Liu qi xin dark forest. Liu Cixin "Dark Forest"

Illustrations on the cover and in the text Nikolai Plutakhin

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Liu Cixin is the most popular science fiction writer in China. People's Republic. Liu has received the Galaxy Award (Chinese Hugo) eight times. The novel “The Three-Body Problem” won the Nebula and Hugo awards.

The writer was born on June 23, 1963 in the family of a miner in Yangquan, Shanxi Province. Escaping the consequences cultural revolution", his parents moved him to Henan. Liu graduated from North China University in 1988 water management and electric power industry. He worked as an engineer at a power plant in Yangquan, where he still lives with his wife and daughter.

"The Dark Forest offers humanity a 400-year challenge."

The Dever Post

"Liu's strength as a writer is the fusion of rich imagination with amazingly detailed storytelling."

The Washington Post

"Dark Forest" is better than "The Three Body Problem" in every way - and "The Three Body Problem" was amazing.

Booklist

“Liu Cixin’s books are interesting for those who want to remember science fiction old school, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, or just stay informed modern trends foreign fantasy literature".

Geektimes

Preface by the translator into Russian

Like the first book of the trilogy, this novel has been translated into Russian from an English edition. When those working on the book doubted the accuracy of the English translation, Albert Krisskoy, a sinologist who read fluently in Chinese, came to the rescue, the man who helped us work on the entire trilogy. With its help, it was possible to restore an important fragment of the original text, omitted from English translation, and fix a few other bugs.

There is quite a lot of scientific and technical terminology in the novel. For the convenience of readers, special terms are explained with footnotes. Various events are also mentioned in the text. Chinese history, from the creation of the world (the myth of Pan-gu) to the present day. They are also explained in footnotes and links to Internet resources. Some footnotes are by Chinese-English translator, Joel Martinsen. They are marked as "approx. J.M." The rest belong to the translator into Russian.

The translation of this novel would have been impossible without the help and support of Olga Glushkova, Andrei Sergeev and Aelita Timoshenko. Their share had to more than a half work. The advice of Albert Chrissky, who knows China well, was very helpful.

Thank you all very much!

Dmitry Nakamura

Characters

Organizations

OST, Society “Earth – Trisolaris”

SOP, Planetary Defense Council

KKF, Space Fleet Congress

People

IN Chinese names last name comes first

Luo Ji, astronomer and sociologist

Ye Wenjie, astrophysicist

Mike Evans, financier and de facto director of OST

Wu Yue, Chinese Navy Captain

Zhang Beihai, Political Commissar of the Chinese Navy, Space Force Officer

Chang Weisi, Chinese Army General and Commander of the Space Force

George Fitzroy, US Army General, Coordinator of the Planetary Defense Council, Military Advisor to the Hubble II Project

Albert Rignier, astronomer working with Hubble II

Zhang Yuanchao, a recently retired chemical plant worker in Beijing

Yang Jinwen, retired Beijing school teacher

Miao Fuquan, owner coal mines in Shanxi Province, neighbor of Zhang and Yang

Shi Qiang, SOP security officer nicknamed Da Shi

Shi Xiaoming, son of Shi Qiang

Kent, UN Liaison Officer

Say, Secretary General UN

Frederick Tyler, former US Secretary of Defense

Manuel Rey Diaz, former President of Venezuela

Bill Hines, British neuroscientist, former President of the European Union

Keiko Yamasuki, neuroscientist, Hines' wife

Garanin, current chairman of the SOP

Ding Yi, theoretical physicist

Zhuang Yan, graduate Central Academy fine arts

Ben Jonathan, Commissioner of the Space Fleet Congress

Dongfang Yanxu, captain of the ship "Natural Selection"

Major Xizi, research officer of the ship "Quantum"

The little brown ant has already forgotten about its home. For the earth plunging into darkness, for the stars appearing in the sky, very little time has passed - but for the ant, millennia have flown by. Once upon a time, his world was turned upside down. The soil suddenly soared into the sky, leaving a wide and deep chasm in its place, and then collapsed again, filling it. At the edge of the dug up earth there stood a lonely black education. This happened often in this huge world: the soil disappeared and returned; chasms appeared and filled up; Stone monoliths grew as visible evidence of catastrophic changes. Under the rays of the setting sun, the ant and hundreds of his comrades carried off the surviving queen to found a new empire. He wandered here, to the old place, by accident: in search of food.

The ant approached the foot of the monolith, feeling its oppressive presence with its antennas. The surface was hard and slippery, but still climbable. The ant crawled upward, driven not by any specific goal, but only random processes in its simple neural network. Such processes took place everywhere: in every blade of grass, in every drop of dew on a leaf, in every cloud in the sky and in every star. This random movement of atoms had no purpose; it took a sea of random noise for the target to emerge.

The ant felt the earth tremble; it intensified, and the ant realized that some gigantic creature was approaching. He continued his climb, not paying attention. The foot of the monolith was covered in cobwebs. The ant was on his guard. He carefully walked around the hanging sticky fibers and walked past the spider, which froze in anticipation, placing its paws on the webs in order to feel the prey in time. Both knew about each other's presence, but did not communicate - and this has been the case unchanged for thousands of years.

