The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Ugh, I have so many thoughts about this book. It really feels like there are two stories going on in this one - on one hand, you have this really cool science fiction/sociological study of how humanity would react to crises of increasing intensity, and on the other hand you have a slog through the worst romance novel you've read in your life.
I loved The Three Body Problem for its science fiction and grounded worldbuilding, creating a setting that felt like an accurate reflection of our own world. The Dark Forest delivered on that same promise somewhat, but I can't help but feel like it was heavily bogged down by Luo Ji's story line. I hate to say it, but I really couldn't stand his character at all. Mild spoilers ahead for a significant portion of the book, since I need to talk about this.
It has been said in other reviews about this book (and I know because I kept on checking reviews while reading this book to make sure I wasn't going insane) but the author's treatment of women is abhorrent here. And I felt like it was no more clear than in Luo Ji's "romance" subplot. A large amount of his time in the book is spent watching him long for his "perfect woman", someone who is described as naiive, innocent, subservient, untouched by the modern world and in desperate need of protecting from a big strong man. And when given the power of a Wallfacer, someone offered nearly limitless resources to execute a plan to help humanity face the Trisolarans, Luo Ji uses those resources to hunt down a woman who meets his exact specifications, marry her, and have a kid with her. And no sooner than he has married this "perfect woman" and had a kid with her, the story takes them and freezes them in literal hibernation so that Luo Ji can FINALLY have some sort of motivation to participate in the story. Not only do you have to trudge through nearly 300 pages of this man's gross pining over a fictional perfectly subservient, almost childlike woman, you never even get any payoff for all of it because she gets thrown in a freezer when the plot needs her to. It was genuinely exhausting, and a large part of why this book took me so long to read.
On the other hand, though, when this book did step away from Luo Ji to expand on its science fiction premises, it really did shine. I love theoretical physics and anthropology and astronomy and all of the different fields that come together to bring the "science" into science fiction, and this book really delivered on its science in spades. I can see how, if one was able to look past Luo Ji's plotline, this series really has the potential to go down as some great quintessential science fiction. Unfortunately, Luo Ji's story was so dominant here that I just can't look past it. I honestly dread thinking about rereading this book knowing that I'd have to put in work to skip his sections.
I feel bad writing this review because I really wanted to love this book. I loved The Three Body Problem, and I loved the science fiction in The Dark Forest, but the actual act of reading this book was such a chore. I still plan on reading the last book in this trilogy eventually, because the ending of this book did make me excited to see where the story might go from here, but I think I'm going to need to take a break from it for a bit. I need to read something with better characters to clear my palate.
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