The Dark Forest

How it reads

The Dark Forest is science fiction (hard science fiction, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in several locations, in the future, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are survival, power and politics and identity. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It's a later book in a series — you'll usually want to start earlier. It ends on a cliffhanger, so have the next book ready. At 512 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's a mega-bestseller — the book everyone seems to have read.