The shaking reached its maximum and stopped. The giant stopped near rock formation. Much taller than an ant, it covered most of the sky. The ant was familiar with such creatures. He knew that they were alive, that they often visited this area and that their actions were closely related to abysses and boulders.

The ant continued to climb, knowing that with rare exceptions the creatures posed no danger. Far below, the spider had just encountered one such exception when the creature apparently noticed its web stretched between a rock formation and the ground. The creature held a bouquet in one hand; with the stems of flowers it swept away both the spider and its web into the weeds. The creature then carefully placed the bouquet in front of the monolith.

The little brown ant has already forgotten about its home. For the Earth plunging into darkness, for the stars appearing in the sky, very little time has passed - but for the ant, millennia have flown by. Once upon a time, a long time ago, his world was turned upside down. The soil suddenly soared into the sky, leaving a wide and deep chasm in its place, and then collapsed again, filling it. At the edge of the dug up earth a lone black formation rose. This often happened in this huge world - the soil disappeared and returned, chasms appeared and filled up, stone monoliths grew - as visible evidence of catastrophic changes. Under the rays of the setting sun, the ant and hundreds of his comrades carried off the surviving queen to found a new empire. He wandered here, to the old place, by chance, in search of food.

The ant approached the foot of the monolith, feeling its oppressive presence with its antennas. The surface was hard and slippery, but still climbable. The ant crawled upward, driven not by any specific goal, but only by random processes in its simple neural network. Such processes took place everywhere: in every blade of grass, in every drop of dew on a leaf, in every cloud in the sky and in every star. This random movement of atoms had no purpose; it took a sea of random noise for the target to emerge.

The ant felt the earth tremble; it intensified, and the ant realized that some gigantic creature was approaching. He continued his climb, not paying attention. The foot of the monolith was covered in cobwebs. The ant was on his guard. He carefully walked around the hanging sticky fibers and walked past the spider, who froze in anticipation, placing his paws on the webs in order to feel the prey in time. Both were aware of each other's presence, but did not communicate - unchanged for thousands of years.

The shaking reached its maximum and stopped. The giant stood near a stone formation. It was much taller than the ant, blocking most of the sky. The ant was familiar with such creatures. He knew that they were alive, that they often visited this area, and that their actions were closely related to the appearing and disappearing chasms and emerging boulders.

The ant continued to climb, knowing that, with rare exceptions, the creatures posed no danger. Far below, the spider had just encountered one such exception when the creature apparently noticed its web stretched between a rock formation and the ground. The creature held a bouquet in one hand; with the stems of flowers it swept away both the spider and its web into the weeds. The creature then carefully placed the bouquet in front of the monolith.

After that new vibration earth, weak but growing stronger, told the ant that the second Living being, similar to the first, approaches a rock formation. At this moment, the ant discovered a long depression in the surface of the stone - almost white, with a rougher surface. The ant turned there to make it easier to crawl. Both ends of the recess ended in shorter and thinner grooves; the main track came from the horizontal base, and the upper groove ran off at an angle. When the ant reached the smooth black surface, it realized the shape of these indentations: 1 .

The height of the creature in front of the monolith suddenly halved, becoming equal to the height of the stone object. Apparently it knelt down. A piece of dark blue sky with flaring stars appeared. The creature's eyes turned to the top of the stone; The ant froze for a moment, wondering whether to appear in his field of vision. I decided that it wasn’t worth it and turned parallel to the ground. He quickly reached the next hole and slowed down, enjoying the journey. The color of this groove reminded him of the color of the eggs that surrounded the queen of the family. Without hesitation, the ant crawled down this depression. After some time it became clear that the path curved in a more complex way, forming a curve under the circle. This reminded the ant of how he used the smell to find his way home. A figure was deposited in his brain: 9 .

The creature kneeling in front of the monolith made a sound, or a set of sounds, that the ant was unable to understand:

What a joy it is to be alive... If you don’t understand this, then how can you think about something more complex?

The creature made a sound like the rustling of wind in the grass - a sigh - and rose from its knees.

The ant continued to crawl parallel to the ground and discovered a third depression. It was almost vertical until it turned like this: 7 . The ant did not like this figure. A sharp, unexpected turn often foreshadowed danger or battle.

The voice of the first creature drowned out the shaking of the earth. The ant only now realized that the second creature was already standing near the stone object. It was short and more fragile, with gray hair, which fluttered in the wind and glittered silver against the dark blue background of the sky.

The first creature turned and greeted the second:
- Doctor E, isn't it?
- And you... Xiao Luo?
- Luo Ji. I went to school with Yang Dong. Why are you here?
- It's calm here and easy to get to by bus. Lately I come here quite often for a walk.
- Please accept my condolences, Doctor E.
- You can’t undo the past...

