The Dark Forest is primarily about ideas, as science fiction tends to be. The plot, characters, and whatever else matter, though mostly in what role they play in the elaboration of the ideas. Some of the the main ideas are survival at any cost, great man theory, dark forest theory, and the difficulties involved with informational transparency when confronting an enemy. Many of these ideas are presented through the interplay between the Wallfacers and the Wallbreakers who oppose each other. Personally, I found it to be silly in that it seemed to be more for dramatic purposes than practical. Though, anything involving the ETO was garbage, as it was in the first book. There's also what people seem to call the tulpa part, but I think it was more a commentary on weltschmerz, contemporary literature, and the writing process than anything else, especially considering what later happens.

The first 60% of the book took place in more-or-less present day while the latter 40% was centuries later. The former was fine, though I preferred the latter because its presentation of the future within the technological restrictions and how society progressed during that time. Ideology is important to this book and unlike many other SF novels, their ideology evolved more over time than their technology. I believe these restrictions served a dual overt and covert purposes. They allow for a more plausible future because it's only, what if now only more developed, and without any surprises. It also places greater emphasis on non-technological changes. Perhaps less obviously it shows the effect that stagnation of theoretical science has on society as well as what wrong lessons may be learned due to ideological laxity.

What bothered me most in this book in particular was the way that it was presented as being serious, except when some moral lesson was expressed in which case everything was subordinated to that. Unfortunately, this happened a lot. Many characters, and a lot of the absolute idiocy, seemed to exist only to demonstrate to the reader why the character's way was a form of wrong thinking and then the character and/or reader were lectured on proper behavior. However, oftentimes that's only at face value. Some characters may lecture on about whether something is good or correct, but what seemed to be more important were the results and their implications. This can be especially seen when comparing the differences of the four plans, particularly their results and what the actual problem was with them.

This second book was better and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It still had many problems that greatly annoyed and irritated me, though not anywhere to the degree of intensity I felt when reading the first book. Since I've now read the second book I may as well read the third book eventually. That's when I'll decide if the series was worthwhile.

Rating: 3.5/5