The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past #2)

1.  "Make time for life, because life won't make time" 
2. Do remember the title of the book and pay close attention to the opening chapter (as boring as it initially seems) - it's a metaphor and explains the basic concept as to how the Trisolorians can be defeated!! But you can probably guess at least half of the solution well before the end..
3. The first 100 pages were frankly a bit dull and slow-going but it's actually quite interesting to see how it all fits together by the end - apparently, from what I've read,  most people found this to be the case too
4. I love the idea that there are 4 "Wallfacer" humans tasked with creating secret stratagems in their mind to save the earth (that only they know about); and there are 4 "Wallbreaker" humans / cult members (working for the aliens) tasked with finding out what the stratagems are. There is plenty of smoke and mirrors in that regard and I really enjoyed that.
5. I particularly enjoyed how the committee overseeing the Wallfacers are sceptical of the Wallfacers' plans, yet have to fund and accept the fact that they can't know everything about each Wallfacer's plan because those plans need to be kept secret from Aliens who are listening to and watching everything the humans are doing - it's kind of like being Merlin in a game of The Resistance:Avalon - Merlin doesn't want his identity to be found out or the Minions / bad guys win!
6. The idea of hibernation - sleeping for hundreds of years and waking up in the future - is a very interesting concept and the exploration of what the world should look like in centuries from now was done really well. 
7. There are some aspects of the book which ..kind of.. fall into what I or others would typically describe as the slice of life genre - these are the initially boring bits. The main character Luo Ji seems to spend a lot of time enjoying his life and abusing his position as and the near unlimited resources available to him as a Wallfacer - there are also some other random characters who talk about the alien crisis which is Liu's way of showing us a different angle of the crisis as experienced by society eg the urge to flee before the aliens arrive ie escapism, and later the surge of complete foolish overconfidence on the part of the human race.
8. However it becomes quite interesting/exciting when you realise Luo Ji is being targeted specifically by the aliens and they appear to consider him to be the greatest threat - so he has to dodge all these assassination attempts - and he has no idea why but slowly guesses why and it becomes quite cool when he..appears..to start truly planning a strategy to defeat the aliens.
9. The game theory and prisoner's dilemma concepts being applied at a cosmic scale are fascinating to read but it takes a long time to get to that point...it suffices to say that the book certainly makes you think about what's out there in the universe and how Earthlings would be viewed/perceived/treated by others if there are indeed others out there, and the high stakes involved to survive in the cosmos (...the dangers of the dark forest indeed...). 
10. Score: probably not as strong as the first book (but could have been had it been less convoluted): I say 4.2-4.4/5