Sleeping Giants Review + Waking Gods Mini Review
- Austin
- Jun 12, 2017
- 5 min read
Bonjour à tous! (Hello everyone!) Welcome back to Revivre le Livre! Today's post is our first review! That being said, it will be a double feature review since both of these books are in the same series and the newest one is featured as my “Best Book of 2017 So Far”! Let’s dive in!
So, if you read my Top 10 Favorite Books post from the other day, then the title Sleeping Giants might sound familiar to you…because it was listed as #7 on my favorite pieces of literature list.
Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel, was first published on April 26th 2016. It is the first book in a trilogy known as the Themis Files; each book is set up as a series of interviews with only the occasional chapters being similar to that of a traditional story. 90% of this book is dialogue. While there is very little in terms of descriptive text, one might think that with a book that is only dialogue some concepts may not be fully visualized but that is not the case. In all actuality the dialogue provides more information that you would think and still enables the reader to be inside the minds of the tight knit cast of characters. Everything, whether it’s a scientific concept, a location and / or a design is expertly descried straight from the characters' mouths. So, in some regards it's like this book is set up as a movie script. Now, if you are tired of the traditional story telling experience, or are not a fan reading long winded descriptive paragraphs then this might be a good fit for you. The book is about 300+ pages, but comes across as a very light, quick, and, easy read especially for a genre and topic that can become quite dark and or heavy at times.
As for the actual genre and plot, it does not fall into the typical tropes of science-fiction books; that is the extreme situations and or cookie cutter plots that many of these books often rely on. Sleeping Giants is set in what could present time today or the very near future. None of the events that take place, are really that far fetched. Even the whole alien exist aspect. See – Mr. Neuvel expertly crafted a world that is remarkably similar to ours. He captured what many believe as how a world government would react to giant alien robot. Not to mention – he unlike many other science fiction authors did a lot of research on international cultures, and several branches of science before writing this book so that it could be as accurate as possible.
So now that we got basic elements of the book out of the way, let's talk about the actual events that transpired. Sleeping Giants follows a team of scientists headed by Dr. Rose Franklin, a physicist and several military trained individuals who not only discovered an ancient alien robot but are now learning all about its functions and capabilities. While learning about how to use the robot, they end up causing quite a mess a few times. Scattered throughout the story/ plot, you have the cast of characters trying to learn more about this alien race; posing questions like “Why did come to earth?”, “Why did they leave a giant robot here?”, and, “Are they still alive, and if they are will they come back here?” These questions and more drive our characters to learn ever more about Themis, the giant robot – because it might be only hope of protecting ourselves if the aliens still exist and prove to not be friendly. With each turn of a page, the plot ends up becoming more intricate as more characters are introduced and as the world start to learn about Themis the giant alien robot. This story is full of twists and turns.
When it comes to main characters – pinpointing who is the true main one or two, isn’t that easy. See first we have the mysterious man, who runs the behind the scenes for the giant alien robot project. He is also the one that conducts every interview. All we know about him, is that he’s in charge, and works for the United States government. Then we have Dr. Rose Franklin, who landed in the hand of the giant robot as a kid and, there afterwards became a physicist until recruited for this project. Following her we have two military trained individuals Kara Resnik (a spitfire girl who could outlast Katniss from The Hunger Games) and Ryan Mitchell (the typical golden boy jock), each of which is a top notch pilot. After them, is Vincent Couture, a haughty Quebecois linguist. And finally the last “main character” is Alysa Papantoniou, a geneticist, who is a total psycho path, that in my eyes is just as crazy as Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series. Every time her character appears, I just want to scream at her and push her off a cliff. However, as much as I dislike her, she not only makes some good drama – but she’s a character that will linger with you after you finish this book.
Now this book might sound a little dry because it's set in the near future – not some far flung time and because it has a very well articulated science aspect to it but it is far from being a stuffy dry old book that you only read once. If this book was a movie (It shouldn’t be because it would lose its unique story telling technique) it would be something that people are lining up to see. Every chapter is fast paced and keeps you craving more and more. Even you finish the book, your mind will keep going back to story, asking “What happens next?”
When I first got this book, I read it in one day and could not read another book for several days after because I was still in awe with how amazing of a story this book was. Sleeping Giants had ensnared me and no other book for next week or so could capture my attention. Very rarely would ever give a book 5 stars after just reading it, but this book truly deserved it. If you love science fiction, action, political drama, then I promise you, you will not be disappointed by this book.
Up next we have Waking Gods the sequel to Sleeping Giants. Waking Gods, was just recently published, this past April. Without going into too much detail about the plot – all I can say is, if you loved Sleeping Giants – you will love Waking Gods even more. There is move drama, and an unbelievable amount of twists and turns. The overall story, is even darker than first lining this story up to be marked as a science-fiction thriller. Thankfully, this book does not suffer from SSS (Second in Series Syndrome), it's beautifully thought out and leaves you craving the final installment of the Themis Files, which won't be out until some time in 2018. As said in my top 10 post – Mr. Nevuel is changing the science fiction game. He is someone to watch out for!
Well folks, that’s it for this week’s review / post! If you guys have read this book before, let me know your thoughts down in the comments or at twitter! If you’re going to read these books now, let me know your thoughts when you finish them!
Thank you so much for reading! See you next wednesday!
Au revoir!
~Austin
*If you have a book you would like me to review or talk about send me an email or message me on social media @RevivreLeLivre!*
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