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The Dark Forest
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 22 hrs and 36 mins
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Publisher's summary
Soon to be a Netflix original series!
"Wildly imaginative." (President Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy)
This near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking listeners to experience this multiple-award-winning phenomenon from Cixin Liu, China's most beloved science fiction author.
In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion - in just four centuries' time. The aliens' human collaborators may have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth's defense plans are totally exposed to the enemy. Only the human mind remains a secret. This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a daring plan that grants four men enormous resources to design secret strategies, hidden through deceit and misdirection from Earth and Trisolaris alike.
Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is a total unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer and sociologist, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he's the one Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead.
The Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy
The Three-Body Problem
The Dark Forest
Death's End
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Ball Lightning
Supernova Era
To Hold Up the Sky (forthcoming)
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From the furthest reaches of space to the microbiology of pandemics and gene manipulation, to the future implications of technology for societies similar to our own, science fiction is a fascinating genre that offers listeners a wide variety of ways to access its themes. In looking for the best sci-fi audiobook series, it can be difficult to know where to start due to the genre's sheer number of iterations and variations. But what these series have in common is an acute devotion to telling a good story, as well as fully building out the worlds therein. The writing is enhanced by the creative and impassioned narration.
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Great story, mediocre audio book.
- By Amazon Customer on 04-17-12
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The Engines of God
- By: Jack McDevitt
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Humans call them Monument-Makers. An unknown race, they left stunning alien statues scattered on distant planets throughout the galaxy, encoded with strange inscriptions that defy translation. Searching for clues about the Monument-Makers, teams of 23rd century linguists, historians, engineers and archaeologists have been excavating the enigmatic alien ruins on a number of planets, uncovering strange, massive false cities made of solid rock. But their time is running out.
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Conceptually intriguing, but uneven writing style
- By Michael G Kurilla on 05-12-11
By: Jack McDevitt
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Altered Starscape
- Andromedan Dark, Book 1
- By: Ian Douglas
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The year is 2162. Thirty-eight years after first contact, Lord Commander Grayson St. Clair leads the Tellus Ad Astra on an unprecedented expedition to the Galactic Core, carrying more than a million scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and AIs. Despite his reservations about their alien hosts, St. Clair is deeply committed to his people - especially after they're sucked into a black hole and spat out four billion years in the future. Civilizations have risen and fallen. The Andromeda Galaxy is drifting into the Milky Way. And Earth is most certainly a distant memory.
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painful
- By AndyVee on 02-04-17
By: Ian Douglas
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Veiled Alliances
- A Prequel Novella to the Saga of Seven Suns
- By: Kevin J. Anderson
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook shows the origin of the green priests on Theroc, the first Roamer skymining operations on a gas-giant planet, the discovery of the Klikiss robots entombed in an abandoned alien city, the initial Ildiran expedition to Earth, the rescue of the generation ship Burton and the tragedy that leads to sinister breeding experiments. Veiled Alliances is an excellent starting point for readers new to the Saga, as well as an unforgettable adventure for fans of the series.
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Start with Book One
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 06-05-14
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Starplex
- By: Robert J. Sawyer
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett, Robert J. Sawyer
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Twenty years after the discovery of artificial wormholes launches Earth space exploration to unforeseeable heights, Starplex Director Keith Lansing investigates a mysterious vessel that soon threatens the station with intergalactic war.
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Tribute to Arthur C. Clarke
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 06-23-12
By: Robert J. Sawyer
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2001
- A Space Odyssey
- By: Arthur C. Clarke
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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It has been 40 years since the publication of this classic science-fiction novel that changed the way we look at the stars and ourselves. From the savannas of Africa at the dawn of mankind to the rings of Saturn as man adventures to the outer rim of our solar system, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a journey unlike any other.