At the very bottom of the monolith, the ant wanted to turn upward, but found another groove ahead, exactly the same as "9", along which he got to "7". The ant continued its path horizontally, through "9", which he liked more than "7" And "1", although he couldn’t say exactly why. His sense of beauty was very primitive. crawling through "9", he felt an inarticulate pleasure - a kind of single-cell happiness. The senses of aesthetics and pleasure in ants do not develop over time - what they were a hundred million years ago will remain the same in another hundred million years.

Xiao Luo, Dongdong mentioned you often. She said you were into... astronomy?
- It was a long time ago. Now I teach sociology at a college. In yours, by the way, even though you had already retired when I started work.
- Sociology? This is a cool change.
- Perhaps. Yang Dong always insisted that I was not cut out to work on just one thing.
“She wasn’t joking when she said you were smart.”
- I'm just capable. I don't reach your daughter's level. I just felt that astronomy is a hard science, unyielding, like an ingot of metal. Sociology is like a piece of wood; there will always be somewhere weakness to dig a hole for yourself. It is easier to work in the field of sociology.

Hoping to find another one "9", the ant continued to crawl horizontally. However, the next groove he found was a simple horizontal line - the same as the very first one, only longer than "1", lying on its side, and without smaller grooves at the ends - in the form of a sign: - .

Don't talk about yourself like that. That's life ordinary people. Not everyone can be like Dundun.
- But I'm really not ambitious. I go with the flow...
- Then I can suggest something. Why don't you study space sociology?
- Space sociology?
- This is a name that came to mind by chance. Let's assume that there are many civilizations in the Universe. The same number as stars. So many. The space society consists of these civilizations. Cosmic sociology is the science of the nature of such a supersociety.

The ant did not crawl far. He hoped that once he got out of «-» , will find something pleasing to the eye "9". But instead I found "2"- with a pleasant curve ending, however, in an equally frightening one, promising an uncertain future acute angle, as well as "7". The ant crawled further to the next groove, which turned out to be a closed ring: «0» . This figure was part "9", but was a trap. Life needs not only a smooth path, but also direction - you can't keep returning to starting point. The ant understood this. There were two more holes ahead, but the ant lost interest. He rushed upstairs again.

But... we still know about only one civilization - our own.
“That’s why no one has come up with such a science yet.” This is your chance.
- Very interesting, Doctor E. Continue, please.
- I believe that this science can combine both of your specialties. Mathematical structure space sociology is simpler than human sociology.
- Why do you think so?

Ye Wenjie pointed to the sky. They were burning out in the west last rays sunset There were so few stars that they could all be counted on one hand. It was not difficult to remember what the world looked like just a moment ago: endless space, and above it - blue emptiness, a face without pupils, like a marble statue. And now, even though there were only a few stars shining, the pupils in the giant eyes lit up. The emptiness was filled, and the Universe became sighted. The stars were small silvery dots that hinted at some kind of anxiety in their creator. The cosmic sculptor felt the need to scatter pupils throughout the Universe, but at the same time was terribly afraid to give it sight. The little stars scattered across the vast space were a compromise between desire and fear - but, above all, an expression of caution.

Do you see that the stars are points? Chaos and chance influence the structure of any civilized society in the Universe. But distance blurs their influence. Therefore, such distant civilizations can be considered as reference points to which it is relatively easy to apply mathematical methods analysis.
- But there is nothing to study in your cosmic sociology, Doctor E. Neither surveys nor experiments are possible.
- Of course, the result of your research will be purely theoretical. Start with a few simple axioms, as in Euclidean geometry, and then derive the whole theory from them.
- Very interesting. But what do you think such axioms could be?
- Axiom one: survival is the basic need of civilization. Axiom two: civilization is continuously growing and expanding, but the volume of matter in the Universe remains unchanged.

The ant crawled a little and noticed that there were many more depressions at the top, forming a complex labyrinth. The ant could sense the shapes and was confident in his ability to deal with them. But due to limited memory, he was forced to forget those figures through which he crawled earlier. He didn't regret that he forgot "9": Losing knowledge was part of his life. He only needed to keep a few memories permanently; they were encoded in his genes, in that area of \u200b\u200bmemory that we call instinct.

Having cleared his memory, the ant crawled into the labyrinth. After making several turns, with his simple mind he identified another figure: Chinese character "mu", which meant “grave” - although the ant knew neither the hieroglyph nor its meaning. Above was another set of indentations, this time simpler. But in order to continue his research, the ant was forced to forget "mu". He fell into a magnificent groove, its shape reminding him of the abdomen of a dead grasshopper he had recently found. The groove soon took the form of a hieroglyph "zhi" - possessive pronoun. Higher up, the ant found two more grooves. The first, in the shape of two drop-shaped depressions and the abdomen of a grasshopper, was a hieroglyph "dun", which meant "winter". The upper groove consisted of two parts; together they were a hieroglyph "yang", which meant "poplar". This was the last figure that the ant remembered, and the only one that he retained in memory. All previously discovered interesting figures were forgotten.

