The Dark Forest, by Liu Cixin

Last year I was on a Chinese novel kick and read Liu Cixin's (or Cixin Liu, depending on how you want to Anglicize his name) The Three-Body Problem. Whilst not exactly the greatest work of literature, it was very enjoyable. I'm honestly not a science-fiction guy, and I didn't really expect to like it, but it was good. The story barreled along, and I very much enjoyed the fact that Liu really knows physics, making the ideas unique and plausible.


This year, while travelling around Africa (see my other blog for info about the trip), I read the second book in what was Liu's trilogy. The Dark Forest leaves off more or less from where the first book ended, with the Earth stunned by the news that it will be invaded by an alien power in 400 years.

"Four hundred years?!" you may well ask. "That's not exactly moving along at a riveting pace!"

The book covers some of those years, jumping about a bit through the same characters as they engage in hibernation to brace against the passage of time. Primarily we follow Luo Ji, a Wallfacer. Wallfacers are the humans chosen to engage in planning the Earth's defense. Due to the presence of "sophons" on Earth, Trisolaris - the enemy power on its way to the Solar System - is able to monitor human activity but not thought. A few humans are chosen as Wallfacers and granted certain power to secretly plan Earth's resistance.

What's interesting to me is that these books view humanity's future from a very Chinese perspective. Yes, it's a global fight, but when you read books in English, usually the future concern a plucky band of white men... In this case, most - but not all - of the characters are Chinese, and the world's language is a hybrid of Chinese and English.

I also like that Liu is very well-versed in science and makes very detailed and plausible guesses about technology in the future. These are all pretty believable and make it easy to engage with the book as it passes through time.

However, as with the first book, Liu's new one falls down in regards characterization. The characters are all pretty flat and predictable. Some of them seem to be carbon copies of cliches from old movies. His dialogue is dull, too. The women in the book largely exist to be beautiful, while the men go out and solve problems. It makes the book rather frustrating. Some of this might be down to translation - and not just translation of language, but the culture wrapped up in it.

Altogether, the first book in this series was, despite some flaws, a very good book that I highly recommended. The second not so much. I'll give the third a shot when it comes out this summer, but I'm not hugely enthusiastic. 

The Men Who Stare at Goats, by Jon Ronson

Readers of this blog will know that I've been working my way through the works of Jon Ronson, pretty much going backwards from his most recent book, and now I have ended up with his most famous, 2004's now-classic The Men Who Stare at Goats.



Jon Ronson is a journalist who likes to document the weird, and he seems to come across as trustworthy enough that he can get close to the real weirdos in life. Yet this is probably his most bizarre book in a career of dealing with bizarre people. It is, as the title suggests, about men who believe they can kill goats by staring at them.

The story goes back to 1979, the US government established a team of commandos who would be tasked with developing super-human abilities like invisibility and psychic investigation. They would also be able to walk through walls and stare goats to death.

He traces the history of this movement through painstaking research. Most people would have given up, but Ronson followed the story to its weirdest extents, and details it in his own Gonzo fashion. He brings it right up into the present day (for 2004, at least) and the War on Terror.

This book is a modern classic - hilarious, informative, and unputdownable. 

I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That, by Ben Goldacre

I read this book while on holiday in South Africa and Swaziland, among some of the most amazing landscapes on earth... and sadly, surprisingly, the book really bored me. Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with much that Dr. Goldacre says. He's obviously an intelligent man doing important work. I just don't think this book needed to be a book.

The book is a collection of Ben Goldacre's articles, which mostly appeared in The Guardian. Individually, these are well-written and really very fascinating bits of writing. After the first few, I was very impressed. However, it goes on and on and on... Eventually you just become rather tired of Goldacre's voice, even thought you agree with him.

In his blog, Goldacre liked to tear apart bad science. He'd attack journalists for reporting bullshit "science" stories, as well as scientists and organizations for releasing them. His methods were interesting, but they only really function as a blog. Looking back over the years, it loses its value. They were important artifacts of their time, for sure, but who cares about what appeared in the Daily Mail fifteen years ago?

The book is also poorly edited and put together. It is repetitive in places, and jumps from subject to subject. Why this book needed to be made, I don't know... I'd much rather read something by the author that is altogether more coherent.