Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel is a sci-fi fantasy book with a strong
start. As a child, Dr. Rose Franklin had
literally stumbled upon a giant metal hand hidden in the forest and now, as an
adult physicist, she is leading a team to learn about the hand, discover more body parts
and eventually try to operate what could be a several story tall robot. Seeing
the top-secret team (feisty Kara, a military pilot; her colleague Ryan; and Victor,
a French Canadian linguist) assemble and learn to work together drew me into
the story which is told through a series of interview transcripts and files. The interviewer is unnamed, mysterious and menacing, and at times
seemingly all-knowing, though not always moral or compassionate.
I found the middle third of the story,
with its’ shift towards dissension in the ranks, a serious accident and threats
of medical engineering to be disheartening and darker, but then the pace picked
up again and the last third employed elements of a political thriller, describing
a race to see by whom and how the giant robot could be controlled. Would it be
used as a weapon or for defensive purposes? What was its’ origin? Sleeping Giants is an exciting
debut novel, the first in the Themis Files series and received starred reviews
from Kirkus and Library Journal.
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