The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin

As imaginative as the first book of Liu Cixin 3-Body Problem trilogy was to science fiction and technology, the second book, entitled “The Dark Forest” creates a nemesis that must be fought with an even better creative and imaginative strategy.  The dark forest strategy itself can't be considered a spoiler in this book review because it is the title.  Literally the dark forest is a term coined by early science fiction writers to mean  if you want to survive in the forest and not be eaten, as a part of the food chain, you must remain quiet.  If you make a sound you will be eaten.  Extrapolating to the cosmos, if there is alien life on other worlds, we must not, as a planet, be a beacon to those other worlds, lest they come to annihilate us.  Which, as described in the first book, is exactly what’s about to happen.  Whereas many of my friends found this book to be the best of the trilogy, I rate it as my 2nd favorite.  I was so happy with the “3-Body Problem” and the introduction to this technology, and the accuracy of the dilemma Liu Cixin introduced, that the solution, in the form of the strategy of the second book, was just a necessary response to his ideas.  Also, I’ve spent my entire career thinking about strategy, whereas his use of game theory, to divine the intentions of an adversary, are second hat.  Not to reduce Liu Cixin’s book in any way, as I said, many find it to be his best, it is, at its core, a book about strategy, and not so much the science fiction, that was the first.  Once he created the science fiction, and the story line, the strategy is just the strategy and how it plays out.   The Netflix series doesn’t end at the first book.  It dives into the second book with the introduction of the key concept of the “Wall Facer”.  On Earth, the strategy they come up with to defeat the attack of the Tri-solarians, albeit 400 years in the future, is to appoint four individuals to come up with strategies in their minds.  Strategies that would be completely secretive that the Tri-solarians would never be able to figure out.  The book traces out the arc of these four Wall Facers through time as their strategies are slowly revealed and defeated by the Tri-solarians as each secretive strategy is uncovered.  The twist at the end of the 2nd book is as good as any twist in any mystery novel and caught me flat footed.  It was, perhaps, the best ending to any science fiction I have read.  Not sufficient to move it into my favorite of the trilogy however.  

I will give Liu Cixin another 4 Stars overall for the book and the trilogy.

Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox

 I was happy Heather Cox Richardson had the time, passion, and knowledge to give us these notes.   I believed that every American should read this book and refresh on why America is great and why we don’t need to make America great again.   I didn’t do much public advocacy for my political leanings…I’ve said many times before my views on Trump.  I am an independent that leans conservative…but that has only earned me the title of RINO from my friends in the red states.  So, instead of writing my own thoughts on FB, I simply pointed to Richardson’s Blog….because she says it all.  And much better than I could….however, now it’s post election and I am finally writing this book review.  I feel that as valuable of a book this was before the election, it is now not worth the paper it was printed on.  As promising as a treatise on why Trumpism is a clear and present danger to Democracy in America, America doesn’t agree with Richardson.  Donald J. Trump was elected President of the United States on Nov 5, 2024.  Did Democracy win?  Or did Democracy just suffer a five finger death punch?   Are we now in a freefall racing toward the arrival of Fascism?  Maybe, maybe not.  One thing is certain, we fucked around, now we are gonna find out.  I don’t find the lessons for Richardson’s book that compelling anymore.  Rather, they are simply the bloviating opinions of the self righteous, hand selected from a litany of many other stories from history.  In hindsight I should have known I was deep inside the echo chamber.  Most of the progressive pundits agree with stalwarts like John Stewart exclaiming, the polls don’t know shit.  Clearly hindsight is 20/20.

I read this book six months before the 2024 election.  I was thinking smart books like this are important to get out there in the world.  My assessment at that time was that Richardson has put together a very nice collection of tales from the history books that brings us to where we are now, seemingly, on the brink of losing our Democracy to lunatics who want an authoritarian government.  Most of us don’t have the time to look through American history and find those important facts…the ones we learned in school but have forgotten about. Or we just remember the wave top details…more like parables in the Old Testament, then the really rich stories from history where we actually have a preponderance of the facts.  Unlike the Biblical parables where we don’t know exactly.  Certain facts about American history that we have thought to be inviolate should be black and white…like the Bill of Rights and Checks and Balances.  Those things about our democracy that were copied by other democracies where we, the United States of America,  lived out the white picket fence dream with the promise of truth, justice, and the American way…without actually having to have a real superhero.  Our Constitution with our system of government was the super hero.  We were the beacon on the hill.  Three branches of government to ensure the checks and balances necessary to prevent the reigns of tyranny from usurping the will of the people.   The envy of the world.  This is the stuff of American history.  The trials and tribulations are always present, but the retention of our American Republic and way of life was always the outcome. 

