The Dark Forest

In The Three-Body Problem, the opening volume in Cixin Liu’s trilogy, Remembrance of Earth’s Past, Earth’s population found itself facing an unprecedented threat. Trisolarans, technically advanced inhabitants of a dying planet, have focused their attention on Earth, and are determined to make it their new home. As this second volume opens, the Trisolarian fleet has just been launched. Their journey will take more than 400 years to complete, but they are on their way. And that fact changes everything. In a narrative spanning centuries, The Dark Forest examines the effects of a remote but very real threat on the citizens of Earth, effects that are at once spiritual, psychological, and pragmatic. Science and technology make concerted efforts to rise to the occasion, but encounter a single, insurmountable problem. The Trisolarans have littered the earth with sub-atomic particles known as “sophons” that have two functions. They place unbreakable limits on human technological development, and they reveal every secret strategy and plan to the invading forces. Faced with an obstacle they cannot overcome, the leaders of Earth develop a desperate, last-ditch plan called The Wallfacer Project, in which four individuals are given unlimited resources to develop—in absolute secrecy—a feasible defense against an immensely superior enemy. One of these four—an insignificant astronomer named Luo Ji—may hold the key to human survival in the dark, predatory forest of the universe.

In The Three-Body Problem, the opening volume in Cixin Liu’s magnificent trilogy, Remembrance of Earth’s Past, Earth’s population found itself facing an unprecedented threat. Trisolarans, technically advanced inhabitants of a dying planet, have focused their attention on Earth, and are determined to make it their new home. As this astonishing second volume opens, the Trisolarian fleet has just been launched. Their journey will take more than 400 years to complete, but they are on their way. And that fact changes everything. In an epic narrative spanning centuries, The Dark Forest examines the effects of a remote but very real threat on the citizens of Earth, effects that are at once spiritual, psychological, and pragmatic. Science and technology make concerted efforts to rise to the occasion, but encounter a single, insurmountable problem. The Trisolarans have littered the earth with sub-atomic particles known as “sophons” that have two functions. They place unbreakable limits on human technological development, and they reveal every secret strategy and plan to the invading forces. Faced with an obstacle they cannot overcome, the leaders of Earth develop a desperate, last-ditch plan called The Wallfacer Project, in which four individuals are given unlimited resources to develop—in absolute secrecy—a feasible defense against an immensely superior enemy. One of these four—an insignificant astronomer named Luo Ji—may hold the key to human survival in the dark, predatory forest of the universe.

In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion — four centuries in the future. The aliens' human collaborators have been defeated but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth's defense plans are exposed to the enemy.Only the human mind remains a secret.This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a daring plan that grants four men enormous resources to design secret strategies hidden through deceit and misdirection from Earth and Trisolaris alike. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists but the fourth is a total unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer and sociologist, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he's the one Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead.