The Dark Forest Audiobook By Cixin Liu, Joel Martinsen - translator cover art

The Dark Forest

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The Dark Forest

By: Cixin Liu, Joel Martinsen - translator
Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
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About this listen

Soon to be a Netflix original series!

"Wildly imaginative." (President Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy)

This near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking listeners to experience this multiple-award-winning phenomenon from Cixin Liu, China's most beloved science fiction author.

In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion - in just four centuries' time. The aliens' human collaborators may 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 totally 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.

The Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy

The Three-Body Problem

The Dark Forest

Death's End

Other books

Ball Lightning

Supernova Era

To Hold Up the Sky (forthcoming)

©2008 Cixin Liu (P)2015 Macmillan Audio
Fiction First Contact Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Emotionally Gripping
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Featured Article: 12 of the Best Sci-Fi Series in Audio


From the furthest reaches of space to the microbiology of pandemics and gene manipulation, to the future implications of technology for societies similar to our own, science fiction is a fascinating genre that offers listeners a wide variety of ways to access its themes. In looking for the best sci-fi audiobook series, it can be difficult to know where to start due to the genre's sheer number of iterations and variations. But what these series have in common is an acute devotion to telling a good story, as well as fully building out the worlds therein. The writing is enhanced by the creative and impassioned narration.

What listeners say about The Dark Forest

Average customer ratings
Overall
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Story is great

The narrator is hard to follow. He doesn't pause during scene changes so it can get confused.

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2 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Awesome book with some caveats

First of all: The audiobook is pretty bad for this. I really think he sounds like a text to speech engine. Also does a pretty racist Japanese accent pretty frequently and I’d prefer if he just… didn’t.

Narratively, Liu is pretty misogynistic and it shows throughout the book, namely the first and second portion. It eventually pays off, but it’s hard to get through. Once you get past it, though, it’s a fantastic story and hard to put down.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Like listening to an old Godzilla dub

Story is good. Narrator is boring. The dialogue feels wooden and unnatural. It sounds exactly like dub versions of old Godzilla movies from the 60s and 70s. The English translation of the dialogue sounds very odd to an English speaking listener.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

First in the series has a much better narrator

Story is great. But the narrator changes between books… I much preferred Three Body’s performance vs The Dark Forest..

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    5 out of 5 stars
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amazing

The richness and detail of his descriptions are amazing. His ability to describe complex concepts even more amazing.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Rough start, but keep going. It's worth it.

Book 2 of the Three Body Problem trilogy took a while to get going for me. Gone are most of the characters from the first book, and in their place is new protagonist Luo Ji for reasons that don't become clear until the end. The first quarter of the book focuses on his selfishness and a particularly creepy obsession of his, and it was tough to get through. Keep going though - once the book makes it past it's first time jump, things pick up and I couldn't stop listening.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Narrator is much better at pronouncing the names.

The last book's narrator butchered all the Chinese names really badly. This guy's much better.

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An encouraging continuation of Three Body.

The spirit of the first book is kept intact. This book gave me a blend of dread and wonder, maintaining an intoxicating balance between the two. I'm happy to continue the series 😊

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Unique story

Fascinating unique story. The author does an excllent job describing events as they occurr, with supposed scientific accuracy (I’m told it’s accurate and so I just assume it makes sense or close to it). When something explodes in this book, it does more than explode. The author paints a picture of what the explosion looked like (from multiple perspectives at times) and why the explosion happened.

Really great adventure through a bizarre story that requires a good narrator to help keep you on track. I think dark forest found that here.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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I can wait to read the next book!!!

Cixin Liu is one of the most amazing science fiction writers I have ever read!!!

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