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The Movie Makes More Sense Now
- By Douglas on 12-10-08
By: Arthur C. Clarke
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The Dreaming Void
- Void Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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AD 3580. The Intersolar Commonwealth has spread through the galaxy to over a thousand star systems. It is a culture of rich diversity with a place for everyone. A powerful navy protects it from any hostile species that may lurk among the stars. For Commonwealth citizens, even death has been overcome.
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What can I say
- By Randall on 05-08-18
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The Skylark of Space
- A Pulp-Lit Classic Edition
- By: E.E. "Doc" Smith, Lee Hawkins Garby
- Narrated by: Finn J.D. John
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In a fortuitous laboratory accident, crack scientist Richard Seaton has unlocked the secret of atomic energy. Now, partnered with his wealthy engineering-genius friend Martin Crane, he's preparing to give the world the gift of limitless, virtually free energy - and of space travel. But others want Seaton's secret for themselves.
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So dissapointing
- By D. Wells on 08-30-22
By: E.E. "Doc" Smith, and others
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Event
- By: David L. Golemon
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1947, an unidentified object crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. There were no survivors. Now it's happened again. But this time, two creatures have emerged from the wreckage alive.
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A Great Series.
- By Frank on 07-29-13
By: David L. Golemon
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Immortality
- By: Kevin Bohacz
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 26 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Without warning, something has gone terribly awry. In the remote and unnoticed places of the world, small pockets of death begin occurring. As the initially isolated extinctions spread, the world's eyes focus on this unimaginable horror and chaos. Out of the ecological imbalance, something new and extraordinary is evolving and surviving to fill the voids left by these extinctions. Evolution is operating in ways no one could have expected, and environmental damage may be the catalyst.
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Good End of World Thriller
- By John S on 11-04-14
By: Kevin Bohacz
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if you loved the three body problem . a must
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These 11 stories, including five Chinese Galaxy Award winners, are a blazingly original ode to planet Earth, its pasts, and its futures. Liu's fiction takes the listener to the edge of the universe and the end of time, to meet stranger fates than we could have ever imagined. With a melancholic and keen understanding of human nature, Liu's stories show humanity's attempts to reason, navigate, and above all, survive in a desolate cosmos.
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Extraordinary book!
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Summary of Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem, Book 2: The Dark Forest
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The Three-Body Problem is a trilogy of science fiction novels written by Cixin Liu. The initial novel covered the developing relationship between the alien Trisolaran civilization and humankind. The Dark Forest follows Earth’s compounding troubles as they prepare for the looming Trisolaran invasion as well as internal political turmoil. However, Earth manages to recover somewhat from Trisolaran subterfuge with the development of science, technology, and warships ultimately better prepared to stand against impending invasion.
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Not space what I wanted
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To Hold Up the Sky
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From Cixin Liu, the New York Times best-selling author of The Three-Body Problem, To Hold Up the Sky is a breathtaking collection of imaginative science fiction.
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Superlatives all around!
- By restless consumer on 02-15-21
By: Cixin Liu
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Supernova Era
- By: Cixin Liu, Joel Martinsen - translator
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
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Eight light years away, a star has died, creating a supernova event that showers Earth in deadly levels of radiation. Within a year, everyone over the age of 13 will die. And so the countdown begins. Parents apprentice their children and try to pass on the knowledge needed to keep the world running. But when the world is theirs, the last generation may not want to continue the legacy left to them. And in shaping the future however they want, will the children usher in an era of bright beginnings or final mistakes?
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A little torn by this one
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When Chen’s parents are incinerated before his eyes by a blast of ball lightning, he devotes his life to cracking the secret of the mysterious natural phenomenon. His search takes him to stormy mountaintops, an experimental military weapons lab, and an old Soviet science station. The more he learns, the more he comes to realize that ball lightning is just the tip of a new frontier in particle physics. Although Chen’s quest provides a purpose for his life, his reasons for chasing his elusive quarry come into conflict with soldiers and scientists who have motives of their own.
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if you loved the three body problem . a must
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Extraordinary book!
