The Dark Forest

De: Cixin Liu, Joel Martinsen - translator

Narrado por: P. J. Ochlan

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

Other books

Ball Lightning

Supernova Era

To Hold Up the Sky (forthcoming)

©2008 Cixin Liu (P)2015 Macmillan Audio

Awesome book with some caveats

First of all: The audiobook is pretty bad for this. I really think he sounds like a text to speech engine. Also does a pretty racist Japanese accent pretty frequently and I’d prefer if he just… didn’t.

Narratively, Liu is pretty misogynistic and it shows throughout the book, namely the first and second portion. It eventually pays off, but it’s hard to get through. Once you get past it, though, it’s a fantastic story and hard to put down.

Like listening to an old Godzilla dub

Story is good. Narrator is boring. The dialogue feels wooden and unnatural. It sounds exactly like dub versions of old Godzilla movies from the 60s and 70s. The English translation of the dialogue sounds very odd to an English speaking listener.

Story is great

The narrator is hard to follow. He doesn't pause during scene changes so it can get confused.

First in the series has a much better narrator

Story is great. But the narrator changes between books… I much preferred Three Body’s performance vs The Dark Forest..

amazing

The richness and detail of his descriptions are amazing. His ability to describe complex concepts even more amazing.

Rough start, but keep going. It's worth it.

Book 2 of the Three Body Problem trilogy took a while to get going for me. Gone are most of the characters from the first book, and in their place is new protagonist Luo Ji for reasons that don't become clear until the end. The first quarter of the book focuses on his selfishness and a particularly creepy obsession of his, and it was tough to get through. Keep going though - once the book makes it past it's first time jump, things pick up and I couldn't stop listening.

Great Sequel

Sci Fi at its best. A sequel that carried forward the story, but still pushed the boundaries.

The narrator was a step down from the first one though - lots of difficulty pronouncing Chinese names.

Narrator is much better at pronouncing the names.

The last book's narrator butchered all the Chinese names really badly. This guy's much better.

An encouraging continuation of Three Body.

The spirit of the first book is kept intact. This book gave me a blend of dread and wonder, maintaining an intoxicating balance between the two. I'm happy to continue the series 😊

Unique story

Fascinating unique story. The author does an excllent job describing events as they occurr, with supposed scientific accuracy (I’m told it’s accurate and so I just assume it makes sense or close to it). When something explodes in this book, it does more than explode. The author paints a picture of what the explosion looked like (from multiple perspectives at times) and why the explosion happened.

Really great adventure through a bizarre story that requires a good narrator to help keep you on track. I think dark forest found that here.