Richardson opens her book with, “We are at a crossroads..” Meaning, a decision is at hand.  Take the blue pill and return to the peaceful sanctity and normalcy of the progressive life the country has created since the true awakening of the 60’s.  Peace, love, and understanding along with the first female in the White House.  Take the red pill and see how far down the rabbit hole those disenfranchised by the progressive agenda are willing to take the Country to make us “Great Again”.  She ends the book with describing the looming election as a test, and places the fate of our American society back into her readers' own hands.  The election is up to us. Now we get to choose.  Except, her readers already knew their choice.  Her readers are not the ones who got to decide.  The ones who decided, didn’t read her book or her numerous blogs, nor did they read the things I have written.  Case in point, I posted one of Richardson’s blogs on my FB account.  What I got back from my Trumpian friends who commented revealed very quickly that they didn’t even read what I had posted.   

What’s abundantly clear is that the Americans who voted for Trump don't read Heather Cox Richardson.  This is why the book is worthless.   I don’t need to read this book.  I wasn’t voting for Trump before I read it.  So it was a waste of time.  Perhaps I should have been spending that time convincing a few of my friends that they are idiots for voting for this criminal.  Yet they also knew this…so it’s clear…the majority of Americans were ready to take the red pill.  We knew this since January 6, 2021.  They had already swallowed it, they were just waiting four years for it to kick in.  And now it has, with a vengeance.  So as I write this book review, what of anything Richardson has written is worth reporting on? Why do we think we are the keepers of liberty and justice and that the red voters just fucked us.  Could it be…something different?    Richardson tells us how it all fell apart.  The slow slide towards authoritarianism began in 1930 when FDR rose to power, and stayed by the way--authoritarian style--for a few more years. Hating business, in a capitalist society, all the while.  But what she means is how it fell apart for us.  It didn’t appear that it fell apart for those disgusted by the progressive agenda foisted upon us by the far left.  Why did we think, of course, we need to elect a female president?  We need to show the world we truly believe.  That, our great country is not made up completely of the basket of deplorables described by Hillary Clinton before she lost to Trump in 2016, but a diverse collection of everyone who believes in freedom.  We can’t keep saying those on the right are sexist, racist, bigots who cling to their bibles and guns.  We have to address why a careful reading of Richardson's history of America is completely wrong and not worth reading.  Why did the majority of the Country not vote for Richardson's awakening democracy?  

I am not afraid of the future.  I have not suffered the same anxiety many of my liberal friends and family have suffered.  Instead of fearing for the future I have tried to look at it from those jubilant in the Red states.  Jubilant that they, in fact, have saved democracy from us.  Those that truly believe Trump and his cronies will Make America Great Again.  Believing in that red wave of hope…means believing in my friends who are happy and excited about the future.  I can embrace that…and it makes me happy to do so.  It makes me happy for them.  I can also embrace the coming restrictions of business, which of course, upon which capitalism thrives, being lifted.  While I may be an independent moderate, I am 1000% a capitalist.  Capitalism is truly the only system of society with a chance at keeping us civilized.  What we are headed for, in the best case scenario, is not toward Fascism  but a version of capitalism where the robber barons of the late 1800s rape and pillage the land and the people…included my blue collar friends who voted them in, in a effort to enrich themselves.  This would be the exact opposite of socialism that these same friends loath, against their own self interests.  In these very big companies…such as anything Musk, and everything Amazon, the growing prospect of Unions is now very real.  It’s no wonder Musk aligned with Trump early…and Jeff Bezos,  that sell out coward, demonstrates where his true loyalties lie…deep within their own pockets.  I hope the coming unionization will crush them and crush them soon.

This is where Richardson fails.  She does not see, or she doesn’t realize, that our democracy is tied hook, line, and sinker to capitalism.  Thus reporting on the aspects of why the governance of our country is correctly structured, that structure is forever linked to capitalism.  Capitalism is the true keeper of the flame of why we have legislation and a judicial system.  Business is the business of America.  It needs a framework in which to thrive but it also needs boundaries to keep it somewhat in check.  She should read a few more books on the history of business in the United States and perhaps this wouldn’t have been a true blind spot for her. 

