan was invited to his secret abode, because Zhuang Yan truly thought she was to help Luo Ji with a job. Luo Ji told Zhuang Yan that her job was to make herself as happy as possible.
There was a short time skip in the novel, and after the time skip, we found out that Zhuang Yan and Luo Ji had fallen in love and had a child. This was rather surreal to me, because...how the heck did Luo Ji manage to charm her? I’m going to assume that with his Wallfacer privileges, Luo Ji just spent all of his time and money showering Zhuang Yan with all of the gifts and things that she wanted. After all, they did fly to the Louvre for Zhuang Yan to admire the art there.
I’ll talk about this later, but Luo Ji called their home the Garden of Eden because it was paradise. He lived in a beautiful place, accompanied by his ideal woman. And it was, but then reality caught up to him.
After the Wallfacer project was created, the book would mention the “Wallfacer smile.” It was something that Wallfacers would be on the receiving end of, signifying that the other person wasn’t sure if the Wallfacer was telling the truth or not.
I don’t remember if Luo Ji used the term “Wallfacer smile” to describe Zhuang Yan, but it was clear that after a while, Zhuang Yan started to disbelieve Luo Ji when he told her that something she was to do, which was very clearly for her own happiness and well-being, were part of the plan.
I think that my issue with Zhuang Yan and the romantic subplot (if you could call it that) of the novel was that if we were meant to sympathize with Luo Ji’s love for Zhuang Yan, I wish Liu Cixin would’ve made the story more immersive and believable. I couldn’t see how Zhuang Yan would fall in love with Luo Ji, but I could definitely see how she could fall out of love with him.
I guess Zhuang Yan was supposed to function as a symbol of what Luo Ji wanted in life, a perfect love and a perfect family. But it was just so hard for me to believe in their love.
Frederick Tyler
Frederick Tyler was the first Wallfacer. On the surface, he had planned to launch a sort of suicide squad against the Trisolaran fleet. Behind the scenes, I think he was planning a sort of deal/truce with the ETF to appease the Trisolarans, but he would turn on them when presented with the opportunity.
In my opinion, what his plan was was not as interesting as the fallout. Frederick Tyler was the first Wallfacer to have his strategy revealed and published by the ETF. Tyler’s plan would normally be tried for war crimes, but because he was a Wallfacer, there was no knowing whether this was part of his plan, and so he was not tried. Tyler was extremely frustrated because even when he owned up to his plan, no one would believe him, and in the end, he committed suicide.
Tyler was more of a tool to show us the consequences of such a role as the Wallfacer. Tyler was given all of the freedoms and privileges in the world. He was even given the opportunity to not be held accountable for his crimes. Because there was supposed to be a total disconnect between what he thought and what he said, Tyler actually lost his ability to have a voice.
Manuel Rey Diaz
Manuel Rey Diaz was the second wallfacer. On the surface, his plan was to bomb the Trisolaran fleet. But his actual plan was to take down the entire Solar System and the Trisolaran fleet with it. Actually, the Wallbreaker revealed that the amount of bombs he had would not be able to achieve what he wanted to do, but it probably would make no difference now that the Wallbreaker had revealed his plan.
Unlike Tyler, Rey Diaz was going to be tried for war crimes, but he conned his way out of it so that he could go home and be killed on home soil instead.
Rey Diaz’s approach to battling the Trisolaran fleet was extremely nihilist. He was going to take them down, and the human race with them. Technically, he would achieve the goal of battling the Trisolaran fleet, but at a very high cost. In terms of why he felt this way, we don’t really have much information to deduce.
Rather, I think his story focused more on his plans to get out of the trial. He’d pretended to have a detonator that would set off the hydrogen bombs if he’d died, and that way, he was able to fly home, where he knew that his fellow Venezuelans would kill him.
I think Rey Diaz said that he was just tired of the entire endeavour, and that was why he wanted to go home, even if he was going home to sure death. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, mostly because we didn’t know Rey Diaz that well. But his plan was certainly a terrifying one.
