Book review: The Dark Forest by Cíxīn Liú
2026-08-02 BOOK-REVIEW
“The Wallfacers are undertaking the most difficult mission in human history. They will truly be on their own, their souls closed off to the world, to the entire universe. Their only communication partner and soul spiritual support will be themselves. Shouldering this great responsibility, they will pass through the long years alone, so let me speak for all humanity and offer them our deepest respect.”
— Cíxīn Liú, The Dark Forest
Fresh off of finishing The Three Body Problem, I dived straight into reading its sequel, The Dark Forest. The first novel was enjoyable, but gave me little that I hadn’t already experienced in season 01 of the Netflix series, and I was eager to experience the rest of the story.
In The Dark Forest we mostly follow Luo Ji, an astronomer living in China at the time that the previous book took place. There’s no mention of the previous protagonist Wang Miao, though several other characters from The Three Body Problem do make appearances, including Ye Wenjie briefly in the opening scene, where she gives Luo Ji some cryptic hints towards a proposed new field of study: cosmic sociology. This conversation lays the groundwork for the dark forest hypothesis that gives this novel its title, and is the primary theme of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. What if “we come in peace” is not the default stance of any alien species we encounter? How can humanity balance technological progress with self-defence in a hostile universe?
Another notable returning character is the policeman Da Shi, who accompanies Luo Ji through the story in much the same way he did Wang Miao in the previous novel. Luo Ji is thrust into the position of planning of humanity’s response to the impending alien invasion kicked off in the previous book, as part of the Wallfacer Project. Three other “wallfacers” have been appointed, all accomplished world leaders or businessmen, and so Luo Ji is the black sheep of the group, neither desiring such power and responsibility nor knowing what to do with it. This makes him an interesting character to follow, as he sometimes descends into despair and behaves in a very unheroic manner, occasionally needing Da Shi to talk some sense into him. These diversions can seem quite long, and disconnected to the rest of the story, but at the same time they provide character development that is otherwise lacking in the rest of the novel.
I said earlier that we “mostly” follow Luo Ji, because the scope of this story grows beyond just following individual characters, and tries to depict humanity’s response to the alien invasion as a whole. We of course get to follow the other wallfacers and the plans that they cook up, but also, we drop into several other characters, mostly military but some civilian, as they deal with the imminent threat to humanity. Outside of the wallfacers themselves, the most prominent of these characters is Zhang Beihai, a young and ambitious soldier in the Chinese navy who firmly dedicates himself to the cause of humanity’s victory. His storyline is also very disconnected from the main story of Luo Ji, but it provides some exciting “space opera”-like moments, and ties back strongly to the overall themes of the book.
The increase in scope also applies to time, as the book takes several jumps forward into the future as characters go in and out of cryogenic sleep. This, for me, is one of the highlights of The Dark Forest. As we move forward, the story takes a turn for the hypothetical, imagining future advancements in both technology and in human society. There’s ample world-building as humanity starts to become a space-faring civilisation, and as technological advancements also change how society on earth operates. Much of this world-building is unfortunately delivered through clumsy exposition dumps, but it’s no less interesting for it. The book is at its best when it shows humanity pushing the boundaries of what we’ve known so far, and filling the reader with the wonder, bafflement, and even horror of new discoveries and breakthroughs.
The Dark Forest does still also suffer from some of the same flaws as its predecessor. Once again, the human characters rarely feel like real humans behaving with human motives and responses. People are generalised into categories based on things like ideology—defeatists who have no hope in humanity vs triumphalists—or time, as people in the future are shown to be vastly less intelligent and courageous than those of our current times. Many plot elements, including the dark forest hypothesis itself, are based on game-theory-like deductions that provide absolute answers to situations that demand shades of grey. All it takes is a little bit of inspection to poke holes in several plot points. We’re given an explanation for why a handful of wallfacers must operate in solitude, but does it really make any sense? Is the Wallfacer Project something that the United Nations would ever realistically pursue? And why must their counterparts, the wallbreakers, also work alone given that they’re not subject to the same restrictions?
These questions require large amounts of active suspension of disbelief from the reader, but if one is able to do so, then the book is quite enjoyable. Often, the middle entry in a trilogy suffers from a “neither here nor there” kind of pointlessness, as it doesn’t have either the hook of starting a new story, or the closure of a firm conclusion. That isn’t the case here, as The Dark Forest does build up to its own climax and satisfying ending. One action-packed sequence in particular more than makes up for the almost off-screen boat scene in the previous entry. There are also some emotional moments as different characters’ stories are brought to their conclusions. All in all, The Dark Forest was a fun read, and while the plot wasn’t always coherent, the scope and sci-fi spectacle made it very worthwhile in my opinion.