The government is an illusion.  The country will continue to prosper, notwithstanding the prospect or war.  Half the country has a surge of energy and will ride the wave of happiness for a while.  Capitalists will capitalize and the economy will boom.  We will ride this wave of prosperity upwards…as will the new robber barons...into a much greater division of wealth between the haves and the have nots.  This will continue, ultimately, until the country can build the infrastructure that makes energy ubiquitous.  Once energy is ubiquitous, it will also be free.  Once free energy arrives politics will cease to be necessary.  Human’s will still seek power, but governance will be more like the power bestowed about the leadership of a homeowners association. Humorous, but mostly Karen's, and mostly annoying.

Six months ago I gave Richardson, 4 Stars for this hopeful read.  Now, finding it all inconsequential I can’t give it more than 2 stars.  Who would ever go back and read it now. 

Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

Before reading this book I watched the Netflix series…then I listened to the novel on audio books, before purchasing the hard copy.  So much can be said about this book, and having won so many awards, it’s difficult to find an angle that hasn’t already been addressed.  Clearly I am a fan.  Liu understands all of the science he writes about and turns it into fiction in a very credible way.  He is the Carl Sagan of our times.  And he expands beyond the adroit Sagan’s astronomy and cosmology to take  us into all of the technology necessary to  achieve all of the truly fanciful stories he creates about how we are going to make first contact with an Alien species.  Then, only to find out,  the worst possible scenario.  Damn, the universe isn’t a big beautiful benevolent place, rather, it’s just like the jungle.  Survival of the fittest is the prime directive.   Not something more altruistic such as, first do no harm, as the Hippocratic Oath might be applied to the discovery of alien worlds.  No, in the jungle, hunt, or be hunted.  In this book, a naive radio astronomer makes first  contact with the Alien world, the “Tri-solarians”, and for the survival of their species, they tell us they are coming to Earth, to kill all earthlings, and take over the place.  The catch…which makes the science particularly credible, to get to earth it will take 400 years of space travel.  Plenty of time, if you are on earth, to have any number of reactions. Running the gamut from, “Who cares?”,  “Aw Shit, we are Fucked”, to being a sympathizer on their side if you already hate humans, to going high order in a way necessary to defeat the bastards before they get to our planet.

He is creative in ways that are refreshing, such as his correct use of actual science, computer gaming,  computer technology, radio astronomy, and  space control, and at least speculatively correct in ways science could be used for the more advanced magic that is necessary for some of his futuristic aliens to prepare their way on as they journey here.  For instance, wanting to freeze our technology at its current level, lest we invent ways to defeat them in the next four hundred years…aka, being more advanced than they are upon their arrival. And the use of quantum entanglement to communicate over the great distances.

One of my favorite parts of this book, and the NetFlix series, was for the Tri-solarians to create a computer using 30 Million physical  objects as binary gates, thus creating the largest computer in the history of the universe.  The book describes this quite well.  The TV series illustrates how it might work in CGI.

An additional insight one cannot refuse to acknowledge is the fact that Liu wrote this book in his native language of Chinese and it was translated to English by his brother.  How well this book holds up in English is either a testament to the translation or simply the compelling nature of Liu’s story.  I think both were necessary to achieve such acclaim for this story.

This book is a must read for any science fiction fan.  As I have already completed the trilogy…which includes the second novel, “The Dark Forest”, and “Death’s End”, I can tell you that this is by far the best of the three that scratch science fiction writing.  I’ll address the others if independent book reviews.  Five stars, if I was still on Amazon, for “Three Body Problem”.