Bill Hines
Bill Hines was the third Wallfacer, and the only one who didn’t die after his plan was revealed. Originally he’d wanted to develop human intelligence, but what came out of his project was the Faith Center, where thoughts could be implanted. The plan was initially to implant triumphalist thoughts in those who’d lost hope, but the project was shut down.
It was revealed that his wife, Keiko, was his Wallbreaker, and she revealed that he’d instead used the thought implant mechanism to implant defeatist thoughts in people, in order to fuel an escapist movement.
I didn’t think that Hines’ situation was as striking or shocking as those of the first two Wallfacers, but rather, Hines offered a sympathetic ear to Luo Ji, as the only two living Wallfacers.
Keiko Yamasuki
Keiko Yamasuki was Hines’ wife, and long time research partner. Even after the dissolution of the ETF, she stuck to her responsibility of being Hines’ Wallbreaker.
The fact that they seemed so affectionate with each other up until the revelation made me a bit curious, but like the romantic subplot between Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan, I don’t think romance is Liu Cixin’s strong suit, and we weren’t really going to get much about their relationship.
Wu Yue
Wu Yue was Zhang Beihai’s fellow navy officer who was a defeatist. Zhang Beihai specifically reported him as being unfit for duty because of his defeatist attitudes, and Wu Yue agreed. However, Zhang Beihai was also revealed to be a defeatist.
I think the difference between Zhang Beihai and Wu Yue was that Zhang Beihai was just a lot more careful about his defeatist attitude. What’s also important was that though Zhang Beihai didn’t believe the Earth fleet to be a match for the Trisolaran fleet, he had a very extensive plan to ensure humanity’s survival.
Dongfang Yanxu
Dongfang Yanxu was the commander of the spaceship that Zhang Beihai was assigned to after awakening from hibernation. She was under review for being a defeatist, so Zhang Beihai was given the role of acting commander. She revered Zhang Beihai, but Zhang was pretty unwilling to take on much authority, except in the specific function of carrying out his plan.
To Dongfang Yanxu, Zhang Beihai was an enigma, but as the average reader, we weren’t any better. But Dongfang was the only point-of-view character we had that was not a hibernator, which made for interesting narration.
For the record, I did enjoy Dongfang and Zhang’s conversations a lot. They were both commanders, but from completely different time periods, and it was interesting to see how differently they acted.
Zhang was wary of taking responsibility except in the critical moments, whereas Dongfang was wary at the critical moments because she lived in a time when humanity was extremely confident. I did wish we got to know more about Dongfang, but she perished in the Battle of Darkness, along with the rest of Natural Selection.
Ding Yi
Ding Yi was Yang Dong’s boyfriend in the Three Body Problem. He was also a scientist, and a hibernator. By the time the first Trisolaran probe arrived on Earth, he was an old man. Ding Yi forced his way into being allowed to see the probe when it first came. While everybody felt that the probe was harmless, Ding Yi did not feel the same.
Ding Yi asked that the personnel of two spaceships be put into deep sleep. Everybody thought he was being paranoid, but they respected his old age and experience, and did so. It ended up being a good idea because the fact that those two ships were in deep sleep meant they could escape quickly when the probe began attacking.
Ding Yi died as he was part of the team that made first contact with the probe, but he had expected this.
Bai Rong
Bai Rong was an ex-girlfriend of Luo Ji, the one who suggested that he tried to think of his ideal girlfriend. As mentioned, Luo Ji’s imagination became very vivid and this imaginary woman started to do things out of his control. Similarly, Bai Rong had her own dream boyfriend who’d begun to take on a mind of his own.
I went back and flipped through this part of the story a bit, and I think the point was the fact that Luo Ji and Bai Rong had given their complete love to a figment of imagination. Because the objects of their affection were not real, their love was not communicated explicitly, and remained in their minds. However, by the end of the book, Luo Ji had actualized his love, transferred his love from his mind to his actions.
Themes
Cosmic Sociology
The two axioms that Ye Wenjie mentioned were as follows:
(1) Survival is the primary need of civilization
(2) Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant
Before Ye Wenjie and Luo Ji parted ways, Ye also mentioned the chains of suspicion and the technological explosion, though she didn’t have time to explain them.
