Well, that was absolutely insane. Please excuse me while I go pick my jaw off of the floor.
The Dark Forest picks up not long after the end of book 1, and I admit, I was a bit confused at first. Because you see, it starts off really slow, so slow I was left wondering how it's possible this same author could've written the fast-paced and information-dense story that was its predecessor.
For most of Part I, we just meander along, seemingly without any point or much plot advancement at all. We come across random asides and the weirdest love story I have ever read. At one point I even thought to myself, Liu Cixin has lost his mojo. He blew his entire bag of tricks on book 1 and now he has nothing left for book 2. Ha, I have never been so glad to be wrong.
Because the moment I turned the pages to Part II, then bam, Liu Cixin is back! From then on, the story intensifies relentlessly into a crescendo of revelations that is sure to stun and satisfy any science fiction lover. Liu has a really interesting style of writing, in which he invites the reader to take a journey with him. He'll lay down breadcrumbs early, then come back later to coalesce them into fully-formed thoughts and ideas. As a reader, it makes for an extremely satisfying experience.
And the last 100 pages was the best 100 pages of anything I have ever read. I still have goosebumps just thinking about it. Liu Cixin, sir, well played!
But if the rest of the book was so amazing, what was going on with Part I? Well, I was talking to my husband about it, and he mentioned that it could be a common trope in Chinese literature. I think the Western equivalent is "zero to hero" but the Chinese version puts more emphasis on the zero part. The character is shown to be lazy and dithering for quite a while, until something finally comes along to force him to live up to his potential.
I have to touch upon the book's treatment of female characters. They come across as distinctly there to bolster the male characters' pride and reflect their glory. However, this is also the case with the younger characters in the book being there to bolster the older characters. I suspect it's because Chinese culture has always prized being male over female and being older over younger. It doesn't make it right (and in fact, I have rebelled against this my entire life), but I try not to be too harsh against an author who is accurately portraying the culture.
Regarding the translation, this book is translated by a different writer than book 1, and I personally preferred book 1's. I found this book's translation to be awkward at times, sometimes translating too literally and obscuring the meaning, while other times being too Western with the translation, so losing the cadence and style of Chinese that made book 1 such an effortless joy to read.
Even with the flaws, I've been loving this series so much and I think a big part is due to how fully it embodies the spirit of science fiction. Science fiction, more than any other genre, explores the social and technological aspects of humanity and ponders their consequences. It is a literature of ideas, if you will. But where Liu Cixin excels is not just in using these ideas, but also in fleshing them out to a degree never before seen and building them up into a grand epic tale. It truly is a feat to experience.
Readaroo Rating; 4 stars
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