I have been wondering about the translation — I actually accidentally started The Dark Forest a month or so ago, before realising it was the successor to The Three Body Problem and putting it down again. There's a different translator and whilst some of the dialogue felt a bit clunky, I was quite swept up by it — I'm looking forward to taking it back on and comparing!

Thanks for the note about the criticism of the state — it's very evident and I did find it a bit surprising. I'd simply assumed it was perhaps 'allowed' to criticise Cultural Revolution-era China as such great strides had been made since then.. but now I think about it ‘Tiananmen Square’ and contemporary censorship hints otherwise. Interesting, thanks — particularly as another of Cixin Liu's works appears to be have been made into a bombastic blockbuster movie, presumably with State encouragement ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8LAwozrXPo )