"The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin" by Pyotr Demianovich Ouspensky

His name is Pyotr, not Peter.  Let's get that straight first.  No need to anglicize every foreign name out there, especially not European ones.  A little foreign languages study goes a long way.

"The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin" is largely biographical and the main theme is Nietzsche's idea of Eternal Recurrence, exposed in several of his writings.  However, Ouspensky wrote the original Russian version in 1915, after he met Gurdjieff (the Magician), and the novel reflects that, as the idea of Eternal Recurrence is modified to include only "two or three, or in any case a few" lives, after the person learns about the idea.   Nietzsche's concept is also modified by Ouspensky in the sense that each 'recurrence' is not completely identical to the previous one, but they can be different, and it is postulated that each following one is worse than the previous one, because the person has less and less chances to change anything in each subsequent incarnation.

Aside from young Ouspensky's pussy chasing (and he's not doing bad at all!), the book emphasizes the point from the Gurdjieff's system that "a man cannot do" that is, one cannot change anything, even if one knows what one wants to change and even if one remembers all the things as they were before.  Ouspensky writes that from a far things look clear and obvious, but once one is surrounded by the circumstances and details - things just happen mechanically of themselves, exactly in the way they happened before.

At the end of the book Osokin is offered a deal by the Magician, in exchange for 15-20 years of his life and service, the Magician will help Osokin learn and know how to change himself, but young Osokin doesn't trust him and is still more concerned about the latest hot pussy running away from his clutches. 

We all know how Ouspensky's life turned out later and his love of pussy was replaced by love of whiskey and vodka (sometimes together), however that does not prevent him from being one of the most clear-minded, clear language expositors of both Gurdjieff's and his own ideas in writing.

"La Grande Bretêche" by Honoré de Balzac

This is a short story, one of the few that deals specifically with a subject that could be loosely called "Horror" by Balzac.  Balzac used to get paid by the word, so all his novels are very wordy, though not less enjoyable for that.

This story can be seen from multiple perspectives: as a plain horror story, as a portrait of the power relationship between a husband and a wife in 19th century France, or as a critique of "Christian" morality and fate, which seems to crumble when strong enough biological impulse is introduced to the equation.

The story has to do with a doctor from Paris who comes to a rural part of France and is enamored of an old, isolated house which seems to be abandoned.  He gets the initial story from the town Notary, and then the Inn Keeper (who has a problem with theft) and finally by bedding a former maid from the house he was interested in.

The story has to do with a very-Christian wife who takes in a lover, imprisoned Spaniard, but falsely swears to the husband that there's no one in the room, though the guy is hiding in the alcove.  The husband, who can compete in cruelty with the best, orders the alcove closed with a brick wall and spends several weeks in the wife's room to makes sure the guys inside is completely dead and decomposing before he leaves her.

"The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury

This book is not a novel, but a collection of short stories, very loosely relating to Mars, which were stitched together by small vignettes and intermezzos.

It doesn't really work well.  Although I respect Bradbury and his seminal novel "Fahrenheit 451" had strong influence on me when adolescent, the "Martian Chronicles" fail short of the vision, depth and breadth in his other novels.

Bradbury writes "soft" science fiction, so don't look for plausible science, or even an emphasis on accuracy.  Science fiction is used as a narrative device, while the actual topics of the stories are quite different; oppression of women, treatment of black people, cohesion and viability of the family unit, etc.

All these topics and their mixing with Science Fiction is not a problem in itself, the great Ursula LeGuin has mixed and matched with great success, but in this novel/short story collection - it just doesn't work.

Many of the stories could be classified more as horror than science fiction, but I guess the "speculative fiction" moniker covers all that ground.  The first story, Yilla (and Yill), seems completely out of place in this book, but then again we had to have a 'first' expedition to Mars.

The rest of the stories vary in quality: from silly contraptions about the first hot dog stand on Mars (built by a psychopath) - to meditations on loneliness and companionship, even if not with true human beings.

Interesting book from a historic perspective, but not much else.

