Review: The Dark Forest

The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had the pleasure of reading The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu as the first book in the trilogy, The Three-Body Problem, won the Hugo award - the first translated novel ever to do so (and during a particularly contentious year for the Hugos). I'll admit that one of the main reasons I picked up The Dark Forest was because of the buzz, as I felt The Three-Body Problem was lackluster in terms of pacing, plot, and dialogue (oh, the horrendous dialogue). But I'm glad for the buzz! While The Dark Forest certainly didn't do any better in terms of dialogue and the first half of the novel is still pretty dull, at least in this edition there is a goal from the outset, and at the halfway point I suddenly understood what everyone loves about this series.

(read plot summary here if to better understand my review, as long as you're okay with spoilers)

So, my biggest qualms are the dialogue and the interpersonal interaction. All the science, all the philosophy and ideology, and almost every single motivation for every action, including all premises leading a person to a conclusion and the meanings of small nods and gestures, are explained either from one character to another or from the narrator to the reader. No person has ever spoken like any of these people. And when occasionally a premise or three is skipped, a character will respond with a non sequitur and both characters will perfectly understand what is happening (though the reader may not) because everyone is always on the same intellectual page in this world (this reminds me of the terrible movie 'Aloha' though not nearly as bad). Between the

So the problem with Escapism and defeatism and the related ideological movements (why is one capitalized and the other is not? Who knows. Why is every character able to constantly discriminate between these two nuanced and interrelated ideas and always agree on the precise definitions of these terms as well as their logical consequences? Probably poor writing.) is related to the dialogue problem and also tied to one of the larger themes of the novel, too - the cosmic sociology Luo Ji occasionally ponders. Humanity (and alien civilizations) is always described to behave as one unit entirely in consensus (or like two smaller factions) who all make up their minds, change their minds, define terminology, support particular efforts, and react to things EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. Everyone follows the same train of logical thought. No one provides counterarguments ever, or different ways to see the world - except for one crucial point at the end of the book, which kind of undermines this unity. I feel like this is a huge flaw considering how much of the plot rides on everyone behaving predictably; it's infuriating that they do, but for the novel to work it has to be consistent, and it betrays itself in the last few pages.

Though it was hard for me to get past the dialogue problem, the homogenous ideology finally let me make the connections that let me appreciate the story. This isn't about characters, or dialogue, or even pretty writing (though there is a considerable amount of the last): this is another Asimov's Foundation, a story about an inevitably bad future and plans that smart people make based on the predictability of people as a whole to avoid that future. The logical but surprising unfolding of the plot and the technological developments are the point, and they make it worth it. This isn't a story of people - it's the story of humanity. It earns that comparison to Foundation and deserves to be just as revered. There were also echoes of Arthur C. Clarke, in the descriptions of how an alien threat looming over Earth can change a civilization both for the better and for worse. The sheer inventiveness, the occasional beautiful passages, and the absolutely fantastic section about halfway through the book when things start moving along make even the worst dialogue worth it.

Plot summary (spoilers):

The novel picks up where the last left off: aliens called Trisolarans are coming to Earth to take it over, but they won't arrive for another 400 years. The Trisolarans have the technology to see anything that physically happens on Earth instantaneously even from that distance, so every one of Earth's battle plans will be laid out in front of them, although we do learn that they don't understand lying. We meet Luo Ji, a normal guy living a normal life. He once met Ye Wenjie (a character from the first book) and she told him to start the field of cosmic sociology, even giving him a few key points upon which to build. But he was a bad academic, and instead continued to live a practical, easy life where he doesn't get to attached to anyone or anything. We see a glimpse of how his life could be different when he accidentally imagines his dream girl too hard and she takes on a life of her own, in one of the novels stranger ramblings. Then, he becomes a Wallfacer.

The Wallfacers are humanity's desperate gamble. Each of the four (all male) Wallfacers will come up with a plan inside their mind, sharing it with no one, and be given all the resources of Earth to complete that plan. They are in fact encouraged to be erratic and hide their true goals, since the Trisolarans are aware of everything and might figure out plans that are too obvious. Luo Ji doesn't want to be a Wallfacer but can't reject the responsibility (though he tries) since no one can believe that what a Wallfacer says is true. So he instead uses his power to scour the world for his dream girl (successfully, and she doesn't even find this ordered-to-his-exact-specifications thing creepy, and they fall in love).

Zhang Beihai is a soldier in the Chinese navy who sees that the problems of Escapism and defeatism are going to be insurmountable if not counteracted immediately, and he does everything in his power to ensure they ARE counteractted. Escapism is the notion that some people want to flee the solar system to survive the Trisolarans, and defeatism is the related notion that the humans are surely doomed. More on these later.

After two of the Wallfacers' plans are revealed to include killing many or all humans and maybe most of the solar system even, Luo Ji and the other remaining Wallfacer go into hibernation. Zhang Beihai does as well, separately, as part of anti-defeatist reinforcements to the future. Luo Ji (and Shi Qiang, who readers will remember from the first book) and Zhang Beihai both awaken about 200 years later, and the description of the world at this halfway point is easily the coolest part of the book for me. It's a hard science world, but fantastical and full of whimsy, an almost unrecognizeable world due to both cultural, technological, and geographical change. The descriptions are beautiful and the story finally picks up. Despite a great tragedy shortly after Luo Ji hibernated, tchnology has shot ahead farther than anyone predicted, there's a giant fleet in space, and everyone in the world believes that the humans will undoubtedly defeat the Trisolarans. It's such an abrupt change that I thought perhaps the other Wallfacer's device, which was supposed to eliminate defeatism, had gone too far. But it's real! Luo Ji and Da Shi also realize that the Trisolarans still want Luo Ji dead, so they flee to the aboveground cities, which are mainly filled with hibernators.

Zhang Beihai is given command of the flagship of the space fleet as the first Trisolaran probe approaches. He immediately uses that command to fly the ship into the middle of space, because he's secretly been a defeatist and Escapist all along and he wants at least some of humanity to survive. The probe arrives and everyone is awed by its beauty and perfection and see it as a symbol of peace, until it destroys every ship in the entire fleet in like half an hour. Zhang Beihai's ship and the ones persuing it turn on each other, because they realize that with a permanent journey (as they don't have enough fuel to turn around) and limited resources, most of the ships should be cannibalized and the people killed, so that the life support systems can survive. Everything is suddenly very grim.

But Luo Ji comes to the rescue. The probe is blocking the sun, so they can't use it as an amplifier for any signals, but he sets up a mist of oil film throughout the solar system that will flash to any observing civilizations in the universe the location of Trisolaris (and because of that, also the location of Earth), and then ties the dispersal of that mist to his heartbeat. This forces the Trisolarans to negotiate with him, because if he kills himself, he kills them all - because he finally understands cosmic sociology, thanks to Zhang Beihai's fleet. There are limited resources in the solar system, and no one can be sure that any other civilization is benevolent, so any time someone's location is announced the safest bet is to destroy them if possible. The Trisolarans agree to a truce, and the book ends.

View all my reviews