These two axioms are well thought out from the point of view of a sociologist... but you gave them to me so quickly, as if you had already prepared them a long time ago,” Luo Ji was surprised.
“I’ve been thinking about this most of my life, but I’ve never discussed it with anyone until now. I don’t know why... And one more thing: in order to deduce from these two axioms basic model space sociology, you will need two important concepts: chains of suspicion and technological explosion.
- Interesting terms. Can you explain them?
Ye Wenjie glanced at her watch.
- I do not have much time. But you are smart enough, and you will understand everything yourself. Make these two axioms the starting point of your science, and you can become the Euclid of cosmic sociology.
- I'm not Euclid. But I will remember your words and try. However, I may need your advice.
- I'm afraid such an opportunity will not arise... However, you can forget everything I said. Anyway, I did what I had to do. I have to go, Xiao Luo.
- Goodbye, professor.

Ye Wenjie disappeared into the twilight, hurrying to the last meeting of her comrades.

The ant continued its climb and reached a circular depression on the surface of the stone. On its plane there was a complex image. The ant knew that it would not fit in his small brain. But, having determined the shape of the image as a whole, his primitive sense of beauty rejoiced just as strongly as at the sight of the figure "9". Somehow the ant recognized part of the image - it was a pair of eyes. The ant knew how to recognize eyes, since a gaze meant danger. But now he didn't worry, because there was no life in those eyes. He had already forgotten that he had looked into the eyes of the giant Luo Ji kneeling in front of the stone. The ant climbed out of the excavation to the very top of the rock formation. He did not feel heights because he was not afraid of falling. It was blown away from great heights without harm. And the beauty of heights cannot be experienced without the fear of falling.

At the base of the monolith, the spider that Luo Ji brushed off with the bouquet had already begun to weave a new web. He attached a shiny thread to a stone and rode it down to the ground, swinging like a pendulum. Three more times and the base of the network will be ready. You could tear the web ten thousand times - the spider would restore it without experiencing either irritation or happiness... over and over again for a hundred million years.

Luo Ji stood in silence and then left. When the ground stopped shaking, the ant slid off the rock formation. He needed to hurry to the anthill and report the discovery of a dead beetle. The stars filled the entire sky. When the ant missed the spider at the base of the stone, both felt the presence of the other, but did not show it.

The distant world held its breath, listening. Neither the ant nor the spider realized that only they two of all living on Earth witnessed the birth of a new science.

frankly weak. much worse than the first book.

the plot is far-fetched. The dull narrative sometimes tends to add some intrigue, but that doesn't help.

I actually finished reading it with difficulty.

the scientific component finally “went for a walk” and was replaced by pure fantasy with

Spoiler (plot reveal)

space fleets of thousands of kilometer-long ships, underground cities the size of Beijing and materials based on nuclear interactions.

a lot of naive and simply illogical.

The hackneyed idea that civilizations tend to expand indefinitely (which is presented as an axiom of “galactic sociology”) came from the 60s along with the mossy “Fermi paradox”. it looks naive.

after all, it is obvious that civilizations are separated by thousands of light years, there are restrictions imposed by physics technical development, which means that no interaction of civilizations is possible (neither cooperation nor aggression). therefore, the idea of a “dark forest” is naive and taken from the times when it seemed that “apple trees will bloom on Mars,” the Galaxy is filled with life, and spaceships plow Grand Theatre and other nonsense.

I give it a tight 5 out of 10.

Rating: 5

The second book turned out to be more powerful than the first, which is quite a rare occurrence. But nevertheless, it surpasses the “Task” in all respects. More dynamic plot, more vivid characters, many interesting concepts. Well, and most importantly, she is much scarier.

First of all, of course, I want to note interesting thoughts. The concept of the Universe as a “Dark Forest” is creepy and hits the head just as hard as the Blob. In some ways, this is the Hobbesian idea of a war of all against all taken to the extreme. Only, unlike Hobbes, Leviathan is not visible on the horizon. It’s interesting that Liu Cixin perfectly mirrors Efremov’s ideas with his Great Ring.

Secondly, it is an exciting plot, with completely unpredictable twists. No matter how hard I tried to guess the outcome, I couldn’t. It is clear that it was connected with Lo Ji, it is clear that it will be connected with Cosmic Sociology, but I did not even remotely foresee such a denouement.

The characters are more multifaceted than in the first part, but it is clear that this is not the most strong point author.

I thought for a long time about the supposedly stupid earthlings who lined up the fleet in this way. I came to the conclusion that this is quite logical. People had no experience of combat for more than a century and did not see any threat in the Drop. In this situation, the desire for publicity overcame reasonable caution.

He knows how to surprise.

It makes you think.

Perhaps this is the most strong book trilogy. I'm finishing the third one. There have already been “pianos in the bushes” there twice. There is no such thing here.

Special thanks to the translators.

Rating: 10

The concept of the dark forest and all the action built on it - classic example uncritical perception of a curious and at first glance beautiful, but internally contradictory idea. Perhaps the reason is purely Chinese love to stratagems. It strongly resembles the delight of a neophyte who has become acquainted with the basics of game theory and has come to believe in the strict rationality of the actions of players, who are also guided strictly by one criterion.

