Sleeping Giants (Themis Files #1) – Sylvain Neuvel

Genre: Science Fiction
Publisher: Del Rey

A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.

Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved—its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top secret team to crack the hand’s code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of the relic. What’s clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unraveling history’s most perplexing discovery—and figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?

Sleeping Giants is large in scope in terms of the story and the questions being asked. Told through interviews and the occasional journal, Sleeping Giants paints a world in which a large robot is discovered and the subsequent consequences it has on global affairs, scientific progression, and thoughts about extraterrestrial life.

The scope of this novel is insanely large and wouldn’t have been accomplished with traditional prose. With prose, the story would have been bogged down, slow, and take away from the purpose and focus of the novel: weapons of mass destruction. As interesting and exciting as the novel is, themes of scientific progression, global affairs, extraterrestrial life, and weapons is always present within the narrative. Some of the questions are answered directly by the Neuvel, while others are left to the reader.

Sleeping Giants is a plain look at humanities’ reaction to a discovery that would make us question everything about our lives and what we expect our futures to be. It’s a truly fascinating novel that reflects humanity in all of its forms, good and bad.

I rated Sleeping Giants four stars instead of five because I couldn’t stop thinking about what this novel could have been had it be written in prose. It would have been fascinating to get into the nitty-gritty of the research and speculation surround the discovery. I cannot wait until I get my hands on the sequel!

If you’re a fan of Pacific Rim, you’ll definitely enjoy Sleeping Giants as it borrows heavily from the movie, but adds much needed depth.

Great news! Sleeping Giants has been optioned by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Have you read Sleeping Giants? What did you think?