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[eBook] The Dark Forest (The Three-Body Problem Book 2) by Cixin Liu - $2.39 @ Amazon AU

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"Read the award-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-million-copy-selling science-fiction phenomenon – soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones.
Imagine the universe as a forest, patrolled by numberless and nameless predators. In this forest, stealth is survival – any civilisation that reveals its location is prey.

Earth has. Now the predators are coming."

I bought and finished reading the Three Body Problem in Kindle on the OzBargain deal earlier.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/570164

It was a great book so I decided to start looking at at the prices for the next book "The Dark Forest". A few days ago it was just under $4.39 but now it is $2.39. I've just bought it and will start reading tonight.

Death's End (Book 3) has also reduced in price from $8.06 to $5.69 as well:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Deaths-End-Three-Body-Problem-Book…

The Three Body Problem (Book 1) has gone back to $7.91:
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00S8FCJCQ

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  • +17

    highly recommended. A true masterpiece.

    • is it plot driven or character driven?

      I happen to be in search of my next good read, but I want deep characters who aren't simple and predictable.

      • +2

        This book out of the three is the most character-driven of the three in my opinion. I can say with confidence that I didn't see many of the actions coming.

        • the first book establishes the world, setting and idea. This book expands on it using characters. The last book concludes the sci-fi fantasy ideas with some fantastical concepts that blew my mind.

  • Its great, but Book 1 has a slow start…

    • +4

      I read the first one and while I found it good, it was slow and a little boring. So it's worth going on?

      • +7

        Yes and yes.
        Book 1 is the start of everything, so you'd better pay attention to it.

      • +7

        You can skip the first few chapters:
        Start reading when the scientist starts seeing things! I think that is chapter 6 or around there.

        Below is a summary I found:

        PART 1 - SILENT SPRING

        1 - The Madness Years. China, 1967 - The Red Union had been attacking the headquarters of the April 28th Brigade. Battles like this one raged across Beijing, their combined output, the Cultural Revolution. During this time, people who followed western science/academics were called "Reactionaries" and were forced/tortured to denounce them. Ye Zhetai is a physicist who refuses to do so and gets lynched as a result. Ye Wenjie, Ye Zhetai’s daughter visits their neighbor Professor Ruan Wen, and sees she has commits suicide.

        2 – Silent Spring. Two years later, the Greater Khingan Mountains - Ye Wenjie is part of Inner Mongolia Production and Construction Corps, and cleared fields / chopped down trees. Bai Mulin, a reporter for the Great Production News, shares same liberal thoughts as Wenjie. He gives her a book - Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. The book dealt with the negative environmental effects of excessive pesticide use. He wants to write to the leadership in Beijing and let them know about the irresponsible behavior of the Construction Corps. Wenjie writes the letter for him, since his handwriting was bad. Three weeks later, she gets summoned to the hq and Director Zhang of the Division Political Department accuses her of being a reactionary because she has that book and had written that letter. She's thrown in jail. A female officer named Cheng Lihua gives her document detailing her father’s interactions and conversations with certain individuals, implicating them in double-bomb project that had shocked the world in 1964 and 1967. Ye Wenjie refuses to sign it as a witness.

        3 - Red Coast I – Ye Wenjie is transferred to Radar Peak, a defense research facility. The large-scale weapons research project conducted here needs her specialized scientific knowledge. Yang Weining, her father's former student, is the base chief engineer. Wenjie witnesses the base carrying out some kind of transmission via a huge antenna.

    • I'm finding book 1 hard to read. The writing style doesnt flow for me. And the plot and characters dont grab me. I gather it gets better?

      • It truly does. I listened to the audiobook based on a recommendation and I kept thinking wtf is this shit but then it just switches on!

    • I got book 1 and have struggled to get through the beginning. Still super slow going and a bit of a snooze fest. I am hoping it picks up very soon. I got this one as a follow on. Thanks OP for the post. Now have to wait for the 3rd book to come on sale :-)

      Normally I enjoy hardcore SciFi reading but the beginning has been really hard to get through, most likely due to the place and time it is set in. Reading about a discussion on forestry in revolutionary communist China isn't my thing apparently.

