Review: The Dark Forest

When contemplating whether or not I should read The Three-Body Problem, I ran into a bunch of reviews online that said: "Yeah, it's good and all, but it really just sets up for the second and third books". So when I finished the first book and wrote my silly review, I started immediately on the second to see where the story went.

Well, obviously it was excellent. The way Liu Cixin puzzles together a multi-threaded story in a hypothetical future world with such detail and imagination is very impressive. He loves a twist, and the high stakes of "survival of all humanity" really keeps you invested. Like my last review though, I could write thousands of words of praise for the author, but who cares for that because everyone already loves the book, and endless praise has already been writen. Here are some plot points that don't make sense to me, or I found funny.

The Chain of Believability

In these sci-fi books, authors layer a series of assertions together like a delicious lasagna. First, A happens. People feel a certain way, and so then they do B, and then that changes things, so C seems like a rational decision, etc... Each step is a link in a chain, and the whole chain is the story. The total verisimilitude (believability) of the story, for me, is the strength of the weakest link in the chain. Some of the following links in the chain that is The Dark Forest are looking very rusty:

Nobody figuring out the "spell" or thinking it's important

The book starts in the 21st century. Our good mate Luo Ji farts about for almost a decade doing essentially nothing after being selected as a Wallfacer. Suddenly he's like: "Oh shit, can I please send a message into space and then go to sleep for a really long time?" I'm pretty sure Mr Luo tells other people about his plan to blast out a message to the universe saying "This planet over here is sus". He tells the special wallfacer council that he cast a "spell" and refuses to elaborate.

The only reason to send communications is for someone to recieve them and show they exist. I refuse to believe his message wasn't screened/understood by other humans and shared. The man is a Wallfacer! He's incredibly famous! People pay attention to what he does! So humanity must know that if anything happens to the specific planet that Luo mentioned, there are some big bad aliens out there. Even Trisolaris clearly thinks this is important because right after sending it, they send additional ships to earth. Monitering this sus planet is very important! Which makes it so jaw droppingly bizare that 200 years later after his beauty sleep, Luo is like: "Oh hey guys, did anything happen to that planet?" and the government is like

Oh turns out it got fucking obliterated by aliens like a year ago but we forgot to look, and didn't think it would be important until now.

Excuse me, what?

Humanity becoming drunk on confidence

200 years in the future, humanity has mastered nuclear fusion and so has essentially unlimited energy. They're beaming it around wirelessly to power their cities. Thy cup of energy overfloweth. Humanity also has a huge space fleet. No progress in physics is made however due to the sophon lock.

In the 21st century the state of affairs is as follows:

In the 23rd century the state of affairs is as follows:

And humanity is collectively rejoicing, floating in a warm spa of self-congratulations. The fight will be over before it even begins, the Trisolarans don't stand a chance.

Is there really not a doubt in anyones mind that possibly the Trisolarans could do something, perhaps unexpected, with their well-known mastery of physics? It's well known that they have 12-dimensional supercomputers zooming around earth at the speed of light, instantly teleporting information back to Trisolaris. Is it truly impossible to concieve of a situation where they can maybe beat the Earth fleet?

This was one seriously weak link, that led immediately to another. This terminally positive attitude then leads to the earth disbanding the wallfacer project while two of the wallfacers are asleep, leaving Luo to wake up in a normal hospital where no less than 7 attempts on his life are immediately made. It's unbeliable that a government that spent millions keeping this man alive and protected, now doesn't care about him at all despite still being arguably the best weapon against Trisolaris that humans have.

SEND THE WHOLE FLEET

One tiny intercepter shows up in the galaxy and the army is like: "Yo, let's get every space ship we have, and SEND THEM ALL to intercept. EVERY SHIP."

Give me one good reason to send more than ~10 ships. I honestly can't think of one. The huge ensuing space-fight - arguably the most intense part of the book - would have played out quite differently if the droplet hadn't been able to take out every ship Earth had in a matter of minutes.

The Trisolarans not figuring out Luo Ji's Plan

I find it quite hard to believe that the Trisolarans couldn't figure out Luo Ji's plan. I mean, if he's moving around bombs in gas clouds on another project, sure, that seems unrelated. But at the moment this conversation occurs:

"Oh can I please have a heartbeat detecting deadman switch made for the project?"

"Why?"

"Err, no reason..."

surely these interplanetary geniuses are like:

Surely when he codes into his computer that the bombs should explode in a specific order, or when he calculates exactly how far away they need to be so that their detonation can be percieved as a signal, the Trisolarans cotton onto his plan and sophonically recuit some humans on Earth to kill him.

Why are all these men so thirsty?

Our good friend Mr Luo is such a chronic sad-boi that Liu Cixin managed to slip an entire chapter about a romantic trip in the forest with his sexy imaginary girlfriend into the book. Later, given unlimited government resources, he requests "One perfect wife please".

When the distinguished Zhang Beihai boards his new space-whip, he is begrudgingly handed the keys by the old Captain Dongfang Yanxu. This is a quote from when he meets her:

Her eyes were full of sunshine and vitality, and Zhang immediately trusted her, because the imprinted would never wear such an expression.

Damn, maybe the other three wallfacers could have confused the Trisolarans with a little more sunshine and vitality in their eyes.

Who keeps letting in these Wallbreakers

The Wallfacer/Wallbreaker interaction doesn't really seem like something that would happen in real life, but it's fun to imagine and read about, and an interesting plot device, so whatever. I feel like it's human nature enough that at least one of the wallfacers should have:

1. Yelled: "SECURITY!!!" and had them immediately dragged from the room before they could explain their plan.
2. Even if they did guess it correctly, put their hands on their hips and say "nuh uh".

Even if they did guess your plan, and you admit they guessed it, it's been 8 of the 400 years until Trisolarans arrive. Just think of another plan, don't kill yourself damn it.

Some Quotes I Thought Were Excellent

What comrade Zhang Beihai says is parculiar", a colonel said. "is steadfast faith not built upon science and reason? No faith is solid that is not founded on objective fact?

Sir... have you heard of religion?

And when a scientist asked if he should explain something he thought a wallfacer already knew:

You're permitted to be redundant

I'm stealing this.