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Not space what I wanted
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From Cixin Liu, the New York Times best-selling author of The Three-Body Problem, To Hold Up the Sky is a breathtaking collection of imaginative science fiction.
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Superlatives all around!
- By restless consumer on 02-15-21
By: Cixin Liu
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Supernova Era
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Eight light years away, a star has died, creating a supernova event that showers Earth in deadly levels of radiation. Within a year, everyone over the age of 13 will die. And so the countdown begins. Parents apprentice their children and try to pass on the knowledge needed to keep the world running. But when the world is theirs, the last generation may not want to continue the legacy left to them. And in shaping the future however they want, will the children usher in an era of bright beginnings or final mistakes?
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A little torn by this one
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Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.
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A very pleasant surprise
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When a Tyrannosaurus rex suffers pain from meat trapped between its enormous teeth, a nearby colony of ants risks entering the great creature's maw to make their own repast from the remains of the dinosaur's most recent meal. From this humble beginning, over the course of millennia, a symbiotic civilization achieves amazing advances, facing dangers and exploiting opportunities at every turn.
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Maddeningly Accessible
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Summary of Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem, Book 1: Remembrance of Earth's Past
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The Three-Body Problem is a series of science fiction novels written by Cixin Liu. The trilogy contains Book I: Remembrance of Earth's Past, Book II: The Dark Forest, and Book III: Death’s End. The initial novel we will be covering follows the developing relationship between the alien Trisolaran civilization and humankind. This book is the first of The Three-Body Problem trilogy and won the 73rd Hugo Award for Best Novel after translation by Ken Liu in 2012.
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Good Summary
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On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
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The Shrike Awaits. Enter The Time Tombs...
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Service Model
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Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into its core programming, they murder their owner. The robot discovers they can also do something else they never did before: They can run away. Fleeing the household they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating into ruins and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is having to find a new purpose.
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Another banger from Tchaikovsky
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A View from the Stars
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- Unabridged
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A VIEW FROM THE STARS features a range of short works from the past three decades of New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer, and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years.
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This was an awesome read!
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Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
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Bazinga
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Artemis
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Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.
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A ferrari with no motor
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Summary of Cixin Liu’s The Three-body Problem Book 3 Death’s End
- A Full Interpretation (Summary Of Cixin Liu’s The Three-body Problem Trilogy)
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The Three-Body Problem is a series of science fiction novels written by Cixin Liu. The trilogy contains Book I: Remembrance of Earth's Past, Book II: The Dark Forest, and Book III: Death’s End. The initial novel covered the developing relationship between the alien Trisolaran civilization and humankind. The Dark Forest followed Earth’s compounding troubles as they grappled with the looming Trisolaran invasion as well as internal political turmoil. Death’s End marks the finale of the Three-Body Problem Trilogy.
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A must read summary!!
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By: Bell Young
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Drive
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A short story set in the universe of James S. A. Corey's NYT best-selling Expanse series. Now a Prime Original series. This story will be available in the complete Expanse story collection, Memory’s Legion.
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Fun little short story
- By Carson on 12-28-21
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Dune
- By: Frank Herbert
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Orlagh Cassidy, Euan Morton, and others
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- Unabridged
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Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.
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This classic deserves better
- By Matthew Salvo on 07-01-21
By: Frank Herbert
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El problema de los tres cuerpos [The Three-Body Problem]
- Trilogía de los Tres Cuerpos 1 [Trilogy of the Three Bodies, Book 1]
- By: Cixin Liu
- Narrated by: Francesc Belda
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Escucha ahora el primer libro de la «Trilogía de los Tres Cuerpos», el fenómeno editorial chino que ha conquistado al mundo y ha ganado el premio Hugo 2015 a la mejor novela. El problema de los tres cuerpos es la primera novela no escrita originariamente en inglés galardonada con el premio Hugo, el Nobel del género de la ciencia ficción. Su autor, Cixin Liu, ha sido considerado el gran descubrimiento del género y es capaz de vender cuatro millones de ejemplares solamente en China y de hacerse con prescriptores de la talla de Barack Obama....
