The Dark Forest - Liu Cixin: My opinion without spoilers

1. Introduction

► Publication year: 2008

► Genre: Sci-fi, fantasy.  

► Themes: Chinese culture, space war, extra-terrestrial beings, technology, physics, military, politics, cryogenics, deception. 

► Pages: 545

This is my second book by Liu Cixin. I read it in English and really I liked it. I think it is interesting. Read my short, spoiler-free review on Goodreads. And read some criticism with spoilers, here.

2. Title and structure

★★★★★

Great title. And it delivers within the book! The Dark Forest theory is definitely worth thinking about. Does it exist in reality? It sounds plausible. 

The structure of the book is not something the author really paid attention to. 

3. Themes

★★★★★

3.1. World-building

★★★★✩

This second book is sub-par with the high level of science and philosophical inventiveness, creativity, and freshness introduced in the prior book. Nonetheless, the world-building is decent. I prefer the first book but I deeply appreciate that this second one is different from the first one. The ideas of escapism were really intriguing and added a permanent, additional layer to the plot that made it more interesting.

4. Style

★★★★✩

I like Liu Cixin's imaginative style. He can write better with fewer pages but overall, the style is useful for the plot. 

4.1. Dialogues

★★★✩✩

The dialogues are not something that I could praise in Liu Cixin's writing. Dialogues are one of the hardest things to do well in writing and I don't expect a sci-fi writer to be exceedingly good at this.

Also, we need to take into account cultural particularities and the English translation. As readers, we are missing some subtleties in the overall style, technique, and dialogues of the author.  

4.2. Technique

★★★★✩

Liu is not that good with ornamented, metaphoric descriptions of things, landscapes, and the like. I didn't like the way he tried to make "beautiful" passages with analogies, similes, and other rhetoric figures. I didn't connect with them. They were unnecessarily ornamental for my taste. 

Although he's a very good narrator, in this second book of the trilogy he uses many pages unnecessarily, the plot stagnates several times, and it loses its pace with useless, trivial interactions (for example, the appointment with the major at the end). Other than that, I think his technique is solid. 

4.3. Pace

★★★✩✩

The book has a good pace overall and it keeps you reading, with some exceptions that, sadly, are not just a few. 

5. Characters

★★★✩✩

The characters were mostly OK. I'm always surprised with good characters in sci-fi because the genre is not strong at this point (as well as with dialogues) and I have come to accept that characters just fill a function for the plot.     

Highlights

Zheng Beihai. His arc is very well-developed, and as someone mentioned on Goodreads, he's the fifth wallfacer, and perhaps the best of them. 

The bad and the ugly

Luo Ji. Humdrum. Boring. Dull. Simple. Uninteresting. A good wallfacer for me as a reader, because I didn't care for him nor did I see something appealing in his arc. 

6. Depthness and relevance

★★★✩✩

There are so many things the author could have mentioned, but he didn't because the book would have been endless. The book reaches the depthness it needs. 

There are good references to science, like the Fermi Paradox; and also good references to big names in the genre, like Verne and Asimov, and I'm sure, many other references I didn't catch. 

The topics covered in this book are relevant on various levels, from politics to the military, and from science and technology. Of course, encounters with extra-terrestrial will always be a relevant topic in the genre. 

7. Plot

★★★★★

The plot is good and attractive. 

The best of the plot

The universe as a Dark Forest is a great concept. Its clarity, simplicity, and philosophical foundations are strong and truly inspiring, and attractive. It's so sad that this idea was only developed at the end of the book, with no hints whatsoever and within so few pages. I got more pages on the stupid first years of Luo as a wallfacer than on this great idea!

8. Ending

★★★✩✩

The ending was a bit weak for me. 

9. Conclusion

★★★★✩

Very decent book, worth reading. A bit longer than necessary. Could do better with character's arcs -especially women- and dialogues. Liu Cixin is a good author, but definitely not the best we've ever seen. 

Recommended to: 

Readers who like to invest a lot of time in the universe of a trilogy.