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.

66 people found this helpful

Amazing

I've been inhaling science fiction for almost 50 years. This book had several major ideas I hadn't seen before, including an interesting take on the Fermi paradox.

This is hard science fiction. There is a fair bit of delayed gratification where he seems to have wandered off into the weeds and you wonder what his editor was smoking, but then he comes back, taps it gently, the egg opens, and you realize that you were set up. Beautiful.

58 people found this helpful

Narrator terrible returning and buying kindle copy

Any additional comments?

Love this series! Needs to be re-recorded with narrator from book one. This narrator made almost no attempt to modulate his voice between different characters making it so I couldn't tell who was supposed to be saying what during dialogue exchanges. I hope they return to the first narrator for the next installment. Some of the voices were a bit cheesy, but they fit the characters and made it much easier to follow.

36 people found this helpful

Terrible narrator

The narration for this audiobook has been slowed down to increase the duration of the audio, and the voice sounds like it has been digitally modulated for more consistent pacing or intonation. In other words, the narrator sounds like text-to-speech and drolls on in an unbearably slow monotone.

There is almost no inflection in the narration. The narrator often does not change his voice for different characters, and when he does, the change is extremely subtle. This makes it hard to follow conversations, and hard to pay attention to the narration in general.

I don't know why they didn't stick with the narrator who recorded the previous book, as he did a perfectly adequate job. The new guy is absolutely atrocious and unbearable to listen to. Avoid at all costs.

26 people found this helpful

Come for the ideas, not the characters

A very long book that suffered a bit from poor character development (particularly as regards female characters), a lackluster translation and a robotic performance by the audiobook reader, P.J. Ochlan.

Still, if you can overlook those (considerable) obstacles, there are lots of interesting ideas in this novel. While there is plenty of hard science, what takes center stage here is social science and even philosophy. One of the drivers of the plot is that the aliens do not understand the concept of deceit because of the way language and thought work for them. Even though Mieville covered this concept brilliantly in “Embassytown” it is so intriguing I can see why Liu used it here. Other ideas explored include what does it mean to live a good life and to what lengths will a civilization go to survive.

There are also beautiful images that I suspect would read like poems if rendered in the original Chinese. The description of a brain image as tiny star-like particles in the Milky Way and even the description of the battle with the Trisolaran scout ship are two examples that I bookmarked.

26 people found this helpful

Translate it again! Ken is much better

I read the Chinese version before this one. Joel Martinsen is not doing a good job at all. Parts related with ball lighten are deleted.
Go back and publish it again! This is a book deserve better!
Besides, Chang Weisi is ponounced totally wrong, and it is not hard to pronounce at all! I mean what's your problem? Just let a Chinese guy or Google translator say it to you and you would not make this error. How hard can it be?

23 people found this helpful

interesting book ... Terrible narrator.

What made the experience of listening to The Dark Forest the most enjoyable?

Its a good story and an interesting spin off the first in the series.

What didn’t you like about P. J. Ochlan’s performance?

The Narrator sounds like a robot. Very monotone and not much "feeling" when reading. The

22 people found this helpful

terrible reader

the reader used stereotypical voices for different genders and races. his reading ess very forced and never sounded like real people talk.

21 people found this helpful

Horrible Accents

This is a phenomenal book by a Chinese author. The series place mostly in China. Most of the main characters are Chinese. So why am I listening to a white dude butchering Asian accents? I’d much rather hear the American and European characters through the voice of a Chinese voice actor. -White Girl

18 people found this helpful

I am your Wall-Breaker

Any additional comments?

The words "I am your Wall-Breaker" being spoken made me tremble with anticipation. I'll mention a bit more on that later. To begin with, this book is the Sequel to the "The Three Body Problem". Three Body Problem finished with while not exactly a cliff hanger, it was definitely did not complete most of the major plot points. The Dark Forest picks up on right on the heels of its predecessor and introduces both new characters and uses familiar characters. Let me say that if you have it read the Three Body Problem you will probably be lost and confused if you jump directly into the Dark Forest. After listening to the first three chapters of "The Dark Forest", I decided to go back and re-read the "Three Body Problem". Most authors when writing a sequel give a quick summary or explain major plot points of the previous books, this does not happen in the dark forest but jumps directly into major scenes with important characters. Let's put it this way, if you cant remember what a sophont is (hoped I guessed the spelling on that right, since I've only ever listened to the audiobooks) or what it was doing to the world, The Dark Forest expects you to know that information from the first book and doesn't do any recaps or extra explanations, which in my personal opinion was great cause it just left more space for the author to tell this story.

Now while the first book was more of a scifi alien mystery book, this book focuses on mankinds a reaction too the technology lock the earth has been put under. The only safe way to his information from the incoming alien fleet is to keep that information in your own head. So Earth task 4 individuals to become wall-facers, people who are to implement plans and strategies to save mankind while keeping it all in their own heads so that the aliens figure out their plans through direct spying. Hence the creation, of the Wall-Breakers, humans who sympathy lies with the invading aliens and who have taken on the job to observe the wall-facer's and deduce their true plans/strategies and expose these both to the aliens and the world in general before their plans can come to fruition. Hence when the words "I am your Wall-Breaker" appear, this lead to some of the most interesting and thought provoking scenes in the story.

As for narration, losing Luke Daniels was quite disheartening. While P.J. Ochlan does a fine job in narrating, his rendition/reading of characters is very different from the way they were portrayed in the first book. For me the biggest, disconnect was with the Police Officer Da Shurr. Due to the fact that Mr. Ochlan voices him so diff entry from Mr. Daniels, I found that I had to keep reminding myself that this was the same character from the first book, not a new character. That being said P. J. Ochlan does a good job with his reading but be prepared that you probably won't recognize characters by voice anymore. While this detracts from the overall enjoyment of the listening experience it is still a decent narration.

For my final thoughts on the book. I personally was a little disappointed at how things wrapped up at the end. A little to fast and anti-climatic for my personal taste. I can't say anymore without spoiling anything. I give it a 4/5 which is still great. I still give it 4/5 stars so please read it for yourselves and decide. I honestly think it just comes down to personal preferences when you reach the end and how much you enjoy it.

Now I thought that this book was the 2nd in a trilogy, yet the way it ends it pretty much clears up all questions and plot threads. It really reminded me of Ben Bova's writing style, enough to either answer the question or enough to where the question may not be completely answered but in those cases it's pretty much left to your interpretation. No glaringly open hanging plot threads left behind. Which leads me to wonder about the third book in the trilogy. With "The Dark Forest" ending I considered the story done, in fact I had to actually double check that this was indeed a trilogy and not a 2 book series. If/when book 3 is released I have no idea what the plot will be or what direction the story could or would take but I enjoyed book 1 & 2 so much that I wouldn't hesitate to purchase book 3. So in summary of you enjoyed "The Three Body a Problem", then "The Dark Forest" is a must read. If you haven't read book 1, I would almost say that it's impossible to start with this Book and understand what's going on, so if it sounds interesting give Three Body Problem a try. Lastly I hope Cixin Liu continues to write and translate any future books into english.

15 people found this helpful