"The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester

There's nothing likable about Gully Foyle.  He's a rapist, murderer, thief, swindler, uneducated, unmannerly.  But he is the main protagonist of this novel and even if the reader does not like him, the reader at least learns to appreciate his point of view, especially towards the end of the novel.

This novel is a great mixture of the old and the new.  Published in the mid-50s, this novel is a proud representative of the pulpy 30s and 40s with their melodramatic plots, paper-thin characters, unfeasible science and generally being written like pirate stories in space.  However, there's much of the new.  This novel is the direct precursor of the Cyberpunk genre, with its corrupt corporations more powerful than governments, sarcastic and resigned view of life and death where everyone is expendable, straying away from "hero" main characters.  Gibson's "Neuromancer" is just the next step.

Gulliver Foyle was a nobody dock worker who happens to be in space.  Large, dumb, uncaring, with no plans, motivation or aspirations, his life was looking like a dead end at 30.  However, after his cargo ship Nomad was attacked by Outer Satellites and he, as the only survivor, left to die, and was passed over for pickup by the Vorga, a ship owned by the Presteign corporation, the most powerful one on Earth and the Inner Planets.  Gully is enraged by the Vorga passing him by and his life gets only one meaning - to exact revenge on the Vorga and its crew.

Gully moves the Nomad with some spare rockets and lands it on the Sargasso asteroid, where leftover humans have formed their own primitive civilization - "The Scientific People."  Gully is accepted into the tribe and his face is tattooed with a hideous tiger-like mask by Joseph, the leader and priest of the Scientific People.  However Gully finds a working ship on the asteroid and flies to Earth where he meets Robin, a one-way telepath, whom he rapes and threatens with exposing her as an Outer Satellites agent.

Further Gully is found by Presteign and his minions and thrown into a jail deep in a gorge in France from where "jaunting" - teleporting, is impossible. However Gully meets Jizzbelle in the jail and they escape together to find the money on the Nomad, but Gully abandons Jizz.  Later Gully takes the name of Geofrey Fourmyle from Ceres with his enormous fortune from the Nomad, but everyone is looking after the PyrE, which can be telepathically exploded and could be the key in winning the war with the Outer Satellites.   Here Fourmyle meets Olivia Presteign, a blind albino daughter of Presteign, the head of the clan and incidentally the one who ordered the Vorga not to pick up Foyle from the Nomad.

Eventually Gully learns to jaunt through time and space, goes around the galaxy to scout some new inhabitable planets, appears as the "Flaming Gully" several times in the past, and with Robin's help, he finds his way back to the present when he goes back to the Scientific People and falls asleep.

Much of the plot is ripped directly from the Count of Monte Cristo, but it is interesting to see it set up in space.  No good characters in the book - everyone has a flaw - even Robin who gets raped by Gully later accepts him and betrays him again.  Same with Jizz who has sex with Gully before discovering his tiger tattoos and hates him afterwards.   An interesting pointer in the 1950s as to where would the genre go next.

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) by Gabriel García Márquez

I've read this book, in Serbian (or was it Croatian?) translation when I was in 9th grade and it remained my favorite book for several years after.  This is the first time I am re-reading it in English translation, and some of the finesses of the language and the phrasing seem to have been lost in translation.  My Spanish is far from fluent, unfortunately, and I cannot read it in original (one day!), but I like the Slavic languages translation better, as those languages are closer in spirit and form to Spanish and less is lost during the translation.

What can be said about Cien años de soledad that has not already been said?  Marquez received a Nobel prize in literature and not in small measure because of this book.  It is one of the most amazing books you will ever read - not in a cheap thriller/mystery/romance way like current pulp fiction - but in a way that makes you see your life and the life of people around you.  The big things seem trivial, like the massacre of the 3,000 people at the train station in Macondo by the corrupt government's army, while the small things are magical, like the hive of yellow butterflies following Babylonia.