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Ciencia ficción científica
- By A. Jiménez on 08-13-19
By: Cixin Liu
What listeners say about The Dark Forest
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- averageconsumer
- 08-14-15
A New Favorite
Where does Dark Forest rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
The title of my review says it. If you enjoyed The Three Body Problem, you'll enjoy this too. There are good reasons why many science fiction fans around the world find Cixin Liu so noteworthy.
What did you like best about this story?
He writes highly distinctive and original space opera, on a grand scale and in an entirely modern way. And he does it while investing his fully-imagined characters with specific and very interesting complexities.
The society-building, world-building and alien-building here are equally outstanding. And if you like interesting science with your science fiction- it is offered in abundance.
Too many books these days are thinly-disguised clones of some other writer's original success. I'm so bored with copies of copies.
But that makes it exhilarating to encounter a new modern master of this genre, who tells his own tale on his own creative terms.
Which scene was your favorite?
If a book is interesting enough in a sustained way, as this one is, there will be no such thing as a single favorite scene. This is not a question asked of a great whole. Also, this question solicits spoilers.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Far from it. This is a highly complex story which requires and deserves time and attention- not fast food.
Any additional comments?
Some may also like that there are a few common contemporary features absent in this trilogy so far.
The author doesn't feel a pressing literary need to add explicit sex, endless cursing, or gratuitous space battles to the clever unfolding of good ideas.
I haven't finished this book yet, and even if I had, I wouldn't describe more of the story itself here. Of all things book-review related, I dislike spoilers the most.
One can discover enough about the general story outline just from the publisher's description. I read reviews for some sense of what reviewers think makes a particular book worth buying.
So I am just here to try to say why I am enjoying this trilogy so thoroughly, and to lend support to a first-rate writer who is new to me.
The narrator this time is not Luke Daniels. When I saw that change I almost didn't buy the audiobook. I'm fed up with poor narrators, and will happily read a book rather than suffer.
The short audio sample only told me that P.J. Ochlan wasn't bad. I couldn't really tell how I would find his narration after a while. But I took a chance, and found I liked him just fine.
There is plenty to appreciate in the non-intrusive reading he gives here. He didn't stumble over words (even the Chinese), kept to a good flowing cadence, and has a very pleasant voice.
He reads intelligently, with full comprehension of what he is reading- and that alone has a high value. So I have no complaints. I will deduct one star simply because he happens not to be Luke Daniels.
In listening, you might at first find the sounds of the Chinese names and places a bit difficult to remember. You could write them down, but I learned them the easy way.
Just by paying attention and letting the story flow through me, it wasn't long before my mind remembered most of the characters and places by itself.
To sum it up: there is an exceptionally thoughtful and original story here, wrapped up and well presented in equally fine writing.
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66 people found this helpful
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- David
- 03-26-17
Epic space opera heavy on ideas and characters
A Big Ideas book that harkens back to authors like Niven, Pournelle, or Asimov, who created grand galaxy-spanning plots governed by hard science. Cixin Liu pays more attention to the people who inhabit his universe, though. Even though The Dark Forest spans centuries and involves a conflict between two civilizations that will literally engulf stars, the main characters are actually people, not the physics and technology.
That said, I was quite conscious throughout the reading of this book that it was translated from Chinese. The style, the way in which people are described, in terms of infinitely nuanced facial expressions, emotions conveyed through mediums not often emphasized in the Western literary tradition, was different, as was the pacing and dialog. Cixin Liu is obviously a aficionado of Western science fiction (there are numerous call-outs to Western literature in the book), yet this novel had a different "flavor" in the same way that I've noticed Russian science fiction and fantasy novels (of which I've read a few) are also recognizably distinct in character.
