The Dark Forest

I spent almost five hours reading this today. I literally couldn’t put it down. I love the way Liu wraps his own version of a future on Earth technologically with the political nature that would surround an alien strike from the future.

I don’t even know where to start. The book’s rendition of future technology was simply awesome; the descriptions of the spaceships, the underground living “pods” based on trees, and the screens everywhere felt like a pretty realistic future to me. Something I loved was the Wallfacer program, and in particular the relationship with the Wallbreakers. All three of the serious Wallfacers (at the beginning) ended up having extremely complex displays of strategy and misleading in order to achieve their plans, though in the end all were foiled by the Wallbreakers that watched their every move.

The sophons in particular are pretty interesting, as they almost transform human society into a Trisolaris one. Watching someone’s every movement basically exposes their true thoughts, feelings, desires, and emotions, similar to the way the Trisolaris civilization is. The acts of deception performed by the Wallfacers (which had to be completely mental) are truly pretty impressive. I guess it was pretty sad that the only methods that most of the Wallfacers came up with was the possibility of destruction for both humans and aliens.

I like Luo Ji’s character arc. He starts as someone who doesn’t care much for anything, including the girl he was with, but eventually does end up caring about the human race, even if his true motivation is his wife and daughter. I remember being really enchanted by his description of his imaginary girlfriend, and his excitement at finally finding the girl that he loves. Ahh, romantic. I’m unsure why he threatens MAD at the end though. Was it because that was his only bargaining strategy?

The tension during the book was extremely palpable. Spaceship Earth’s arc was devastating, yet appropriate, and the destruction of 2000 ships by the one teardrop missile was frightening. I don’t know if Earth will make it, and I’m guessing that it won’t (based off of the name of the series, Remembrance of Earth’s Past).

I absolutely adore this series, and I hope I finish the next book before summer ends!