Sleeping Giants

I really enjoyed the reading experience of this book and where it went. I re-emphasized to me how much I enjoy this type of book. My only real complaint, is that I never fully felt bonded with the characters. So I am withholding five stars for now, but I think story as a whole as a lot of potential.

This story is told almost exclusively through interview tapes with the various characters over a few years. An ancient alien robot(mecha?) is discovered and resembled. The story deals with all of this information coming into the public light and the geopolitical situation that eventually develops from it. I'd be honest and say I wasn't hooked on the idea of continuing the series towards the middle of the book, but by the end, I have completely bought in and look forward to picking up the next installment.

An alien artifact is discovered and this leads to a chase to get it all working again. Told through a series of interviews, the writing style brings to mind World War Z, although this time the media is all very similar rather than the extended cast used there. In this novel, the interviewer is a constant figure, although he is never quite named. The conversations recorded have a suitably official type feel and it allows the reader to parse together the outline of the story very effectively without telling it in a more descriptive manner.

The basic premise of god like aliens leaving tech behind on Earth has been done before, but the documentary style is effective at telling the story. The documentary style does lose some of the character development, but for this type of story that is less important

A solid start to what looks like an interesting trilogy

This is more of a 3.5 than a solid 4 for me, all things considered. Sleeping Giants is different than anything I've read lately, and I appreciate it for that reason alone. While I felt that it dragged at certain points (mostly when it was info-dumping, an unfortunate result of the interview format), it held my attention for most of its 300-ish pages.

It had a real sense of mystery and wonder, though that feeling seemed to come and go after the first few “parts” of the book. Unanswered questions are littered throughout, some that add mystery and some that just frustrate. The good usually outweighs the bad however, and I'll be looking for the sequel.

Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com.

It's really hard to review this book because I don't want to give away any spoilers but I'm finding I have to give some parts away to explain this book. Essentially this is the story of a giant alien robot. There is quite a lot more to it than that and the story is more about a bunch of scientists finding various large metal body parts which turn out to be a giant alien robot. And really when you think about it that shouldn't be a surprise at all considering the book is called Sleeping Giants but you really don't expect an author to be quite so literal with the title of their book so it's surprising to come across a book that actually tells you what the story is about.

Anyway this book was okay I guess. I liked it. The story was fascinating. I liked the characters. I even enjoyed how it was written through a series of reports and interviews (I've been looking for something like this ever since reading World War Z). But the problem is despite enjoying the book, it felt more like it was setting up the next book rather than actually being a story. Basically you should look at this as being the prologue to something that I hope will be even better.

But yeah. A book about giant alien robots. It's what you would expect the result to be if you mixed The Iron Giant, Pacific Rim and Greek mythology and yet at the same time it's like none of those things. Basically you need to read and decide for yourself if it's good.

DNF at 65%.
Yes, I actually rate things I did not finish. Deal with it, I don't care if it's fair, this is just how I feel about it. Part of it is probably the fact that I want to read the last Magicians book by Lev Grossman. Oh, well.

So I am the type that picks up books based on the covers sometimes, which is not so unusual for someone who is generally interested in visual art. Sometimes it turns out awesomely (like when I picked up the Johannes Cabal books by Jonathan L. Howard, man, those are such fun ones, definitely recommending them). Some other times... we get this. Seriously, I love the simple cover with the limited colour palette, right up my alley. It is an art to get the feel of the book and condense it into a cover that still doesn't look nonsensical and messy for people who know nothing about the story. In this case, while I loved the art, I found the literature inside really disappointing.

The situation is that by accident a little girl falls into a hole in the ground and finds a gigantic robot hand of unknown origin. Years pass. People find more pieces and start actually working on assembling this gigantic ass mecha woman, because that is what people do. It needs people to control it as well, which is kind of difficult when you realize it was optimized for a body shape that is humanoid, but not quite exact. Of course political machinations happen, I mean we're talking about this virtually indestructible war machine.

Most of the story is told through interviews with people taking part in the events. This is something that will inevitably be controversial with the readers and part of me wants to congratulate Mr. Neuvel for taking such a risk. At the same time... it slows down the storytelling in my opinion. I have no patience for time being blown on the characters (like Kara, one of the military pilots working on the control of the robot) being defiant with the interviewer. Again and again, they sass. Sure, I would probably talk back as well, but it doesn't make a good novel in my opinion. You know you will get to know things sooner or later, but you have to spend time with people bitching, basically.

Another thing is, based on the little blurb and probably my short description as well, you expect a ton of high tech robot badassery. I have bad news for you. The robot is basically a background prop. It feels like I was lied to, if I am honest. I'm not a particularly big sci-fi fan, more into fantasy, but when I want sci-fi, I want it. Not just people talking about it a bit, then doing other shit.

Reading the thing is fast, though. When we're reading the interviews, there is a pretty big gap on the left, so pages just fly by. I started reading it on my little vacation in a hotel bathtub and for that it was fine. When your head is full of other things, but you are a reader and just need to fit in a few pages to wind down. For full attention? Eh. Not for me for sure.

I can't really say much about the author, as I've never heard his name before. I don't think I'm going to actively look for more of his works for now, though. No hard feelings, I'm just not inclined. I wouldn't want to say anything bad about him or his talents, it wasn't so horrid, I just... felt do damn bored by the whole thing that I decided to quit.

Have a nice day and domo arigato, Miss Roboto.

The plot of this one is fairly clichéd with mysterious artefacts being discovered across the planet but where this was distinguishes itself from the rest is how it tells the story, using only interviews and reports with no external narrative at all. Once you get used to it it's surprisingly effective.

