Cixin Liu - The Dark Forest

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (E) 9781784971588

ISBN (HB) 9781784971595

ISBN (XTPB) 9781784971601

ISBN (PB) 9781784971618

Head of Zeus Ltd

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London EC1R 0HT

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Translator’s Note: Xi ǎ o is a diminutive meaning “little” or “young” and is used before a surname when addressing children or to show affection.

Translator’s Note: Zh ì zi (智子), literally “knowledge particle.” The character for “particle” frequently appears in female given names in Japanse, where it is pronounced “ko.”

Translator’s Note: L ǎ o , meaning “old,” is often used before a surname of those older than the speaker to show respect or familiarity.

Translator’s Note: A historical novel attributed to Luo Guanzhong (c. 1330–1400), Romance of the Three Kingdoms describes the contest between three regional powers from the waning days of the Eastern Han Dynasty (184) to the reunification of the empire under the Jin Dynasty (280). It is known for its iconic characters, battle scenes, and political intrigue.

Translator’s Note: The insignia of the People’s Liberation Army is a star inscribed with the characters eight and one.

Translator’s Note: The Kuiper Belt is a region extending from the orbit of Neptune, at roughly 30 AU, to roughly 50 AU, and is home to Pluto and two other dwarf planets, among other objects.

Translator’s Note: Roughly equivalent to $65,000 in early 2015.

Translator’s Note: Vast networks of tunnels were built in cities across China beginning in the late 1960s as defensive measures against enemy attack. This slogan, adapted from advice given to the founder of the Ming Dynasty, was promulgated as a directive from Mao Zedong in the People’s Daily ’s annual New Year’s Editoral in January 1973.

Translator’s Note: Wang Xiaobo (1952-1997) was an influential novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work became enormously popular after his untimely death.

Translator’s Note: First cosmic velocity is the initial velocity a body needs to achieve orbit, second cosmic velocity the amount needed to leave an object’s gravitational pull, and third cosmic velocity the amount needed to leave the Solar System.

Translator’s Note: The Oort Cloud is collection of icy objects in a spherical distribution that surrounds the Solar System at a distance of 50,000 to 100,000 AU and is believed to be the source of long-period comets.

Translator’s Note: Yang Wen-li is one of the protagonists of Legend of the Galactic Heroes , a series of Japanese science fiction novels launched in 1982 by Yoshiki Tanaka, and followed by manga and anime adaptations.

Translator’s Note: This famous quote about filial piety appears in Mencius , a collection of conversations and anecdotes related to the Confucian philosopher of the same name, who lived in the late fourth century BC.

Translator’s Note: “Al-Qaeda” is translated into Chinese rather than transliterated, and is known as J ī d ì, the same term used for the title of Asimov’s Foundation novels.

Translator’s Note: Dunhuang, an oasis on the Silk Road in what is now Gansu province, was home to spectacularly decorated Buddhist grottoes inhabited from the fourth to fourteenth centuries. In 1900, Wang Yuanlu, a Taoist abbot at Dunhuang’s Mogao Caves, discovered a sealed-up Library Cave containing a cache of ancient documents that he subsequently sold to Hungarian-British archeologist Aurel Stein and French sinologist Paul Pelliot.

Translator’s Note: China instituted a ration system for grain and cooking oil in the early 1950s, and expanded it in 1961 to include goods ranging from shoes and scissors to home appliances and electronics. With the transition from planned economy to market economy in the 1980s, use of the ration system declined, and it was terminated in the early 1990s.

Translator’s Note: In a tokamak, plasma is confined to a torus shape by a toroidal electromagnetic field surrounding the torus and a current induced in the plasma itself. Developed by Soviet scientists in the 1950s, they produced better results than other plasma containment devices.

Translator’s Note: The Battle of Weihaiwei was the last major battle of the First Sino-Japanese War. In February 1895, the ships of the Beiyang Fleet, the Qing Dynasty’s northern navy, were anchored in the harbor at Weihaiwei, Shandong province, their home base, for safety from the advancing Imperial Japanese Navy. When Japanese land forces seized shore fortifications, the Chinese fleet was forced to surrender.

Translator’s Note: Roughly $10,000 per piece, or a total of $30,000.

Translator’s Note: Liu Buchan commanded the Beiyang Fleet’s flagship, the battleship Dingyuan , in the aforementioned Battle of Weihaiwei in February 1895.

Translator’s Note: In the fable “The Wolf of Zhongshan,” attributed to the Ming Dynasty writer Ma Zhongxi, the bookish scholar Master Dongguo takes pity on a hunted, starving wolf and hides it in a bag as hunters pass by. When he lets the wolf out, it threatens to eat him but is persuaded to put the issue to a third party. An old farmer, after hearing the situation, protests that the wolf could not possibly fit in the bag. The wolf climbs back in, whereupon the farmer ties up the bag and bashes the wolf to death with his hoe.

Translator’s Note: X ī z ǐ is another name for Xi Shi, one of the Four Beauties of ancient China, who lived near Hangzhou. West Lake ( X ī h ú) in Hangzhou has a particular association with Xi Shi.

Translator’s Note: Strong interaction is the strongest of the four fundamental interactions, and is responsible for the strong nuclear force that binds together subatomic particles. It is roughly 100 times more powerful than electromagnetism, but is only effective at distances of less than a femtometer.

Translator’s Note: This popular quotation sums up the great vow of the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha (Dìzàng Púsà) not to achieve Buddhahood until all living beings are saved.

Translator’s Note: Lagrange Points are the five positions where a small object affected only by gravity can remain in equilibrium in relation to two larger bodies.

Translator’s Note: Driven out of Yan’an by a Nationalist offensive in 1947, Communist forces established a base in Xibaipo, a village in the foothills of the Taihang Mountains in southwestern Hebei province. From there they directed the Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin campaigns, the decisive offensive in 1948 and 1949 that pushed the Nationalists out of northern China.