Luo Ji explained all of these concepts to Shi Qiang by the end of the book.
The chain of suspicion was the idea that two civilizations would never know the intentions of the other, particularly because they were separated so distantly in space. The technological explosion is pretty self explanatory. It was the idea that civilizations could develop technology at a very quick pace in a short period of time. From these two concepts, came the idea that as long as one civilization knew of the existence of another, it would have to destroy it, as it did not know its intentions, and at any point, that other civilization could develop the technology to crush their own. These two concepts explained why Trisolaris and Earth had no choice but to destroy each other.
The chain of suspicion was the source of the title of this book. Civilizations were swimming in a dark forest. Because they did not know much about one another other than their existence, they had no choice but to eliminate all the other civilizations before they became threats.
Ironically, Luo Ji saved the day by avoiding an attack altogether. However, he told the Trisolaran observer (from the Three Body Problem) that he wanted to live in a world where the forest was illuminated. That would prevent all of this suspicion and pre-emptive attacking. Because the bombs with Trisolaris’ location are tied to Luo Ji’s heartbeat, I think that Trisolaris’ location will be revealed eventually, and I guess we will see the fallout from that in the next book.
Communication
One of the key differences between humans and Trisolarans were the fact that humans could hide information and lie, but Trisolarans could not. Mike Evans, one of the first to contact Trisolaris, spent some time trying to teach Trisolarans about hiding information and lying. At one point in the book, I think the Trisolarans had started to hide information, but not saying what they didn’t want others to know.
Initially, this was the only advantage that humans felt they had over Trisolarans, and out of that came the Wallfacer project. However, through the Wallfacer project, we saw how dangerous things could become when thoughts and verbal communication were completely distinct.
Tyler grew mad after nobody would believe his words, even when he confessed to the crimes against humanity. It was maddening that nobody would listen to him, because everybody assumed that what he said was not what he thought, which is the complete opposite of how Trisolarans behave (believing that what one says is exactly what one thinks).
In the book, there were many instances in which high levels of communication led to loss of power. In the chain of suspicion, all other civilizations are deemed threats because we don’t know much about them. If we were to know more about them, humanity would have a better idea of whether they were a true threat. In the case of Luo Ji when he was a Wallfacer, he was considered more respectable when people thought he was hiding something. They thought that he had some grand plan. But as people lost trust in him, his social authority plummeted.
Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan had a conversation about the possibility of communicating without words, such as communicating purely through facial expressions. Of course, humanity had not advanced to that stage yet, but there were definitely instances in which humans communicated messages without saying anything. The most obvious example was the “Wallfacer smile.” When the Wallfacers said anything that was a bit strange or outrageous, other people would give them a sort of smile, indicating that they weren’t sure whether they were working or not. It was what drove Tyler to madness, to know that nobody would take his words at their face value.
Many life forms on our Earth communicate without words, but of course, humans need a way of communicating very sophisticated knowledge to one another, not simple things related to survival and such. Thus, is the Trisolaran way of speaking the way of the future? The best way to communicate my thoughts to other people is to let them take a look inside my brain, but then it compromises privacy. But why is that bad? Knowing the truth would help eliminate those who are dangerous to a civilization, would it not? This was just a thought I had just now.
Sacrifice
Ensuring the safety of the future always includes some aspect of sacrifice. I sacrifice my time now to work, so that in the future, I will have free time to relax. This is a very simple example, but it demonstrates a give and take relationship. The second axiom of cosmic sociology is that matter in the universe remains the same. In the same vein, if we want something for the future, something must be given up now.
Tyler’s plan initially revolved around finding fighters who were willing to sacrifice their lives to fight the Trisolarans and to protect Earth. However, Tyler was unsuccessful in his searches for kamikaze fighters,
Zhang Beihai had a very clear mind when it came to sacrifice. He knew what he needed to do, and he wasn’t particularly selfish about it. You could say that perhaps he had an ego about seeing himself as the messiah, as the father of a new civilization, but in his mind he no doubt had a clear idea of what had to be given up, even if it was his own life and the lives of everybody else on the other ships that did not survive the Battle of Darkness.