At the same time, quite obvious things that destroy the beauty of binary logic are completely ignored. Civilizations strive for maximum expansion, while hiding in corners and slapping upstarts on the heads, which in fact automatically pushes back the task of expansion by indefinite time. Nobody is creating buffer zones (again, a classic way for weak states to survive in conditions of “everyone is an enemy”); no one does mass spam like Luo Tzu's trick, but in on a larger scale; no one is engaged in mass sweeps in reserve; Only earthlings also thought of the concept of mutual destruction as a deterrent factor.

Rating: 4

What can we say about the “dark forest”, a rather gloomy story about two kids in a sandbox where one older child decided to kick out the younger one. By children we mean the civilizations of Trisolaris and Earth, both of which are essentially infancy. The author clearly focuses on strictly science fiction, but our science is obviously already in deep.... since since the late sixties there have been no fundamental advances, which indicates one obvious thing- someone failed the work of pouring the foundation, now nothing can be built on this slanted foundation, everything falls into the abyss without beginning to set. :((Of course, the ubiquitous sophons are to blame, and not our crooked hands and brains....)

The novel was clearly written with an eye to a possible film adaptation with a possible raking in money with a shovel, I must admit that Hollywood will take on this with joy, the narrow-minded public will be delighted, they will film everything colorfully and with special effects.

As for those who turned away, it’s actually unlikely, because even if the person who turned away keeps his mouth shut, as they say, then at the stage of implementing the plan everything is revealed relatively easily. However, the author also understood this and, in accordance with this understanding, adjusted the plot, as a result, the three who turned away were easily seen through, difficulties arose only with those who themselves did not understand what they were going to do. Here, by the way, I thought that it would be necessary to choose more such patients, Trisolaris would fall into precipitate trying to understand what the mentally ill themselves are not able to understand. It could be a great distraction. As a result, our genius didn’t think of anything better than calling older kids, but at the beginning, not to their own sandbox, but to the neighboring one, so that they would come and throw a grenade at it :) This is so interesting kindergarten the author succeeds...

That is, it’s not like there’s a kindergarten there at all, there’s a dark forest there, where the author decided not to reveal how there are so many homeless children in this forest, apparently to make it more scary. The fairy tale really turned out to be scary, however, when children are left without adult supervision it is always scary, they will fight at the very least, otherwise they will set the forest on fire - someone will definitely get matches.

The entire novel is based on the idea of the unconditional technological superiority of Trisolaris, sufficient for a guaranteed victory, which is what we see in the case of the drop. A small object manufactured at a different technical level and using advanced knowledge and technology in its work easily crushed the primitive fleet of the earth. I must say that the author really turned out this moment to be plausible, but it’s not clear what his drop worked on (in the sense of an energy source), because even antimatter in real life would clearly not be enough for such tricks. Otherwise, it doesn’t really matter what made it so strong, force fields V pure form or force fields structuring a certain substance, but the question of the source of energy will have to be left open - the author apparently could not come up with anything within the framework of the concept of strict science fiction and he did not dare to go beyond this framework.

Rating: 6

Mixed emotions overwhelmed me as I read this truly “dark forest.” At first there was a certain melancholy and even boredom at times - the author, moving on to the continuation of “Three Bodies,” abruptly changed the pace and intonation, making one nervous about whether he was blown away, excuse my French, as sometimes happens; melancholy gave way to curiosity, curiosity to delight, delight to despair and devastation, and then catharsis happened.

If in the first novel many grinned at the naivety and implausibility of the author, then in the Dark Forest the author threw all the slingshots and firecrackers to hell and took a weighty Smith and Wesson from which the unfortunate man shot my consciousness and soul. Everything is plausible even if you look at it and begin to fear for yourself and your future. Each chapter of the novel is filled the latest ideas and philosophies. The author mercilessly puts humanity before various fatal choices and tells how everything will happen next.

Liu Cixin gets into the souls of his heroes, delves there, instills ideologies in them and places the fate of humanity in their hands.

The slightly cardboard characters in “Three Bodies” came to life in “The Dark Forest” and seemed to grow together with the author.

In short, the Dark Forest is a hundred times darker than its predecessor, but at the same time deeper and stronger.

An alien space fleet is inevitably approaching humanity, and over the course of 200 years we have seen humanity gain hope and then lose it. In several eras, we, as if in a cross-section, see how it changes, and at the same time stands still.

The price of human life. The price of human life. New race space people with a new morality. New faith. Or disbelief.

This is just a grain of everything that can be learned by reading this wonderful novel worthy of the highest praise.

Bravo, Liu Cixin.

Spoiler (plot reveal) (click on it to see)

The episode where the Drop destroys a huge armada of ships, and especially the moment when the last escaping ships turned on the 4th thrust without warning and from the insane overload thousands of people turned into a bloody mess - this piece made me simply horrified

Rating: 10

After more complex works, I wanted to choose something dumber to read, and this novel surpassed all my expectations in this regard. If the first series of the trilogy is a type of science fiction from the 60s, then here we move further into the past, into the 50s and 40s, in the area of Van Vogt and Hamilton. Modern Western writers can no longer write this with a serious expression on their faces and will definitely insert postmodern winks, but this is a completely crowbar approach. It's incredibly fun and pleasing at first.