Jose Arcadio Buendia founds Macondo after he kills a man during a cock fight in the previous place he used to live with his wife Ursula.  Macondo is found after passing a magical area on the way out of Riohacha and north of the swamp areas.   The 100 years between the founding and the destruction of Macondo are the subject of the book, and in some way the town of Macondo is the main character of the book.

Macondo is a place where magic is found in the small things, like the magic that the travelling gypsies brought early on, especially the intriguing mystic Melquíades who teaches Jose Arcadio Buendia alchemy.  The sons of the Buendia family are called either Jose Arcadio or Aureliano.  And Colonel Aureliano fought 31 civil wars and lost them all.  Then we have Remedios the Beauty who is so unworldly beautiful that she ascends to heaven in her corporeal body.  And finally Amaranta-Ursula and Aureliano Babylonia who finish the 100 year cycle when their incest baby dies and is eaten by ants, while they both die in the final disaster of humongous wind destroying the entire town.

In between are the evil Americans with the Banana Company which destroys the life of the people in Macondo but is staunchly defended by the corrupt and evil government, who'd rather see thousands of people die at the American plantation than lose the bribes they received, even going so far as to claim in court that the company never existed and neither did the people who worked there and were murdered in the strike against the horrible working conditions.

This is a mind-blowing book that every human should read at least once in their lifetime.

"The Forever War" by John Haldeman

I dislike Military (Science) Fiction, but make exceptions for the classics of the genre like "Starship Troopers" and Haldeman's 1974 masterpiece.  Unlike "Starship Troopers" there's less emphasis here on the virtues of camaraderie, building a cohesive fighting unit, or even 'winning' for that matter.  Haldeman is more interested in depicting the alienation soldiers feel when coming back from the front, the inability to fit in, the feeling of not belonging, all of which forces the soldiers back to the front, to the military, as it is the only constant in their lives they can rely on.  Haldeman's Vietnam War experience and the subsequent adaptation (or lack thereof) to civilian life served as the main inspiration for this book.

The Forever War Haldeman speaks of, although just a metaphor for the Vietnam War, or all wars, is fought between the Earthlings and the Taurans, a humanoid race which seems to be at about the same technological level.  The greatest scientific breakthrough is the Collapsar Jump, which allows space ships to cover enormous distances in no time at all.  However, because of relativistic laws, this incurs what other sci-fi writers have called "Time Debt" where although subjective time of mission might be 10 months, relativistically back on Earth, decades and centuries have passed.  Such "time debt" is a great allegory for the alienation Vietnam Vets felt when they came back from the front.

The first come back to Earth finds it in poverty and violence, with most of the population homosexual, encouraged by UNEF, the world government, in order to control population growth.  William Mandela, the protagonist of the novel, does not feel he fits well in this new society, although his mother is still alive (now in a homosexual relationship with another woman), and has to walk around with armed bodyguards because of the omnipresent violent robberies.

He leaves for the front for a second time, the military tricking him by offering him a training job in Earth's orbit, and then substituting the orders for a front posting within the hour.  When he comes back a second time, this time to a R-and-R planet called "Heaven" - he learns that now limbs are artificially grown nowadays and there are no prosthetics, although the process is quite painful.  He also finds out that sex between humans is being deprecated and all new humans are grown in a lab, from genetic materials selected and combined by UNEF, which causes most of the human population to be of the same skin color and racial characteristics.

Mandella calculates his odds of surviving his 10 year posting and it comes to about 1.2 in 60,000, which is a commentary on the casualties in the Vietnam War and other wars.   Eventually his team, he's an officer now since he is one of the oldest surviving soldiers in UNEF, gets sent to the edge of the Galaxy, and by the time they all come back several centuries have passed, the human population is all a single clone nowadays and they communicate telepathically, turns out that the Taurans are also a million-year old civilization of telepathic clones and once the two clone-entities get together - they realize that the entire 7-8 century war was a mistake based in misunderstanding and overzealous-military-crackpots in UNEF who see the whole universe as a nail because all they've ever got was a hammer.

A fine meditation on the futility and utter stupidity of a war, any war, for whatsoever reason.

"Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood

This is a heavy book.  And disturbing.  And deceptively easy to read.  And full of multi-layered messaging that needs to be discovered by the readers using their own brains.  But one would expect nothing less from Mrs. Atwood, one of the greatest literary writers alive today.  This book is not meant for entertainment, although simple souls could take it as such - it is definitely written in an easily-readable style, despite the occasional "big word" showing Mrs. Atwood's utter command of the English language.

Snowman used to be known as Jimmy, when growing up in the Corporate Compounds where the privileged lived, employed by mega corporations, well-fed, well-protected, watching extreme violence, rape, mutilation, executions, child porn and other appropriate stuff allowed on the future internet.  His best friend was Glenn, or Crake, as the nickname came from one of the many MMORPG games they were playing together.  Outside of the compounds were the "pleeblands" - for the ordinaries, the rabble, the consumers who were squeezed out of their last dollar by the products and advertising campaigns coming out of the Compounds.

There are different compounds: some produce new animals, like the pigoons, genetically modified pigs to grow human tissue so that they can be used as farms for human transplants, the rakunks, a playful combination of raccoon and skunk that doesn't have the bestiality of the raccoon, nor the stench of the skunk, and is the new popular pet animal for the privileged, or the wolfogs, acting playful as a dog from a distance, but tearing apart anyone that comes at a biting proximity; other compounds produce human enhancement, like better skin, more hair, youth potions of a motley variety, all intended to be gobbled by the indiscriminate masses of the pleebs.

Crake goes onto an elite school, and then gets employed by a top genetic modification company, while Jimmy becomes a lowly ad-copy writer, but he's good at it.  They both love Oryx, the little girl from that peculiar child porn movie they watched together, with eyes that pierce through the screen into their souls.  Crake locates Oryx when he grows up, and has more and more resources available to him, because of the perceived monetization of his intelligence.  Oryx's job, besides being a sexual relief for Crake, and later Jimmy as well, is to strip naked and educate the "Crakers", a new, benevolent, vegan race of humans that Crake has created in the lab.

But there's more, much, much more.  Although far less graphic than "The Windup Girl" - "Crake and Oryx" manages to be more disturbing, on a far deeper, believable level that would make any non-braindead, non-tvhypnotized human thinking for a long time to come.

"The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi

"The Windup Girl" is the first novel by Paolo Bacigalupi, and at first it reminded me of the Murakami mind-blowing, world literature classic "The Windup Bird Chronicle", but the resemblance is only in the title.  Luckily. This is an explicit, dark, unrepentant novel.  There are no good characters.  Every single character kills, tortures, rapes, cheats, lies or otherwise acts like a piece of shit.  Nobody is likable.  Not even the titular Windup Girl, Emiko, even after she's repeatedly and brutally raped on stage as a spectacle for leering human-animals.  She is used as a rental sex toy for johns who, as she says, "fuck me then spit on me." The novel is set in 25th century Thailand, which is one of the few surviving countries after global warming/flooding, GMO plagues that destroy most of the world's plant life, famines, mass deaths and destruction of pretty much the entire developed world.  What remains is controlled by a handful of GMO Conglomerates with their own private armies to monitor the usage of their "intellectual property" and destroy anyone and anything that stands in their path.  They are also called "Calorie Companies."Anderson Lake is a "Calorie Man" working for AgriGen and despite posing as a "kink spring" factory propriator - is actually hunting for the last remaining seed bank in Thailind, that he wants to appropriate and destroy so that AgriGen gets market advantage over the other calorie companies.  Hok San is the "Yellow Card" Malay Chinese refugee who manages the factory for Lake, and also tries to steal the plans for the latest advanced kink spring, to sell it to the Dung Lord in order to restore his shipping empire destroyed in Malaysia by the muslim nationalist "Green Bands" who gang raped his daughters and tortured and killed his sons.  Only 1% of the Malaysian Chinese population survives the genocide.  Another story line is of the rivalry between the two strongest Thai ministries, Trade and Environment, with their own private armies, black shirts and white shirts, while their top leaders vie for supremacy at the Thai Royal court and the Thai Child Queen.  Jaidhee is a captain of the White Shirts, Environment Ministry's army and is betrayed by his lieutenant Kanya, and brutally killed by Trade (they push him of a roof of a building, then cut his head off and put his penis in his mouth).  This unleashed a civil war which Trade eventually wins, but the destruction of Bangkok follows, so nobody really wins.  At the end, Gibson (Gi Bu Sen), former Agrigen scientist, meets Emiko and promises to help her have genetic clone children.  They stay together at the flooded Bankgok with Emiko and Gibson's lover, the lady-boy Kip.This book won all the Sci-Fi awards, but is definitely hard to swallow.  Expect no mercy.  

