The Dark Forest

Author: Cixin Liu
Translator: Joel Martinsen
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates 2015

A civilization that can access ten of the eleven dimensions, that can program a proton by bringing it down to three dimensions, that can use those programmed protons to sabotage all your scientific experiments and halt all scientific progress, leaving you stuck with 21st-century technology until they arrive on Earth in 400 years, is coming to eliminate humankind and take over the Earth.

Your telescopes have actually observed thousands of starships and several probes when they crossed a debris field 4 light-years away. Two of the programmed protons are already here, halting all progress in physics, and those protons are entangled with two protons in the alien world, providing instantaneous access to information for the aliens.

On top of all this, an organized group of human traitors is spying for aliens and in constant touch with them.

Humans are unified to face the incoming danger, even though they have no real hope of stopping the aliens. The United Nations has selected four people, known as "Wallfacers," and has given them any resource they request to come up with a plan or plans to stop the aliens. Wallfacers work independently. The aliens select "Wallbreakers" from the group of traitors to sabotage the work of Wallfacers. 

For some reason, aliens fear only one of these Wallfacers. They want to eliminate him. This Wallfacer does not know why the aliens want to kill him. Once, he was interested in investigating "cosmic sociology," but he has not gone beyond two obvious axioms of this cosmic sociology:

Axiom 1: Survival is the primary need of civilization.

Axiom 2: Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant.

Do the aliens fear that this Wallfacer would make progress with "cosmic sociology"?

This is the sequel to the "Three-Body Problem." Cixin Liu is a master science-fiction writer. He maintains the high standards that he established with the Three-Body Problem in this sequel as well.