The SPY in Moscow Station

One review I just read of the book “The Spy in Moscow Station '' by Eric Hazeltine, advises the reader of a spoiler alert and then reports, “The Spy” is not human as if somehow the title infers that to be the case.  In the end, the spy turns out to be a highly technical listening device implanted in the US Embassy in Moscow (Moscow Station) in place to extract keystrokes from the IBM Selectric typewriter in the US  ambassador to the USSR’s office. So not human. The implanted device was in the typewriter the ambassador would  use to type letters for the State Department.  Not to spoil that particular reviewer's fun (He was a former CIA muckety muck), but that is exactly what spies do.  It’s strange that he would say such a thing. Technical gadgets are a must.  So there should be no spoiler…I guess that reviewers' experience was at the CIA, where HUMINT and the use of human assets to provide intelligence is the game.  He also felt Hazeltine was grinding an axe about the CIA sometimes not taking the NSA seriously.   My point is simply that in order for those implants to be in the embassy, and be useful, it took an army of human spies (not one spy), inside the fence, to put them there, and be in  place to make the extraction through the operation of the technology. It’s a team effort.  That army of spies committed years of effort to keep the device alive and functioning so they could meticulously funnel out keystrokes from a typewriter.  Think about that for a second.  As I type this book review, should someone be recording keystrokes, they would have to listen (record) for hours and hours, perhaps days, over which I will start and stop, and backspace, and cut and paste, etc.  Also, there were 250 IBM Selectrics in Moscow Station at the time.  Implants were found in about 16 of them.   It’s eye-watering to think about the scale of effort the Soviets committed to this endeavor and it was a watershed moment for the United States when our government finally learned the extent of the breach and conceded the French were right.  The French government tipped off the US that the Soviets might be doing something along these technical lines since they discovered a similar implant in their communication gear.    I first read about the Gunman Project, the name given to the search for this particular implant, in Nicole Perlroth’s book, “This is How They Tell Me the World Ends' ' so I recognized what was happening in Haseltine’s book almost immediately.  Of course, I said to myself, this is the IBM Selectric implant fiasco.  Then I had to read the next 242 pages to get to the punch line. Perlroth’s chapter on the Gunman Project is less than 10 pages.  So Hazeltine reports a lot more on the technical side than Perlroth describes, most of which, however, comes from an academic paper written by Sharon A. Maneki in 2012 entitled, “The Gunman Project”.  This was written for the Center for Cryptologic History at the National Security Agency.  Hazeltine also references this paper but also conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with Charles Gandy, whose involvement in the project was not reported on by Maneki, perhaps for security reasons back in 2012.

A few caveats up front.  My boss recommended this book.  When your boss recommends a book  two things apply.  One, you should definitely read it.  Two, you should generally agree with your boss's perspective. My boss made a few mea culpa’s about the book, because he’s a nice guy, and acquiesced away from responsibility should I not like it.  It’s my fault if you don’t like it.  He knows I write critical book reviews and can be a dick when a book doesn’t rise to my level of satisfaction.  Also, my boss is an expert in the subject matter.  So if I didn’t like it…perhaps it would be because I did not understand it.  Never fear, I liked the book so here is my positive review.

There are three distinct aspects to  this book which are unique.  

First, Eric Haseltine was a former director of research at NSA.  He held that position for three years in the early 2000s just after 9/11.  This is discovered early in the introduction by Gen Michael Hayden.  Gen Hayden hired Hazeltine from Disney to spark innovation at the NSA.  Whether that happened or not is debatable.  This book, however, isn’t about Haseltine’s time at the NSA, although it’s an interesting discussion point given the seemingly controversial action related to his being hired.  There was a lot of talk in the community that the US Government had hired the Disney Imagineer.  It turns out, the only thing I’ve found that this Imagineer accomplished was to influence the seating arrangement of analysts who sit on the Ops floor of various intelligence centers.  I’ve truly discovered nothing else.   

Second, this is a book about political relationships inside the intelligence community, in particular the rivalry between the NSA and the CIA as the NSA struggled to come to grips with its charter.  This is the axe the other reviewer from the CIA thinks Hazeltine is grinding.   This rivalry still exists today which is a huge detriment to the country.  Hazeltine, as an outsider, was in a key position to observe this tremendous power struggle.   But we all know about the power struggle.  It’s never been a mystery and occurred as soon as the NSA was established.   I think generally speaking, the NSA is an organization whose existence is highly dubious…their technical prowess exists elsewhere. This may seem like a controversial statement but the NSA is the organization that continuously gives intelligence a bad name for having the means for spying on the American public.  To counter this dubious side of the NSA, the intelligence they collect is locked behind legions of lawyers trying to keep the lid on potential missteps that could lead to violations of the constitution (inadvertent spying on Americans).  This lock down of intelligence for legal purposes thus prevents vital intelligence from making it into the hands of the warfighters who actually need it.  Undoubtedly an objective of Hazeltine’s work was to highlight the ineffectiveness of a government at odds with itself. I also personally disagree with the NSA’s belief that they are in a better position to inform the President.  The CIA is absolutely correct.  Technical collection is meaningless without context and it requires human analysts to provide context.  This will never change.