"Woken Furies" by Richard Morgan

The third part of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy, definitely better than the second one (not a great achievement), but not as good as the first one.  No wonder Netflix is basing its series only on the first volume, "Altered Carbon".

Kovacs is old here, both physically and definitely mentally, starting the question what has he done with his life and could have he made better choices.  It happens on his home planet, Harlan's World, the only planet orbiting the Glimmer star system, and, of course, located by the human kind based on the "Martian" astrogation charts.  The "Martians" being the ancient alien sapient race that populated large swaths of the Perseus Arm, home to the human race, and disappeared somewhere about 500,000 years ago.

The book also gives us the Morgan's most interesting creation, Quellcrist Falconer, or Nadia Makita, the revolutionary leader who overthrew the Harlan's world first families 320 years ago, for a short while, and got killed by "Angelfire' from the "Martian" probes orbiting the planet.  The big reveal in the end has to do with what "Angelfire" does besides vaporizing.  Also Tak seems to have been copied during his early UN Protectorate Envoy years and now this younger Tak, who hasn't been to Sanction 4, is working for the Harlans and tries to kill the old Tak, whom he despises, but only manages to kill, pretty much, all of his friends and collaborators.

The book is slow at parts, but overall works well.  Not at the level of the first volume, Altered Carbon, but well nevertheless.  Seems like Morgan tried to experiment with too many different genres in the three volumes, probably would'be been better to stick to the first volume formula, cyberpunk, hard-boiled detective story.

"Death's End" by Cixin Liu

The third volume of the "Remembrance of Earth's Past" or "The Three-Body Trilogy" is even grander in scale than the previous two volumes.  What began as a 'First Contact" novel has turned into a Space Opera of the grandest scale going all the way to the End of the Universe, billions of years in the future.

The book starts with a tidbit about the Fall of Constantinople and implications of 4-dimensional space, but the real action starts around the same time as the second volume.  At teh same time as teh "Wallfacer" project the UN starts another, "The Staircase" project, which sends a brain in a capsule that can achieve 1% of the speed of light through being propelled with Nuclear Bombs and Radiation Sail.  Qang Xin, is the main protagonis, a young, "classically beautiful" PhD in Rocket Propulsion, who works for the UN Intelligence Agency, created by the World Powers to figure out ways to counter the Tri-Solarians.

When she's awaken in the future, just when Luo Ji is about 100 years old, and needs to transfer the "Sword" to another "Swordholder" - she is elected by the population of the Earth,  The Trisolarians, through the one-dimensional Sophon AIs and the "Sophon" android they've created in the image of a perfect human female, have been feeding Humans false knowledge for a while, even though they were in the Deterrence Era, knowing that Luo Ji would activate "The Sword" and expose both planets to a Dark Forest attack and thus destruction.  However, as soon as Qang Xin take the sword, the Trisolarians attack the Earth's gravity wave transmission stations, with the droplets that were lying hidden in the Solar system, although humans were told that the droplets have been withdrawn.  The lying and deception of the Trisolarians has reached or surpassed human levels, even though they started from zero.  Trisolarians built a psychological profile of Qang Xin and knew she would not have the courage (or have too much love and mercy) to use the Sword.