Defeatism
Defeatism was looked down on all across Earth. It was bad for morale, particularly in the military. However, defeatism isn’t necessarily a bad sentiment. Backup plans are never bad.
Those who were not hibernators had fallen into the trap of overconfidence, and thus they were completely unprepared when the probe had turned out to be far more dangerous than any of the non-hibernators had ever expected.
Zhang Beihai took his defeatist thoughts and created a solid backup plan with it. Even if nothing bad were to happen, even if the probe turned out not to be dangerous, it wasn’t necessarily a bad idea for humans to split off into other colonies, provided that there were enough resources.
So I guess the lesson here is that it’s not bad to have doubts when they lead to productive and well-thought-out backup plans.
Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden was referenced in two situations in this book.
The first situation was Luo Ji’s estate which was presumably in Northern Europe. It was his dream home, and every day he lived without a care in the world. His paradise became even more lovely when Zhuang Yan came, and he had all the resources in the world to shower her in gifts.
I guess the forbidden fruit in this situation would be the looming fact that Luo Ji technically had a responsibility, and it was hard for Zhuang Yan to believe that Luo Ji was actually working. When Frederick Tyler visited Luo Ji, he mentioned that Zhuang Yan was often spending time with their child. Perhaps Zhuang Yan was trying to give Luo Ji time to work, or perhaps it was her trying to nudge him towards spending more time on work.
It was unclear under what circumstances Zhuang Yan and Xia Xia were taken away. I’m not sure whether it was suggested to them that they leave so that Luo Ji could work, or whether they were coerced into leaving, but ultimately, they had to leave the Garden of Eden.
The second time the Garden of Eden was brought up was when Zhang Beihai was thinking about the dawn of this new human civilization he had begun. Well, I think his metaphor might’ve been more related to Noah’s Ark, as he’d thought about how to decide who would get to leave and who would be banished.
Bugs
At the end of the Three Body Problem, Shi Qiang took Wang Miao and Ding Yi out to the fields to see how locusts had ruined farms, intending to instill in them a sense of courage, that even if humanity were bugs compared to the Trisolarans, humanity was still capable of taking them down.
The beginning and ending scenes of the Dark Forest featured Luo Ji conducting his business, and ants would be nearby. In both cases, the ants were simply following along a path. “In huge quantities of purposeless turbulence, purpose took shape.”
I guess the point of this quote was to mirror this era of humanity. Though humanity was moving in all directions due to their panic, they came out of it with purposes. For the splinter colonies, it was to find new homes, and for those on Earth, specifically Luo Ji, he would work to illuminate the dark forest.
I’m quite intrigued by the bug comparisons, as humans are bugs compared to the Trisolarans. But just as bugs cause great trouble to us, how can humanity cause the same trouble to Trisolarans? It’s fun to think about.
Overall
Overall, this was still an interesting book with interesting concepts, but I felt that the execution wasn’t as tight as it was in the Three Body Problem. But having read two books, I have gotten a sense of Liu Cixin’s writing patterns, and I think I have a better idea of what to expect in Death’s End.
I think it’ll be set near doomsday, when the Trisolaran fleet finally arrives, and I think we will have new main characters. I am expecting some heavy science once again, and I think it’ll mostly come in the forms of military technology and some sort of cartography (to map out the civilizations).
Hopefully we will also get a glimpse of how Spaceship Earth is doing, as I am very intrigued in their journey. However, I remember reading that the spaceship would take 60,000 years at its current pace to reach the star for refuelling, so we might not get to see them reach their destination, but instead only see how their civilization has grown.
I do admit that my thoughts on this book are more jumbled than they were for the Three Body Problem, mainly because I felt that it wasn’t as tight of a narrative experience, so I am sure there are several themes that I have missed, and may come to me in the next few days/weeks.
Nevertheless, despite the writing decisions that I didn’t agree with, I still found the scientific concepts created by Liu Cixin to be extremely interesting and thought provoking, and for that, I would still consider this book to be worth a read.