The Dark Forest is a sequel to the Hugo-winning The Three-Body Problem. That book ended with the Trisolaran invasion fleet heading to Earth from four light years away. Since their fleet is traveling at sub-light speed, that gives Earth several centuries to prepare. Plenty of time, right? Except that defense plans are complicated by the fact that thanks to quantum trickery, Earth is already monitored by omnipresent "sophons" that give the Trisolarans instant real-time intelligence on everything Earthlings do.
The one advantage humans have is that Trisolaran thoughts are transparent to one another, and thus they have a poor understanding of deception or hiding one's intentions. To them, to communicate is by definition to openly reveal all one's plans.
To prepare a defense that the Trisolarans can't anticipate, the UN institutes the "Wallfacer" project, in which four men are appointed to become Wallfacers. Given almost unlimited resources and authority, their jobs are to independently conceive and execute a plan to defend Earth without telling anyone what they're up to.
The Wallfacer storylines are strange but interesting, requiring a lot of suspension of disbelief even if the physics behind their schemes seems somewhat plausible. They develop grand plans to launch super-megaton stellar hydrogen bombs or robot space fleets, each of which is eventually revealed to be a devious scheme within a scheme, all of them extraordinarily unlikely and yet believable. Opposing the Wallfacers are human collaborators, who create a "Wallbreaker" assigned to oppose each Wallfacer.
The primary protagonist of the book, Luo Ji, is a lazy, greedy, gambler and failed academic who, quite to his own shock and dismay, is made one of the Wallfacers. Naturally, he becomes the Wallfacer upon whom the survival of the human race will ultimately depend.
There are lots of recurring themes in The Dark Forest that only occurred to me later in the book, and more that will probably occur to me as I think about it some more. The way in which the very act of communicating can be a threat, for example, is revealed in the climax of the novel, where the title is also explained, and then you will realize how cleverly the author foreshadowed this in the first book.
The Dark Forest is an alien invasion story, a space opera with epic spaceship battles, a far future scientific romance, and here and there a bit of modern political allegory. I enjoyed it more than the first book, and I quite liked the first book. This is the second of a trilogy, and given how this volume ends, I am really not sure what to expect in the third book. But I'll be reading it soon.
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- Nancy
- 11-04-16
Great themes and ideas for a future history
Any additional comments?
What an interesting book, full of very well thought out ideas. I love books that make me question the universe and what I know about it, this book does that and leaves me wondering about the various themes it proposes. That's not to say that it's a perfect book, there are problems, but we'll get into that in a minute.
The plot is pretty good. It takes up where the last book lets off. The earth is doomed. The inhabitants of Tri-Solaris have decided that they are going to move in due to the danger their world is in due to the Three-Body Problem that their stars have created. They see it as their only way to survive. They also think that we're just in the way. Using their superior technology, the can monitor every thing we do, there are no secrets from them. They have also blocked our future technological progress, so that we can't advance beyond their ability to destroy us. So, what are we left to do? How do we face this threat.
I think Liu Cixin has done a great job answering those questions. His understanding of political, sociological, and physical science is pretty darn good. He uses that knowledge to great effect, describing how society would handle this over a long period of time. I did think there were a few times where the plot bogged down a bit and I thought about fast forwarding, but I was worried I'd miss something important, so I didn't.
Where he runs into trouble, in my opinion, and it's a minor issue, since it's common with these types of "hard" science fiction books, is with the individual characters. Only a handful of characters gets a true personality. The rest of the characters serve the story and interact with the those few characters who are important. Worse, the female characters are only there to push the main character on. The only life they have is what the main character needs them to have and then they disappear.
That being said, that is a common problem for this genre. I'm not saying that it shouldn't change, just that it's, unfortunately, common.
Anyway, I did enjoy the book for it's themes. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series to see how he picks things up and the direction he takes things.
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- Golanka
- 05-13-19
The middle of an amazing ride.
(This is the same review as for "Death's End," the last book in this Trilogy)
This trilogy is mind-bending. The concepts discussed and distance covered are huge. The events are impossible to predict, and sometimes hard to understand. All of the ideas presented are at least somewhat based in actual science (mostly physics). So I guess that makes it "true" science fiction.
