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citylifejc 's review for:
The Dark Forest
by Cixin Liu
Oof.
This book gummed up my book reading for over a month and I almost quit reading it multiple times. I will say the end got A LOT better - it took me almost a month to read the first 2/3 but I finished the last 1/3 in a few days.
I did really enjoy Three Body Problem although part of that enjoyment was the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution for the start of the story and the foregrounding of the only compelling character in the series so far - Ye Wenjie
There are no interesting characters in this sequel. Not a one. There are still lots of interesting imaginative and compelling ideas concepts and themes at play - but there are also equally a lot of needless excursions into different concepts and plans that fill tons of pages and add up to nothing.
Basically nothing really happens until the last two hundred pages or so. Instead of things happening you get “people” theorizing and endlessly discussing what might happen, how it might happen, what they should do about it happening and categorizations of what different people think about possibilities of it happening. (I put “people” in quotes because every character is basically just a cipher for a point of view or idea. )
Also there is a huge subplot about a character creating and falling in love with an imaginary fantasy woman (who is devoid of independent personality and exists only to bring him joy) - bad enough. But then they find a REAL But then they find a REAL PERSON who is just as pathetic a half assed misogynist creation who exists only to love and inspire the male character.
Also everything in this series is set up to be about a race for development of technology yet somehow hibernation technology is fully achieved and possible and is a mature tech I guess discovered off “camera”?
I didn’t love this book if you couldn’t tell. Undecided what to do about book 3 now that I’m two books in. Might just read a summary.
This book gummed up my book reading for over a month and I almost quit reading it multiple times. I will say the end got A LOT better - it took me almost a month to read the first 2/3 but I finished the last 1/3 in a few days.
I did really enjoy Three Body Problem although part of that enjoyment was the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution for the start of the story and the foregrounding of the only compelling character in the series so far - Ye Wenjie
There are no interesting characters in this sequel. Not a one. There are still lots of interesting imaginative and compelling ideas concepts and themes at play - but there are also equally a lot of needless excursions into different concepts and plans that fill tons of pages and add up to nothing.
Basically nothing really happens until the last two hundred pages or so. Instead of things happening you get “people” theorizing and endlessly discussing what might happen, how it might happen, what they should do about it happening and categorizations of what different people think about possibilities of it happening. (I put “people” in quotes because every character is basically just a cipher for a point of view or idea. )
Also there is a huge subplot about a character creating and falling in love with an imaginary fantasy woman (who is devoid of independent personality and exists only to bring him joy) - bad enough. But then they find a REAL But then they find a REAL PERSON who is just as pathetic a half assed misogynist creation who exists only to love and inspire the male character.
Also everything in this series is set up to be about a race for development of technology yet somehow hibernation technology is fully achieved and possible and is a mature tech I guess discovered off “camera”?
I didn’t love this book if you couldn’t tell. Undecided what to do about book 3 now that I’m two books in. Might just read a summary.