I am absolutely not your average reader of Science Fiction novels. In fact, I can safely say that besides about one other book in the past few years it is a genre I've avoided pretty much consistently. It is though significant that the other Science Fiction book I read, back in 2017, was one that has many similarities to Sleeping Giants and that was Illumina by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman and I absolutely loved it just as much as I've fallen in love with this first novel in the Themis Files series.

Reading any new author can be daunting but reading one who is also a writer of an unusual genre for you is a bit like going on holiday to a new destination, you can have heard great things about it before you go but you never really know till you get there if it's going to be a holiday of a lifetime or you are going to be begging to go home. Sylvain Neuvel has impressed me no end with this novel which is written entirely in transcripts of interviews and meetings with the key characters and players within the narrative. There is no traditional storytelling, instead, we are given first-hand accounts from different perspectives of the action that is taking place. This does the wonderful thing of giving this book incredible pace. You cut right to the heart of what is going on and the result is that you literally cannot put it down. You want to devour it, you tell yourself just one more interview, one more file to read and before you know it you are another 20 pages through.

The story itself is unusual, it begins when a young girl falls down into a crater whilst riding her new bike and finds herself being cupped in the palm of a giant metal robotic hand. There is a huge cover-up and not until many years later when the same girl is a qualified scientist do we find she has been recruited to help find the other pieces of what will eventually be a 20 storey high walking metal person with potential weapons capability.

There are a number of aspects to this story, firstly we have the political elements that we follow as countries around the world scramble to be the one to claim ownership of this new technology. Those who don't have it are terrified and want to see it safely contained whilst others will spend billions to develop it and find out as much as possible about how they could use it.

As well as the political element of the story we have the one that questions where the technology came from initially, tests show it is around 6,000 years old and contains elements that suggest it is not of this planet. This means that every evolutionary scientific finding is called into question and mankind must question everything we know about our origins and whether we are in fact alone in the world.

The first in a trilogy of books this is an incredible novel that I fell for absolutely within the first 30 pages. It isn't an overly long novel, coming in at 303 pages it is modest and it's format makes it feel much less dense than may other books you may pick up. I adored the characters, even though they are narrating through a mysterious central figure that connects all the players we learn a lot about their individual quirks and personalities and we really root for them. We don't miss the normal writer's techniques to tell us as a reader about every intricate detail they see and touch in order for us to understand their emotional journey.

We are also left with an interesting twist in the end of this book that will definitely bring readers back for more with novel number 2, Walking Gods and the third and final book in the trilogy, Only Human, which was only released this month. I had heard a fair bit of praise about this book before going in but this was absolutely worthy of every good review I've read. It challenged me by making me read something new but it won me as a reader by making it relevant to the world around me. It never failed to make it accessible and real world whilst still opening my mind to new ideas. An absolute triumph.

This audiobook is amazing!! It is a full cast production and makes the whole book more real. Between the full cast and the wonderful writing, I now feel like I'm friends with Kara, Vincent, Rose, and the Interviewer. At first I thought the pilot was simple and I wouldn't like it. But I was totally wrong. It is simple and wonderful.
The discovery and science is interesting and the politics seem very real. And we meet the people behind all of these things. It is a fascinating story. I had to rush right out and get the second book. I'm glad all 3 published, so I can get them all quickly. The story is too good to wait on the next one! And I would only read it on audiobook.

I got this book as a freebie a year ago, and I'm a little sad it took me this long to get around to reading it. It's written exclusively as transcripts and journal entries which makes it very fast-paced and suspenseful, keeping a lot of mystery going all through the book. Despite being so sparse with words, Neuvel still develops his characters thoroughly and makes a pretty silly premise into a gripping thriller. Plus, giant robots. I do enjoy giant robots. If you are a fan of World War Z style writing and mecha, you will probably like this series, and I bought the next book right away.

I didn't realize this was a book about giant robots. It's a book about giant robots, though. So, right up front, I should tell you: I'm not a fan of giant robots.

Why do people make giant robots in the shape of any organism when the engineering effort behind a giant robot could produce a robot of any shape at all? Why should a giant robot be piloted by a single (or pair) of individuals who might be incapacitated in battle by some chance accident? It seems like a whole crew would make sense.

You know what makes more sense than a giant robot? A regular ol' spaceship. Star Trek style. I'm not even a big fan of anime that runs on giant robots. Pacific Rim? Meh.

So, yeah. The whole premise of a giant robot puts me right off.

Giant robots aside, the storytelling technique is interesting even if inconsistent. It's told in a series of reports and recordings. But it's not always clear who is making the report or recording nor why they would record some of the things that have been recorded. But, if you can get past nit-picks like that, it's an interesting approach even though it all but completely lacks descriptive prose. I missed some of those sensory markers.

Some of the characters are sort of interesting. The audiobook performance is really good. But the story is pretty flat.

And there is a giant robot.

This is the first part in a series, and it feels somewhat incomplete. There's a conclusion still waiting to happen in the next two books. Nevertheless, the book tells a story with a beginning and an end, of international intrigue, alien artifacts, and personal relationships that's absolutely been worth reading. I saw someone make the comparison with Carl Sagan's Contact, and I think that's appropriate - if you liked Contact, you're probably going to like this book.

The format of the book is very conducive to audio with multiple voice actors. And these actors did a great job of conveying the individual personalities, the sarcasm, the back-n-forth verbal sword play, etc. I laughed alot too.

The subject matter is interesting and it leaves some mystery to keep you interested for more. I'll continue with the series.