The series was written by a Chinese author and was translated to English by two different translators, one translator for the first and third book and another for the second. The Dark Forest was translated by a man named Joel Martinsen. If you happened to read my previous article and review of the Three Body Problem then you'll recall that I had a bit of an issue with the translation while reading it. I found it to read a little clunky and to feel very amateurish at times, especially during parts with dialogue. It read like a young author or maybe teen fiction, not throughout but periodically. I had the same issue with this book, to be honest. There were parts where I was taken out of the story by it, as if things just weren't flowing properly. For me I couldn't really tell the difference between the two different translators, but my wife happened to like the original translator a bit better than the second one. For me it was like two side of the same coin, "six or half a dozen," as they say.
Translations issues aside, I would say that the book was quite good overall, in my opinion. They translation didn't detract from the story for me too much. The hard science, and even more so the sci-fi concepts, really carried me through and kept me engaged and interested. I found the ideas to be fascinating at times. The author certainly has some interesting ideas.
This book was longer than the first one and took me extra time to complete it. I essentially whipped through the first book by comparison, whereas this one took me a decent amount of time longer.
I would say that I preferred the Three Body Problem and found the begining of the Dark Forest to be a little boring. That being said, it definitely picked up the pace in the back end. The last 80% really popped off in fact.
The two books were quite different with the first one having much more going on, whereas the Dark Forest tended to focus more on a few key plot points and characters of the story. Nonetheless there was a synergy between the two and it did feel like a continuation of the Three Body Problem.
All in all I'm enjoying the series and though I have some theories of where it might all lead in the end, I actually doubt that I've guessed it right. My theories are very loose guesses. I look forward to finding out what happens in the end and I'll let you know if its worth the undertaking once I do.
That being said, I read the first two books back to back and now I feel like I need to take a break from the story before continuing on to the third and final part. The last book is even longer than the second, so I plan to read a few books in between before getting back into it.
As far as recommendations go, I'd say that this is a good trilogy so far. You might like it if you like the Sci-Fi genre and if you're willing to give it some charity and look past some clunky translations. Its not an elegant read by any means but its a good a concept book with some new ideas.