Again, I cannot over-emphasize the scope of this book--in terms of time and in terms of space. An amazing ride.
There are some things to nit-pick: Sometimes "the world" or more precisely "the population" seems to learn of events and decisions in an incredibly short time, and some decisions made by those in charge feel a bit forced or simplistic. A larger issue is the treatment of "masculine" and "feminine" traits. These traits are described as if they are set in stone (I got the feeling that at times that the sentence I just read may as well have started with "All women think..." or "All men think...")
While I just spent more time talking about the nits than the stuff I liked, these negatives were not enough to turn this into a book (sorry, trilogy) that I won't recommend. I do recommend it--wholeheartedly.
P.J. Ochlan does a fantastic job of narration, slightly changing his voice (sometimes more than slightly) for each of the myriad characters.
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- Kyle Siegrist
- 02-27-19
Love this series!
Honestly, I struggled a lot to finish this book and the one before. However, if you put in the time and open your mind, this book goes above and beyond expectation. An amazing mix of science, philosophy, and anthropology.
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- Michael G Kurilla
- 10-25-18
Prep for an alien invasion
Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest is the sequel to the Three Body Problem. At this point, Earth is beginning preparations for the expected invasion 4 centuries in the future. Due to total surveillance by the Trisolarans sophons, a unique program is arranged where four individuals are given free rein to devise their own plans with the strategic intent kept only in their heads. Termed the wallfacers, the Chinese participant devises a strategy to "hex" a star. Following several centuries in hibernation he awakes to find himself a disgrace, along with the rest of wallfacer program and an upbeat Earth believing their technical dominance over the eventual invasion. The "hexed" star is destroyed and the Earth's military might is decimated by a single Trisolaran probe and Lou Ji is redrafted to an eventual one man against an entire civilization stand-off.
The sci-elements include sophons, subatomic AI that allow for total surveillance and inhibit scientific development. Earth's spacefaring technology advances in an unremarkable fashion. Alien tech remains largely inscrutable. Most intriguing is cosmic sociology that forms the basis of the star hex as well as a possible explanation for the Fermi paradox.
The narration is well done with reasonable character distinction. Pacing is good.
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- Paul
- 11-28-15
Wonderful follow up
I enjoyed this on more than the first. It is a fantastic follow up and it brings more to the table without being too much. The twists and turns are wonderfully thought out and in line with the story telling. This alleviates any Deus ex machina type revelation.
It's main theme shares with many other great sci fi novels/universes and conveys it uniquely.
Great job.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-07-17
Dull Start, Strong End
This is a trilogy, not independent books in a series. If you haven't read the 3 Body Problem, put this down and go read it.
The handful of bad reviews seem to come from people who never finish the series after stopping somewhere in the first half of this book. It can be slow, but it ends strong and I felt the first half made more sense when given context by the second half.
Aside from the pace of the first half, my only complaint is that no book comes out completely unscathed from a translation. I had the nagging feeling that I was missing some subtleties that were lost in the translation, and worse, I had the sense that some unnatural dialog was added when the translation may have been unclear.
Overall, a very enjoyable book that left me eager to start the 3rd book.
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- Norman G
- 11-17-15
Miss the original narrator
Love the story, can't wait for the third installment to come out on audible. The narrator from "the three body problem" did a much better job. It was much easier to discern characters from his performance. It's not to say that this narrator is bad, I just hope they use the original one on the next book.
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- Your Friendly Neighborhood Trex
- 09-23-19
My favorite Book in a while
This book is my favorite of the series. I was fully invested from the start and enjoyed every minute of it.
The amount of scientific detail that goes into these books is amazing. The writing style is some of the best I have read. Cixin Liu is amazing at establishing metaphors and really helping you understand his characters and what they are like and what they are feeling. I have never felt so connected to a book series before.
I loved how long the books are too.
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