The book is fun until the end, but soon after it starts it stops making you happy. All, absolutely all logic is constantly sacrificed for fascination and drama. The further you go, the more annoying it becomes. Roman is pretending science fiction, but there is no science here. “Critical” statements about superpowers, contemporary art And modern society impossible to take seriously. Joel Martinsen's translation is noticeably worse than Ken Liu's translation of the first volume, there are some errors and general roughness in places.

Rating: no

Continuation of a story. The alien threat remains a threat - imminent, but relatively distant. The book is dedicated to an attempt to show the development of society over several centuries under the constant pressure of the countdown to the meeting with the alien fleet.

Unfortunately, this is the problem that was missing in the first book. The way humanity is shown.

A few observations:

The author plays well on the field of modernity and the near future. But with a more distant future, he is simply in trouble. After two hundred years, humanity is turning into naive children, who, after centuries of preparation for war, seriously consider the first enemy probe to arrive as a message of peace (and are very surprised when this turns out not to be the case). However, I doubt it a little, perhaps this was the intention - to show what will happen to people after several centuries of ideological drill. But in the book, all of humanity is like this, not just Asia.

There are (I suspect) purely Chinese problems. A landing of political commissars into the future in order to raise the morale of descendants. The “descendants” scrape before the “old people” in the spirit - oh, they know so much, they will be able to learn all the innovations, but we will never be able to learn their wisdom. Strict adherence by all countries to accepted international decisions- decided not to build interstellar ships in order to leave the planet and escape, that means we are not building (there is not a single attempt to do this secretly). A large-scale struggle against escapism and defeatism, expressed in regular inspections and purges.

For obvious reasons most of The heroes are Chinese, and Americans also play a significant role. They remember other nations only when it is necessary to involve the UN or show something else multinational.

What partly saves the book are some of the characters. In contrast to the naive descendants, the “old guard” looks advantageous. And it was always interesting for me to follow the misadventures and actions " the only person, whom Trisolaris wanted to kill." The strongest moments of the book are associated with him. And the chief political commissar turned out to be an extraordinary person, with unexpected goals.

Besides, some moments and sketches are still not bad. It's not boring to read. And it is still an entertaining window into a mentality different from ours. If it weren’t for the sharp decline in “descendants”, the first book would have had a solid “above average” level.

Rating: 6

Once again I express my gratitude to the free translators who once again gave us another long-awaited book. Thanks to the sonate10 team, who again took on the difficult and thankless task of double translation, while revealing some inaccuracies of the author of “The Dark Forest” himself, Liu Cixin.

Before us A new book, new story. From the personalities of the “Three Body Problem” there are only two characters left, minor ones, and then one of them is only in the form of a mention and a flashback. But I don’t see anything wrong with this, because, as has already been noted here, Liu Cixin continued to develop his writing skills in terms of creating truly living characters, and not function heroes and plot servants. True, something worthwhile came out only in the form of the main character of this novel - the astronomer and cosmic sociologist Luo Tzu. Really interesting image and a character that is quite deep and lively, but... As always, there is something to strive for. It feels like it could have been revealed better. I have nothing to say about the rest of the personalities. They also continue to be just functions.

Regarding the plot. Yes, not all of Liu Cixin’s books (including this one) can be called “hard” fiction. Yes, there is nonsense. It is not always possible to agree with the decisions of humanity and their leaders, politicians and the rest of this world. But who knows how they will behave when a real, all too real date is set Last Judgment? And, as it seemed, the stupidity of the Trisolarians from the first book can also be forgiven. Cixin provided two fairly clear and logical explanations of what seemed in the “Problem...” to be supposed errors. One of them lies in Liu's solution to the Fermi Paradox. In general, the plot of “Dark Forest” came out decent in terms of the lack of “water” and the speed of development of events. Everything was verified. Only a little “water”, as for me, is found in the third part, and its beginning in general almost made me disappointed in the entire novel. But Cixin straightened out the situation with several excellent plot twists and a worthy ending. All the open and hidden questions and problems of the book were resolved, and new ones were raised for the next final part of the trilogy, “Soldering about the Earth’s Past.”

As a result, we have a qualitative continuation of the “Three Body Problem”. Yes, without that delicious element that I liked so much in the form of a virtual reality-like Trisolaris, but with the original project “Averted” and interesting way out from a seemingly situation where an earth ant had to be crushed by a Trisolirian boot in a dark galactic forest.

Rating: 9

Already from the title of the second book one could guess that it was a significantly gloomy “Three-Body Problem.” Indeed, “Dark Forest” is an extremely depressing story on several levels. The book begins and ends with scenes in the cemetery (I don’t want to take the epilogue into account, it seems superfluous, written just in case). The world is engulfed by economic, political and military crises. And all the heroes are, to one degree or another, obsessed with the ideas of genocide. Towards the end, when the story jumps 200 years into the future, the dark tone suddenly disappears, but this is just a gimmick. With the final chord, Liu rolls out his theory of the structure of the universe (included in the title of the book), and here... abandon hope, everyone who enters here.

