Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

Pieces of a giant mechanical being, thousands of years old, are buried around the world. The pieces are slowly being discovered and pieced together. The technology is light years ahead of what humans are capable of. There is one man behind seemingly every decision. He is almost omnipresent throughout the story and yet no one even knows his name. There is a woman who has been affected by the presence of these giants since she was a child and is now the scientist heading the operation. There is a hotheaded pilot whose helicopter was brought down by one of the pieces. She is now inexplicably tied to the project. Then there’s the linguist brought in to solve the code. What does any of this mean and where will it all lead?

                I am so torn when it comes to this novel. I found the whole concept of extraterrestrials possibly burying objects that would be discovered once humans had evolved to a certain degree extremely fascinating. I didn’t find any fault with the concept behind the story. I found fault with the execution of the plot. Let me try to better explain. The novel is told through conversations between an unknown male and the main characters, transcripts and journal entries. This was actually done pretty well. The characters had depth and each character felt believable on the surface. There was some character development and quite a bit of suspense. It was easy to read and I was genuinely curious about what was happening. Elements were slowly being added that kept my attention and my curiosity. Those are the good things about this novel that make me want to continue on with the series. But this was not a perfect book. Not at all.

                My interest wavered in Sleeping Giants when it became more about the human aspect. I saw no point to any of the romantic elements that were introduced. It became a distraction and a completely unwelcome one. It felt forced and brought an extremely unoriginal element to the story. Oh great but who cares when they are looking for pieces of a giant mechanical being! Another boring aspect was the introduction of the villain. It felt like another cliché. Another completely unwelcome and unnecessary aspect. It just wasn’t creative and this was full of so many creative elements that every time one of these clichés became apparent it took life away from the story. Not only that but when looking at the characters emotions, they begin to look immature and poorly developed.  I honestly think I simply gravitated towards the more scientific aspects of the plot and less towards the emotional aspects.

                Is this a story I could recommend? Yes, I think so. I am interested to see where this will go and where Neuvel wants to take this series. There are so many different possibilities and the ending left a lot of questions to be answered. I am curious to see if the narrative style will change. I thought for the most part the style was executed well. Neuvel just needs to develop the characters fully, get away from clichés and allow the science to shine. The concept is there, it just needs to be better executed. I give this novel 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Thank you Netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review.