Human fleet is destroyed, Android Sophon becomes a monster and herds all humans onto Australia ( billions of people) and then sarcastically tells them now they have to eat each other for food until only about 50 million are left, which are to be kept alive as zoo specimens when Trisolarians arrive.
However, one space ship, the "Gravity" manages to send the location message from outer space and suddenly Trisolarians turn around and head away from the Solar System, as it is now exposed to Dark Forest attack.  However, before the Solar System is destroyed, the Trisolarian planet and Sun is vaporized by a 'mass dot' or photoid attack, killing everyone on the planet except a thousand or so who were in space ships at the time hidden behind the other two suns in the system.  This is probably the most satisfying moment of the book, as the Trisolarian garbage gets what they deserve for fucking with the human race.

Nevertheless, the Solar System is destroyed eventually, with another type of attack, a real Dark Forest attack, with all humans in it, except for Qang Xin and A.A. who are the only to escape (not with the blessing of other humans. goes to prove that most humans are animals).  There's a gift of a star involved, and a curvature propulsion which reaches light speed, and a max-rational American who builds the greatest business empire known to man - only to be brought down by Qang Xin, and the consewuences of creating a "Dark Domain" where light speed it lowered to 16.7km/sec, and the time-flow implications, and mini-universes, and M-Theory branes, and enemies becoming friends again, at the end of time and existence, and a hope for a new, better universe, a "Garden of Eden" possibly with the original 10 dimensions in macroscopic reality, but that's all to be read and enjoyed again, one day.

I've never been so excited to read a science fiction trilogy since the days I first read teh Great Asimov's original "Foundation Trilogy".  Cixin Liu is a master of the art.  This is Hard Science Fiction in a form and vision which is as good as it gets.

"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman

This book reads more like a Graphic Novel, just without the graphic part.  Gaiman has experience in the genre.  The idea of different deities, from different cultures, living today in the US as more or less ordinary people is not new, but Gaiman takes it to new heights.  He primarily relies on the Scandinavian and Slavic pantheons, which I am quite familiar with, and quite unimpressed with his portrayals, while other pantheons, like the Native American and Afro-Caribbean are secondary, though those were more interesting to me, as I am less acquainted with them. 

The main character, Shadow Moon, is a very likeable character, and towards the end one finds oneself rooting for him.  Who doesn't like Baldur, the god of Peace, Light and Forgiveness!? His former dead wife Laura is the opposite - very unlikable, cynical, self-centered, egotistic, even telling Shadow that it is his fault that she was sucking and fucking his best friend Robbie for two years, as he left her to "go to prison."  On top of the fact that he willingly went to prison to protect her sorry ass.  Her dying with Robbie's cock in her mouth was very appropriate. 

Shadow's father, Mr. Wednesday, in actuality, the death-rejoicing, maiden-ravaging god Odin, is not sympathetic either.  Almost in line with his lying, conniving partner in crime, Low Key Lyesmith, the god Loki, Baldur's half-brother.  Actually, in the entire book it is very difficult to find a sympathetic character other than Shadow himself.  The Egyptian gods come close, especially Bast, but not really.  Maybe life itself is not sympathetic?

There are plenty of twists in the book, but most feel forced, and are of the kind of witholding information about the caharacter until the reveal.  The modern gods seem especially unconvincing, especially Media and The Men in Black, though Technical Boy is well-developed.  I never figured out who were "The Children" that were beating Shadow during the first encounter with Technical Boy in the stretch limo.

Overall an enjoyable commute read as an audio book, and a full-length series is coming from Starz, so let's hope it is not another disappointment, although methinks Sir Ian McShane will make a delectable Mr. Wednesday!

"Broken Angels" by Richard Morgan

Disappointing.  Nothing like the first book.  The first book was Phillip Marlowe in the future being a hard-boiled cyber-punk.  Altogether with the sexy wife of the punter who hires the private dick and the hard-assed cops who don't want interference in 'police business' and the whirlwind affair with Ortega. 