  • +3

    IMO the second book is the best

    • +2

      3rd book went crazy! A lot of good ideas.
      Protagonist in the 3rd book seems like the weakest part.

      • Good analogy

  • +3

    CCP's comment will never be absent, it will only be late.

    • +3

      Ironically, this is the only comment that tries to pull a political trigger.

      • Not any more.

  • +3

    I just finished this series a few weeks ago and man it was amazing.
    Book 1 was good, Book 2 was fantastic, and book 3 was insane.
    I couldn't get enough of it.
    Keen for the Netflix series.

    Ps any recommendations for me to read now? I've read Bobiverse, Leviathan Wakes and Red Rising.

    • +4

      Adrian Tchaikovsky
      Children of ruin
      Dogs of war

    • +2

      Alastair Reynolds, for the pure scope of space opera no one can match him, IMO. Have a read of Revelation Space and see if it hooks you.

      • +1

        +1 for Alastair Reynolds - the scope of his books is fricken insane.

        He and Peter Hamilton are 2 of my fav authors.

        • Somehow I've never heard of Peter Hamilton! Do you recomment just starting at the start with Mindstar Rising?

          Now to decide whether I just read the books or get the audiobooks, it's read by Toby Longworth who's simply brilliant.

          • +1

            @freefall101: I started off reading the Nights Dawn trilogy (The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, The Naked God).
            Those books can get quite dark - although its based on a pretty cool premise - and I liked it even more when I re-read it years later.
            'A Second Chance at Eden' is a stand alone book set in the same universe.

            I highly recommend The Commonwealth Saga (Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained) - as that is the basis for several follow on books and trilogies (The Void trilogy) that feature many of the same characters.

            https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/science-fiction-and-fanta…

    • +1

      This moves more into Cyber Punk - but Richard Morgan is my favourite author. (Wrote Altered Carbon). Additionally Charles Stross is fantastic. I agree with the other comments that if you are after Space Opera then Alaister Reynolds a fantastic read.

    • worth reading Dune if you haven't read it already

      • i'd been meaning to start Dune but the Dune fanbase has never been good at keeping things spoiler free. Their excuse is always "it's old, you had your chance and should have read it already and know it by now."

        So basically, I know all the major plot points. Not sure how much I will gain from reading it.

    • +2

      You need to finish all the James S Corey books now you have read Leviathan!

      Also liu cixin's Ball lightning. Some connections to the Three Body Problem.

      • You know, I'm not sure why I stopped after Leviathan.

        • The Expanse books are fantastic, but there are a LOT of them, so I can understand why someone would stop reading.

  • +1

    soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones.

    https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/amp/news/game-of-thrones-crea…

    • Oh man! Awesome

    • from the creators of Game of Thrones.

      Oh dear.

      • +1

        as long as not S8!!

        • +1

          i'd say the problems began in S6 but culminated in S8. S8 was so bad it brought down the entire series for me, even though I loved S1-5.

          What I'd like to see is a TV adaptation of Malazan but there's no way I could trust D&D with that.

  • +1

    Off topic, the man who held the movie rights, all other rights beside the book publish right, was poisoned to death recently.

    https://deadline.com/2020/12/lin-qi-dies-poisoning-three-bod…

    • Does one individual own the rights, or does the studio/netflix own it?

      • The dead man own a company that bought the rights, I think he asked Netflix to join the project to co-produce the TV series, not sure about the arrangement there.

        • i don't know how things work over there, but if that happened here, what he owned of the company would be passed on to his next-of-kin and they would take the majority shareholder interest.

  • +3

    great book, can't recommend more.

    Out of the three, book 1 is typical cixin liu's work, great ideas, good stories overall.

    Book 2 is the most complete story of all three, has some of the greatest characters.

    Book 3 has insane ideas but it really should be expanded properly with at least 2 or 3 books, it feels like the author is so excited to express all the crazy and fantastic ideas once and for all.

    As general reader I would appreciate book 2 the most, but as a sci-fi fan, book 3 is a feast for the brain.

