2016.09.29
Just finished, after lots of starts and stops over the past month.
It reminds me of sci-fi old (Rama) and new (Seveneves), but especially Macroscope. Lots of twists and turns from small and deeply personal to cosmic in scope.
Like the first book, you could just end it right there and it would be totally fine. I wasn't expecting this much new and good stuff from the second book, so now I'm really curious about the third book. Is it translated yet? Searching.... wow, it came out 10 days ago. What timing, for books that were written in the previous decade, that I am just discovering now.
*spoilers*
The metaphor of the dark forest is an excellent answer to why the universe seems so quiet. It fits so fiendishly well, you can't help but contemplate the stars with something akin to Lovecraftian levels of cosmic horror. Its so dire that attracting the slightest bit of attention means whatever star you are orbiting is probably going to explode within your lifetime. Instead of a Star Trek universe, its a Mad Max universe. Actually, that's too kind and orderly. Its more like a zombie movie, where every civilization inevitably becomes a psychopathic cannibal in the end. And once this point is brought home in multiple ways, you are thrown a bone at the end that empathy and love might actually exist in this universe.
The second book feels like it flows logically from the first. So where can we go in book three with what we know? Maybe the galaxy is filled with psycho killers quietly stalking each other, but if you can stay alive long enough, and keep your wits and some sense of civilization about you long enough, perhaps you can find the extradimensional secret treehouse where the good guy survivors are hanging out above the fray, and if you can convince them you belong, maybe they'll lower the treehouse rope ladder just long enough for you to scurry up to the next level.
You have the same problems of the first book, where the author needs to explain something to the audience, and two characters stop what they are doing, turn to the audience, and there's a stream of exposition. Sometimes a hat is hung on it, sometimes its worked into the story, but its a science fiction thing you just have to expect, the way you expect certain tropes from romance novels, for example. But its done more competently than the first book, and so are some of the characters. What I'm not sure about is the part near the end where a bunch of humans instantly go cannibal murderer on each other at the end, just to serve as another proof of the author's primary theory of the book.
There was so much written about how the humans of this time (I think it was 200 years after the world started mobilizing for war) are hopelessly naive, and far more peaceable than the hibernators, who were much more in the mindset of war and suspicion. Zhang Beihei single-handedly, and single-mindedly, saved a tiny portion of the fleet from destruction, and all the survivors immediately hail him as the new supreme commander, while they escape the doomed earth. Five minutes later, every surviving ship is firing its super-weapons at each other, because that's what the point of this book is: if you don't shoot first to guarantee your meagre share of resources (and continuing existence), the other guy will. Its a nice way to underline the point that not only are the Tri-Solarans proof of the central concept, but the proof lies within mankind too, just waiting to bust out under the right conditions. Well, the right conditions were not adequately established. Humans survived the Cold War, and we were barely talking to one another, meanwhile these future humans were plugged into the modern equivalent of Facebook every waking minute. One might say this wasn't the general population, this was the military. I think that makes it even more likely that some sort of communication, probably within the chain of command, would have taken place before a near instant breakdown of humanity. I can't help but think of that moment in a recent Batman movie, where both sides are given a button to blow up the other boat, and in a funny and touching scene, the psychos of the world are proven to be in the minority. That felt right, but maybe its just wishful thinking.
Its a sharp contrast to what's happening back on Earth, where Luo Ji has figured out how to use the dark forest as a weapon, and forces the Tri-Solarans to surrender before they even get to Earth. Its sort of a proof that if you can get control of a few variables, the cosmic sociology axioms (technology, suspicion) can be suspended. There seems to be a strong hope at the end that the two species can not only co-exist at the end, but can grow to be willing allies. If humanity moves up a whole tech level, it can probably easily send ships that can go catch the escaping remnants of the human fleet, no matter their head start. That'll be an awkward meeting. Oh hey guys, if you had just waited a little while, we not only defeated the enemy without firing a shot, but they're working us now, and now we have their technology, and we're ready to see what humanity can really do now that the sophon brakes have been removed. It might be kinder to just send a teardrop after them and finish them off.
No more time to look back, must move on to the third story.