Liu is one of those science fiction writers whose plot is always slightly hampered by the scientific nature of it, but this can be forgiven due to the presence of scientific thinking itself. In other words: the far-fetched nature of some technologies or theories is compensated by the daring of their inventions. Multidimensional computers, strange ships, “withering” aliens... Exact Sciences Liu is not enough; in the second book he goes deep into psychology and philosophy. The plot revolves around a rather crazy idea: is it possible to save the world with the power of one person's thoughts? Who should this person be? An ideal strategist? A great thinker? Or just crazy?..

But the heroes are still unimportant for Liu. Although that's not to say he's not trying. The attempts, however, are clumsy: for some reason he gave one a despotic father, and the other an imaginary girl, without adding depth to either the plot or the characters themselves. Anyway. Against the backdrop of the grandeur of the main plot, these moments seem insignificant little things.

Rating: 9

The middle installation of the trilogy, “In Memory of the Earth’s Past,” unlike its predecessor, has already significantly moved towards a techno-thriller. From now on, the author's chronicle is seething with a series of spy betrayals, and sometimes you want to whistle at the intricacies of the planetary military-industrial complex. The transformation turned out to be quite controversial.

The evolution of the detective plot and the introduction of a paranoid environment - without the ubiquitous sophons, our fellow earthlings now cannot cope with even a small need! - forced Cixin to bring the images of the participants in the “Dark Forest” to a different evolutionary level. To some extent, the writer succeeded; partly - not at all. The list of dubious innovations includes a consumptive romantic branch and glaring inconsistencies in the aforementioned “spy” tricks of both confronting sides.

Being the mouthpiece of love ties for Cixin turns out to be a little worse than nothing. Dreiser's Roberta Alden - just as fragile a flower as Yanyan - did not provoke insensibility. Her uncovered innocence was painful - the reader understands better what happens to such people in our world. To the actor " American Tragedy“I felt bitter tenderness, but Zhuang Yang, whose behavioral model is assembled from the same spare parts, leaves me impassive. Her dialogues with Luo Tzu - like the story itself of the latter, an ossified cynic, but in reality - of course, a martyr with a sharp heart - are covered with boring clichés. With all due respect to the previous part of the series, Cixin is entering into territory where he is not a player. When Easton Ellis wrote in Rules of Attraction about the realm of bohemian drug-addicted teenagers, where love does not exist on any level - it cannot grow on such soil - he tortured the reader with a reinterpreted chronicle of his student years.

The writer was twenty-three years old.

Cixin clumsily operates with cliches - one feels that scientific delights excite the science fiction writer much more than the romantic thread of his heroes, of which he himself seems to be tired. This wouldn’t be a big deal—after all, that’s not what people turn to sci-fi for—if the writer didn’t try so laboriously and tediously to describe this annoying plot twist.

The idea of protecting the Averted does not even stand up to comparative criticism. How can one seriously hope for the survival of people whose every move is known to the enemy? Their successive deaths are only a matter of time - let me remind you that the opposition represented by OST craves annihilation, they are not afraid of death. What’s stopping you from filling a minibus with Semtex and blowing it up while the Turned Away, swearing, stands idle in the crowded traffic? Why don’t the sophons project some extensive images onto the retina of a civil aircraft pilot so that he, having lost control, crashes the plane into the rocks, thereby depriving humanity of one of the key fighters against the enemy? The personalities of the Turned Away are available to everyone alive. What prevents the Destroyers, their killers, from infecting themselves with Ebola, and then carefully catching the national idol and kissing him? But no - the Destroyers spend years speculating and then proudly announce their conjectures to the Averted - after all, this is much more effective.

The reaction of OST to... let's call it an "enterprise", Beihai, makes you laugh:

Are we just going to let him walk around unpunished? - asked Einstein.

According to the wishes of the Lord, there is nothing else left for us. This man is an unshakable stubborn and triumphalist. The Lord does not want us to interfere unnecessarily in the affairs of such people. We should focus on escapism. The Lord believes that defeatism is more dangerous than triumphalism,” Newton explained.

After such passages, it is impossible to develop a strong attitude towards OST and the Trisolarian leaders, but both communities consist of either self-confident idiots or hydrocephalics in the terminal stage - since they allow themselves such imprudent idee fixe, which will come back to haunt them. You can try to defend the obedience of the kneeling suicide bombers from OST, but it is impossible to attribute the stupid stubbornness of their “master” to anything other than a plot vacuum. Let me remind you that the Trisolarian brethren exist in terrifying conditions; their survival depends on the success or failure of the attack on Earth. In such conditions there is no time for arrogance and dubious principles military honor, which don’t even work on paper. Equally paradoxical is the attempt on Luo Tzu's life - or rather, the lack thereof. The apotheosis of the unsystematic nature of the Trisolarian algorithms: earthling Luo Zi is the number one alien target, lives quietly in an elegant hacienda, raises his daughter, and visits museums. During the course of the story, OST mumbles something in defense of such unnatural inaction, but later... it itself is taken out of the story! Hey Lu! Subsequence? Yes, Cixin just needed the womanizing astronomer to settle down. And OST reacted to the writer’s request with understanding.

