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seraphjewel 's review for:
The Dark Forest
by Cixin Liu
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I thought this was much better than the previous book. It was still a little tough to get through, but it was more consistently interesting. I liked all the exchanges between the Wallbreakers and the Wallfacers. I liked all the different methods the characters were using to figure things out. I liked the moment on the mountains and how they were trying to find this woman. There were a lot of good moments of characters discussing morals or philosophy, and it was all very captivating for me.
I don't believe it's fair to criticize the book on how things were structured or certain sentence and word choices, since this is translated. I feel like it's probably better in the original Chinese. This is still very well-written, but I noticed a few odd technical things.
My only regret is not taking notes, because I've already forgotten all the characters' names. If I were to describe them, I'd have to say "the guy who had a kamikaze plan and was thinking of it as metaphoric fireflies" or "the guy who was afraid of water" and so forth. The characters were memorable because the author gave them interesting things to do, or had interesting things happen to them. Their names just didn't stick with me. There were a LOT of names and characters to keep track of, so it's good that the events were memorable even if the names weren't for me.
I'm glad that the author referenced Arthur C. Clarke, because this series really feels like the sort of thing he would write. He was very good at hard science fiction, while also exploring mankind and how they would react to space and aliens. He took a philosophical approach a lot, and that feels like what this series is doing.
I'm looking forward to the next part of the series much more! The way it was showing how much closer the aliens were getting was a nice bit of foreshadowing, and the time jump didn't even feel that jarring since the characters had to adjust right along with me. It's going great!
I don't believe it's fair to criticize the book on how things were structured or certain sentence and word choices, since this is translated. I feel like it's probably better in the original Chinese. This is still very well-written, but I noticed a few odd technical things.
My only regret is not taking notes, because I've already forgotten all the characters' names. If I were to describe them, I'd have to say "the guy who had a kamikaze plan and was thinking of it as metaphoric fireflies" or "the guy who was afraid of water" and so forth. The characters were memorable because the author gave them interesting things to do, or had interesting things happen to them. Their names just didn't stick with me. There were a LOT of names and characters to keep track of, so it's good that the events were memorable even if the names weren't for me.
I'm glad that the author referenced Arthur C. Clarke, because this series really feels like the sort of thing he would write. He was very good at hard science fiction, while also exploring mankind and how they would react to space and aliens. He took a philosophical approach a lot, and that feels like what this series is doing.
I'm looking forward to the next part of the series much more! The way it was showing how much closer the aliens were getting was a nice bit of foreshadowing, and the time jump didn't even feel that jarring since the characters had to adjust right along with me. It's going great!