Science Fiction: The Three Body Problem II: The Dark Forest By Cixin Liu

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Watching Netflix`s show "The Three Body Problem" left me with mixed feelings because they turned Cixin Liu`s science fiction novel into a soap opera for the American taste. So I got an appetite for the real thing and reread Liu`s "The Dark Forest", the second volume of the original "Three Body" series, also known as "Remembrance of the Earth`s Past" (amazon. ).

This post is for those who watched the Netflix opus or - even better - read the Chinese original novel (translated by Ken Liu) and are familiar with the basic situation, the expectation of an invasion of aliens, who are far more advanced, in about 400 years.

The book - like the whole trilogy - is build around Liu`s "dark forest hypothesis". Explaining the theory would be a spoiler and I don`t want to ruin the reading experience (this is a spoiler free blog. You can find a synopsis here wikipedia). 

The trilogy is about humans and possible interactions with other civilizations in the universe, who might be much more advanced. Like tales about real dark forests (for instance the Brothers Grimm`s stories) the novel is pessimistic and sinister, but it is also fascinating and based on cosmology, strategic thinking (game theory) and quantum physics - and plausible.  

The book has 2 very different parts. The first part (about 60%) happens in the presence and describes how humanity is responding to the thread of an invasion by technological superior aliens in four centuries in the future. There are many conflicts between optimists and pessimists and Liu describes the discussed defense strategies, the struggles between different ideas and introduces persons who became important roles in the preparations. 

The second part jumps about years 200 years into the future. Humans are still preparing for the alien invasion. Some important characters from Part I awoke after a long period of hibernation and are confronted with a very different world. 

Liu describes the advances in technology, social and sexual behavior and paints a fascinating new world - but still in the shadow of the advancing superior aliens. 

In the remaining 25% of the books the plot gains a lot speed; it becomes very dramatic and culminates into spectacular actions. There are some striking ideas based on Liu´s vast imagination and stringent use of logic & cutting-edge physics. For instance the author describes over about 14 pages an arresting and extremely violent episode, which demonstrates Liu`s literary talents.

"The Dark Forest" is part of a huge space opera - a scifi epic on a grand scale comparable to Homer´s Odyssey and  Richard Wagner´s Ring cycle. Liu plays with the laws of physics & mathematics and translates relativity, string theory, quantum physics and much more science into speculative & fascinating fiction, often apocalyptic and bizarre. Reading the novel was not only entertaining, it animated me also to think about the universe around us, about other civilizations and how they might respond to us.

The trilogy is the best science fiction of the 21st century so far and the proof that Liu is not only the most gifted science fiction author today, "The dark forest" is an essential part of contemporary literature as well.