Just like Trisolaris.

Spoiler (plot reveal) (click on it to see)

In the finale, of course, the overflowing self-confidence is fully captured.

Among the trump cards of the “Dark Forest” is, without a doubt, Rey Diaz, solemn in his cold sophistication. It would be disrespectful to encroach on the perfection of the fusion of military and scientist drawn by Tsisin. He defiantly spits on OST, and on SOP too, fulfilling his duty even when the people who were contracted to protect him take up arms against him. He recognizes the Destroyer who dares to approach him instantly - and then, after delicately listening to the latter’s speech, he brutally beats him, and only the guards who arrive in time save the life of the vile traitor to humanity. A near-divine strategist, a blackmailer, a brilliant soldier, in order to save people - who, by the way, absolutely do not respect him - almost turned the galaxy into a powder keg!

In the middle of the gloomy road to the denouement, Cixin wedged in the amazing segment “Starships of the Earth” - a stunning projection about an ominous duplicate of humanity emerging somewhere in the womb of the cosmos, founded, ironically, by the person who warned the scenarios of the Turned Away. It remains only to predict where and under what conditions the meeting of our fellow earthlings and homo cosmicus will take place, who bequeathed a silent mound in memory of himself - a monument to death, illuminated by the cold of the stars. Sliding into eternity.

The author’s maneuver with the introduction of colorful illustrations into the text content, skillfully conveying the mood of the novel, is also brilliant. To summarize, “Dark Forest” turns out to be only slightly dimmer than the stunning “Dark Forest” Problems of Three Tel” - which, without touching on details, is excusable for the gifted Chinese, whose dilogy turned out to be an intoxicating and exciting introduction - so much so that I will give the floor to one of its key characters:

I’m in love with you, guy,” Shi Qiang raised thumb. - And I always dragged myself.

Yes, Cixin, I'm obsessed with you.

Rating: 9

It’s interesting that the philosophy of the “dark forest” (namely: there are only enemies around, so to survive - no communication with your opponent, just destroy him) stems from real cultural and historical tradition China? In other words, is this way of thinking characteristic of modern Chinese? Maybe the book is a warning from a very popular author in his homeland to other peoples of the world - do not get close to us, at the first threat we will stick a knife in your throat? Maybe that's why it was translated into English with such zeal? And they don’t officially translate into Russian? Well, a very provocative novel from a rare breed of Science Fiction.

Spoiler (plot reveal) (click on it to see)

All the new people are confident in the invincibility of their fleet, all as one are confident in the peaceful intentions of the probe. All naval captains are confident of victory, and only two took at least some protective measures after the persuasion of the awakened one. All earthlings rush to fire at space elevators and orbital cities with their laser farts. All people first believe in the one who turns away, and then unanimously curse him. It seems that that same “forbidden” mental seal is now built into everyone’s pillow modern man and adjusts the worldview at night depending on public opinion.

Where have the special services gone that have eradicated OST and must continue to look for Trisolaris sabotage under every stone? Where are the cautious naval officers - the heirs of the defeatists in these optimistic times? Where strong personalities ready to curb the crowd and seeing beyond their own noses? Where are the individualists, the clubs of fans and haters who go against each other? public opinion according to the most various issues? There are none; they all bend to the author’s plan, as in trashy propaganda books. There are characters only among the awakened ones, all the rest are faceless puppets.

Although the plot twists are more or less predictable, the intrigue remains, which makes it difficult to stop reading until you find out the details.

It's just a pity that love line Luo Ji is not revealed, or rather, her relationship with her wife and daughter is too little described. Yes, I understand, that’s not what the novel is about, but, in fact, all the hero’s actions are determined by these relationships, so I personally didn’t have enough episodes revealing the reasons and nature of this attachment. The author assumes that this is understandable and so, by default, but Stanislavsky would say: “I don’t believe it.”

The idea of a dark forest in the Universe looks too anthropocentric and because of this - limited: by supporting it, we transfer the human dualistic perception of the world, possible only in contexts: good-evil, black-white, friendly-hostile - to any mind that exists somewhere- or, although it may well turn out that other civilizations think in completely different categories, on other planes, or even the very concepts of thinking, perception, attitude towards something are not familiar to them. For example, a culture, even if it was identical to modern human culture a long time ago, but has made a breakthrough in the field of virtual technologies, and has completely uploaded itself to the cloud, or any other information space, replacing physical servers with photons, bosons, gluons or other elementary particles, which are scattered throughout space and can travel at the speed of light. It is difficult to imagine how such a form intelligent life can be destroyed, and what does she have to fear except the end of the Universe itself. It already exists on a completely different level of existence (just like Clark’s in “The Odyssey”) and does not intersect with humanity, therefore these two civilizations are neither hostile nor friendly in relation to one another. The relationship between them is like that between Nile crocodiles and the electrical impulses that arise during a game of FIFA when drawing a football player running. These two categories of objects not only do not influence each other in any way, not only do they not suspect the existence of one another, but even in principle cannot intersect in any way, because they exist in different planes, and can exist side by side for eternity without ever realizing about each other's presence.