    • did you find it difficult to follow characters with Chinese names since to a westerner they would all sound very similar?

      • Yes, I definitely did, particularly as I was listening to the audio book. I had to google somethings at times.

  • It's showing $1.84 for me - even better!

  • Brilliant… Best book of the series.

  • +4

    There's a fourth book in the series - The Redemption of Time by Baoshu. It's fan fiction approved by Cixin Liu and translated by Ken Liu.

    It fills in a lot of the gaps in the story, expands on it and finishes it nicely. It was so good to go back to the Three Body world and it was my favourite book in the series.

    • I did not know this. Will put it on my reading list.

      Finished the trilogy a while back and it was amazing. The ideas contained in Cixin Liu's works are mind blowing. I am excited for the TV series!!

      Currently reading his short story collection - To hold up the sky.

    • I can second this recommendation. I was hesitant at first - could anything live up to the original series? However, it more than met my expectations. A bit slow to start and I didn't think it was going anywhere but then it really came good and gave a very satisfying conclusion to a lot of loose ends. I listened to this on audible some years after reading the original three but from memory the writing style was quite similar. I would definitely recommend this book for fans of the original if they want to get back to that amazing world.

      Also his other book "Ball Lightening" is also really good, even if not quite up to book 2 of Remembrance of Earth's Past.

    • +1

      Better check where all the things in your house are made then buddy…

      • -2

        Point taken, but we can all begin supporting Australia by moving away from buying anything Chinese

        • +1

          Even fantastic artists with great voices come out of the most repressive countries. This is a great piece of literature with a very different perspective. It even picks holes into the communist dogma. However the majority of things coming out of China need a rubber stamp from the government - sad but true

    • -1

      Well, how else do you think the government helped his novels become so famous?

    • +1

      Your comment typed on a device and transmitted via another are all made in China. You should stop using any computer now.

      • -2

        Who invented the computer? Not a Chinese person sorry mate, how about you stop stealing our IP and tech, just because your people can't innovate and then stop using the computers westerners invented

    • I wouldn't exactly call China virus land now, comparatively.

      • -1

        Still full of CCP viruses

  • Best trilogy ever

    • You forgot the /s dude.

  • First book is also available via Kindle unlimited. You could use the 30 day free trial.

    I forgotten I'd cancelled it… after getting a bit excited to read the series… Guess I'll buying it now!

  • Is his name pronounced "Six in loo"? On other websites his name is listed as "loo six in", looks like he's gone for the old fashioned name reversal for his book name translation, but in every day life is going by how his name is usually said in Chinese.

    • +1

      No it's not. That would be how an english speaking person is attempting to pronounce a name. The X is start of the the second syllable, not the end of the first.

      Xin = shin
      Liu = liew
      Ci is not a sound that's easy to find an equivalent of in English. It's some combination of S, T and CH sound. I don't think it's a common name, but I could be wrong about that. If I had to attempt it, I would use "tsir".

      When you are trying to pronounce a word/name from another language that uses sounds not found in your own language, you're going to get things like "six in loo" which would be very wrong, but if it's easier for you to say it, no one would expect you to know the correct pronunciation. It would take a pretty big loo to fit six in it.

      In many asian languages, the last name comes before your given name. But some people translating into english will do it in english order. It's confusing I know. Western media used to do this to Chinese names until a few decades ago China requested they keep names in order of Last name, first name. Western media does this to Japanese names also, and the Japanese government has been requesting for years to get them to treat their names in the same order as Chinese names, but western media have not acquiesced.

      If they reversed his name for the cover of this book, I'm 100% certain it was the decision of the publisher, not the author himself. It's not common to do that. A newspaper would not do that.

      Go here and press the audio button to hear it.

  • Once you finish all three, find the last book written by Bao Shu. That explains everything.

  • This is an amazing book. I finished all 3, cannot recommend more.

  • I read the 3 books over the last 4 days - just finished a minute ago.

    Was a good read. Book 1 was pretty slow to get started, but book 2 made up for it.

    Took my mind off Covid.. now I'm terrified of Aliens..

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