Book Review
Title: Sleeping Giants (Themis Files #1)
Author: Sylvain Neuvel
Published: 2016
Rating: 75/100
Review:
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| Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel |
Sleeping Giants (SG) had been on my radar for a good 6 months. It was a finalist in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards. It had generated a whole bunch of positive buzz, including a glowing review from one of my favourite authors, Blake Crouch. When it finally got optioned by Sony Pictures to be made into a big sci-fi movie, I knew I had to check it out to see what all the fuss was about and boy am I glad I did.
It's impossible to start a SG review without talking about the novel’s narrative style. Sylvain Neuvel wrote his debut novel as a linear collection of interviews and journal entries that reads like ‘The Martian’, ‘Illuminae’ and ‘World War Z’. If you liked the way those novels flowed, you’ll love Neuvel’s writing style. If they didn’t appeal to you, because you hate books that ‘tell’ more than they ‘show’, it’s not worth reading the rest of this review… just move right along and stick to novels written in a more traditional format.
I listened to the audio book version of SG. In audio, the interview chapters stood out for me. They were fantastic and had my ears perked up the entire time. They made me feel like I was a fly on the wall listening to two major characters sharing a private moment. The dialogue was realistic, sharp, funny in parts and witty as hell. This is important because SG is basically ALL dialogue!
It was the interview chapters that made me care about SG’s characters. I wanted them to succeed and was genuinely disappointed when they didn’t always get the outcome they desired. Neuvel had me enthralled to the point where I found myself visualising what the characters would look like… going so far as to send a tweet to Neuvel telling him that I think Kevin Spacey should play the role of the mysterious interviewer when Sony finally turns it into a movie. Neuvel agreed with me.
Narrative-style aside, at the core of SG is an intriguing story about an ancient giant robot (imagine Optimus Prime on steroids) that has been split up into its various robot body parts and scattered across our planet. A team is then assembled to find the parts, assemble the robot and, in doing so, unlock its various mysteries. How awesome does that sound? My inner Transformer-loving child started doing backflips when I read SG’s synopsis.
While this sounds like it has all the hallmarks of an action-packed sci-fi novel with a giant robot causing mass destruction, this is not what is in store for you as a reader. Neuvel chooses to spend at least 80% of the novel focusing on (a) the global political implications of finding a giant robot, (b) the team’s interpersonal relationships and psychological stability and (c) the science used to analyse the robot’s parts. If you don’t like your novels covered in a thick layer of global politics, psychology and science… again, just move right along and stick to a lighter, more accessible novel.
Personally, despite expecting more action, I ended up getting caught up in the politics, psychology and science, particularly the math. Don’t get me wrong, SG is not what I would call a ‘hard’ sci-fi novel like ‘The Martian’ or ‘Fear the Sky’. The science isn’t thick enough to bog you down and give you a throbbing headache. Instead, like Blake Crouch, Neuvel applies it tastefully in bite-size chunks and never overdoes it.
In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed SG and think Neuvel totally knocked it out-of-the-park considering this was his debut novel. SG was so good; I can only imagine how incredible Neuvel’s future novels will be.
Who will like this book?
Anyone who likes a smart and thought-provoking science fiction novel that isn't all spaceships and action. Anyone who liked reading World War Z.
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