Third, this is a book about The Gunman Project, which reports on the technical implants I mentioned above  in the US Embassy in Moscow that were exposed by Charles Gandy.  We can argue their value, but the Soviets sunk untold resources into creating the implant and operating it for perhaps a decade.  Maybe they debatably gained nothing,  that is short sighted.  They learned how to do it, and they learned it could be done.  Tradecraft is everything. Also, the only reason we pursued the implant was because the French government found an implant of their own in one of their networks and tipped off the United States to be on the lookout.  I like that Charles Gandy gets the credit for all of this thanks to Hazeltine.  He was left out of the previous history on this topic.

Perlroth never mentions Charles Gandy.  Gandy could also be called the spy (or counterspy) in Moscow Station.  He uncovered almost everything necessary to act in 1978 but then failed to get the Country to act on what he discovered for another six years…not until the intervention of Neely, who went behind his leadership’s back, directly to President Ronald Regan to secure the funding and resources, to start project Gunman, and find the leak in the embassy.  Thus, heretofore, Neely got the credit for Gunman, when much much more of the credit belongs to Gandy.

I think Hazeltine gets the politics correct, and definitely corrects history with regard to Gandy, but it’s not clear he fully understands the technology he was describing.   He continuously refers to signals known as TUMS as microwave flooding.  He totally misunderstands the nature of these signals and why they were there, and wildly, and incorrectly, speculates about their intended use.  

Gandy rediscovers the use by the Soviets of a signal called TUMS (technically unidentifiable Moscow Signals)…which amount to directing microwave radiation in the direction of the embassy.  This signal is largely and incorrectly speculated about by Hazeltine as a means to cause vibrations in certain materials which may themselves resonate with the possibility of carrying information, such as voice vibrations, out of the spaces that they flood.   He doesn’t really understand the technology behind what he’s writing about.  Also, this technique would never work or many reasons.  Regardless, many individuals still seem to carry around the belief in magic, just like a belief in aliens. (Gandy seems to believe this is real-or at least led Hazeltine to believe it's real)   OK, fine, let our adversaries chase their tail trying to develop that kind of attack.  Good luck.  However, more important to the point of microwave flooding,  why the United States permits the Soviets to flood US Sovereign territory with microwave energy, regardless of its purported innocuous or nefarious nature, is beyond me.  One need only boil water in a microwave oven to understand that we shouldn’t put biological systems in an environment and allow anyone to pump in directed radio waves of any frequency, regardless of intent. If you disagree, feel free to rig your microwave oven to turn on with the door open, and stand in front of it for a pinch.  (Don't do that)

The staff at the Embassy in Moscow discovered a chimney in the middle of their building that didn’t end at a fireplace.  I was just an open vertical tunnel in the middle of the building.  The CIA brings in Gandy from the NSA to investigate what’s going on. In the chimney they find a Yagi antenna (think old style TV antenna on the roof of your house) suspended by cables attached to a box of electronics pointed in the direction of the ambassador's office. Gandy discovered this on his first trip to Moscow station in the late 70’s.  Why this didn’t change things at the embassy is a mystery to everyone.  They brought him in.  They found something.  They didn’t look further.  The guy at the CIA who was in charge, who brought Gandy in, literally did nothing.  Later, he would rise in rank at the CIA and is one of their most decorated and experienced leaders in CIA history, a legend, in fact.  This makes no sense.  So…regardless of what was reported in this book, other things that are still classified, seem to have been a foot.  We may never know the true story.

Eventually Gandy get’s a receiver hooked up to the subject antenna and hears clicks.  Well Virginia, Bob is definitely your Uncle, but everyone but Gandy decided there was no Santa Claus.  It’s another six years before Project Gunman is started based on the tip from the French, the US secretly empties the embassy of every shred of electronics, and the search for a bug begins in earnest.  The search reveals the purpose of the original antenna left in the chimney.  It’s use was to record keystrokes from the implants in the typewriters. The clicking that Gandy had heard.  

Hazeltine might be off on tech but he is spot on with regard to the failure of the US to act on Gandy’s discoveries and the politics that lay behind the inability to act. 

In the end, the most powerful lesson from this book, regardless of whether the technology disclosed evidence that condemned Soviet assets to death, or if anything of value ever came out of the Soviet intelligence operation, Gen Hayden captures the message in his introduction.  He delivers it  quite  succinctly when he says, “The US cannot afford to underestimate the inventiveness and determination of highly motivated adversaries, nor can we underestimate the damage we do to ourselves when we fight each other responding to such adversaries.”

This is an important book.  Everyone in this business should know this story well.