The Dark Forest

Characters: ★★ Atmosphere: ★★★★★ Writing Style: ★★★ Plot: ★★★ Intrigue: ★★★ Relationships: ★★★ Enjoyment: ★★★Rating: ★★★The Dark Forest struggles with the same issues as its predecessor but ends on a high note.We continue our story throughout the next few hundred years with humanity trying desperately to come up with a plan to defend themselves against the ominous Trisolarans. In this second book, I found the plot lagging along and suffered from a distinct lack of dehydration. We primarily follow Luo Ji, a sexist astronomer who has never felt true love. It's fine to have an unlikable character, but nearly all of the characters in The Dark Forest are hard to read about. We spend far too long learning about Luo Ji's creation of his dream woman and his visions of her throughout the story. He even goes so far as to use government funding to find a real version of her, a woman who somehow is okay with all this and is happy to marry and have a child with him.It's not just Luo Ji who is unlikable. All of the Wallfacers are stiff, self-involved, and apparently unable to come up with even an inkling of a plan to save humanity without mass murdering the very people they're aiming to protect. I found this a little unimaginative and lazy. I also found the use of time-jumping with cryostasis a bit convenient to move the plot along. We enter the future where everything has been progressing along, but no further progress was attempted towards the Wallfacer project. No new Wallfacers of later generations were assigned, and humanity has mostly become overconfident that they'll beat the Trisolarans when they arrive. We really believe no other attempts would be made? The ETO just dissolved?It was hard to read the droplet scene. Not because it was horrific and graphic, but because I cannot believe that humanity as a whole anticipated this droplet for 200 years and once it arrived they assumed that it was friendly? It was sent 200 years ago, when humanity was even less of a threat. I would have thought humanity got smarter and more aware of extra-terrestrial dangers following the Trisolaran contact. Nope!The last quarter of the book becomes a lot more compelling, with the reveal of Luo Ji's plan and the final conversations with the Trisolarans. Is Luo Ji's plan also just a fuck humanity to fuck the Trisolarans plan like all the other Wallfacers? Yes! But at least he's not DIRECTLY doing it. It is one of the better plans, and it created a really compelling cliffhanger into the next book, which I will probably end up begrudgingly reading.In conclusion, I hope I don't have to read about imaginary dream girls for the rest of the year.