As with the prequel to this book the confusion continues, the pacing of the book is different from the first and it is difficult to decide if it is due to the set up or the change of translator. It is slow paced with bits of spiked climax. The characters are still difficult to love and with this story line it is difficult to determine who I should be cheering for from both a character and story line perspective.

Towards the end of the book there is an incident involving the rogue spaceships, and a great battle

It felt like there was a lot of words and circular thought to get to this main climax of the second book in this series. I love the overall concept and the meaning of the dark forest within the context of the story. 

There were many parts that felt so redundant to the story… I wish it was a bit shorter as I really struggled to get through it closer to the end. 
But I’ll defo pick up the third book (but later)  

okay. so. the second half of this? perfectly good scifi! the first half of this? i guess the author forgot women are people in between books or something, because the way they're described and treated in this book - especially everything about the garbage fire that is the imaginary girlfriend (turned fridged wife) subplot - makes it near unreadable. 

christ.

I almost never like sequels more than the first but I enjoyed The Dark Forest a lot more than The Three Body Problem.

This novel was a lot less hard scientists fiction (which I struggled a bit with the first one not understanding all of the physics concepts), and goes much more into speculative fiction and examines a lot of different perspectives re the aftermath of the first novel (like psychology, economics, etc). 

It is meandering in the beginning and a bit in the middle but I really enjoyed the meandering, I like the writing style and I enjoyed the literary wandering we were doing. 

And then what a build up the whole first 2 parts are to the third! The buildup really pays off. 

I loved the weird parts of this novel: Space assassination using meteriorite bullets,Luo Ji getting almost murdered like 8 times by a computer virus targeting him, That ball thing just straight up blowing everything up! The future's description with the social dynamics and just the structure of the buildings and the clothes, Loved the book opening and ending with ants

 



Female characters non-spoiler rant:
The one thing that almost held me back from giving this book a five stars is the writing of it's female characters. In my opinion, it really drops the ball on this especially given that I thought the portrayal of women in the first was pretty good! Especially given the context of that story. Female characters in this story do not have their own goals, motivations, or desires that exist beyond the male characters they interact with. Just so disappointing. 

I almost stopped at around 30% because I was offended by what the actual fuck was happening with a female character lol. The way a specific woman was described just felt nauseating, weird, patronizing and too child-like. I'm hoping that maybe the descriptors were lost in translation a bit. Because I did notice near the beginning it said something like a character "had a naughty problem" and naughty did not make sense to use there at all.
But I'm really glad I pushed through because the scenes that are like this don't last that long and I loved the rest of the book. 

Spoilers:

Like repeatedly talking about how delicate and dainty and pure and innocent and making Zhuang Yan, a grown women, sound like a child. Also its not just her, the book often uses weird patronizing language to describe other women.

And I enjoyed Luo Ji having an imaginary girlfriend! I thought it was weird and fun and I thought it worked in the story because it shows the reader that he is able to have an extremely complicated inner world that would make him a good candidate to be a wall facer. But then the fact that he makes someone find him a real girl who fits his imagination is like gross-weird not fun-weird. And then it feels really uncomfortable before you find out much later that this woman is like in on the plan and apparently had her own motives. Because at first you're like, did this woman get kidnapped? Why is she so fucking chill about being kidnapped?? Like where did they find her and why does she not seem to have any agency or care wtf is happening to her!!

Super slow at the beginning, but what a superb finish.