The second book is a lot of nothing.  Pale attempt to do some imaginary 'military science fiction' - never liked the genre, too made-up - some interesting aliens, but not much of them either, and of course, the Morgan signature, a whole lot of torture, dismemberment, murder, genocide, 'inhuman' shrieks under high-tech torture machines, madness, cynicism etc.  But it doesn't work.

Kovacs is a pale shadow of himself from the previous book.  At least in "Altered Carbon" he helped some people, did some good-guy stuff which made us like him.  Nothing like that in this book.  Just senseless murder and violence.  Sure, that's the reality, but I'd like to read a book that kind of expands that and offers more. 

The sex is also horrible in this book. In 'Altered Carbon' the sex scenes, as explicit and hard-core as they were, fit well with the narrative and the character's motivations.  Here, it's just random fucking for not much reason.  I didn't even get excited about the Wardani's reveal at the end.  Nor did Carrera come anywhere near the pure-bad-guy image of Reileen Kawahara.  Nor is Mathias Hand anywhere near the sophistication of Laurence Bancroft.

An utterly forgettable novel making you wonder why the hell you spent 12 hours listening to it (well, it eases the commute). 

"The Dark Forest" by Cixin Liu

The second book in the "Remembrance of Earth's Past" trilogy starts a few years after the previous book ends, but most characters (except Da Shi, who is the real main protagonist of the entire trilogy) are new.  Since humanity is desperate to find a way to escape destruction coming forward by the Tri-Solarian fleet, the UN creates the "Wallfacer" project, four people endowed with (almost) unlimited powers to create strategy that will win over the Trisolarians.  The wallfacers (old Chinese terms for meditators) do not have to reveal their strategy or planning to anyone, as the sophons can read any communication except the human thought - trisolarians having exposed thoughts and no need for additional communication aparatus. 

Of the four Wallfacers, only Luo Ji, is completely unknown on a world scale, and initially he uses the Wallfacer project to get himself a dream property and find the girl from his dreams, who he has loved ever since he attempted to write a novel about her.  He is stunned when Da Shi finds exactly the girl from his imagination and he takes her to a private, night tour of the Louvre, where they fall in love in front of the Mona Lisa.  However, after five years she is taken from him, together with their daughter, in order to force him to work on saving the Earth.

Luo Ji is important because Ye Wenjie, one upon a time, tells him about "Cosmic Sociology" from which he extrapolates his "Dark Forest" theory of the universe.  Which is the one thing Trisolarians fear most.  Basically, the "Dark Forest" theory says that all intelligent species of the universe are akin to stealthy hunters in a dark forest, where the discovery of the position of each hunter causes any other hunters to immideatly kill him, less their own positions are discovered and they themselves murdered.  The "Chain of Suspicion" theory logically concludes that any other action, except outright destruction of another technological race, is inferior in game-theory concepts, and does not lead to an optimal solution (unlimited survival).

Luo Ji uses the sun to project a spatial map chunk which can be used to identify a star 50 billion years away, with the intent that some intelligent species will receive the transmission and destroy that star system, according to the cosmic sociology and the "Dark Forest" theory.  Then he goes into hybernation and sleeps for 2 centuries, when humanity, after going through the "Great Ravine" when half of the Earth's 7 billion population has died, has developed underground cities (the surface is almost destroyed by ecological disasters), space cities and space fleet of 2,000 ships (Trisolarians have 'only' 1,000) which posses planet-shattering weapons and can reach 15% the speed of light (Trisolarian ships can reach 'only' 10% of the speed of light).  The Wallfacer project has been forgotten, since the new fleet is believed to be a sure winner in any space battle and Luo Ji becomes an ordinary citizen.  Da Shi is serendipitously awoken at the same time and saves Luo Ji's life several times.

However, the Trisolarian forward probe, one teardrop shaped space-vessel, 1/10,000th of the mass of a Trisolarian warship, arrives first to the Solar system and the entire Earth Space Fleet goes to await it.  This is when the book becomes one of the best science fiction books ever written and the next pages to the end are dense, suspenseful and full of revelations.