Today for the Summer Blogger Promo Tour Darnell and I bring to you a join conversation/review of Sleeping Giants! If you follow my blog, then you know I’ve been a big fan of the entire Themis Files trilogy. So when Darnell and I were talking about books to review, Sleeping Giants came up. Darnell was kind enough to read Sleeping Giants and below are his thoughts paired with my comments. (I’ll put his thoughts in italics!)
Summary
A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square-shaped 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 – the object’s origins, architects, and purpose unknown.
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 relic they seek. What’s clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unravelling history’s most perplexing discovery-and finally figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?
Review
I really enjoyed this book, it reminded me a lot of the Illuminae files with how the story is told through journal entries and interviews. It really builds upon the worlds.
I haven’t read the Illuminae Files, yet, but what I really find admirable about this series is how Neuvel is able to communicate details of the world through only dialogue. There are transcripts and interviews and journals, which helps, but without these world building paragraphs, it’s interesting to see how we make sense of the world. In many ways, we are just looking through their eyes and noticing those details. But it’s still an interesting ‘problem’ to solve in the writing process.
The story deals with fallout of finding an artifact and a group of scientists who have to figure out its origins.
There is Rose Franklin, a scientist who discovered the artifact during her tenth birthday and years later she is finding out how to use it.
There is Kara Resnik and Ryan Mitchell who are in the US army who is tasked by a silent person to aid Dr. Franklin.
I love Kara’s snarkiness. It reminded me a lot of a renegade FemShep from Mass Effect with her no nonsense attitude and trying to get the job done.
Kara and Rose are some of my favorite characters in Sleeping Giants and Waking Gods. I also love Kara’s snarkiness, but she reminded me a lot of Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica. Even more so, Kara is able to see what’s right and wrong independent of her job and her background. At the same time, Rose is just one large enigma. It’s only built upon as the series continues, but Rose is, herself, a mystery.
In regards to the artifact that was found there was a lot of mystery surrounding it and where it came from. It asks sort of the question of whether we are alone in the universe and also how and where did the artifact came from. It deals with if the US should share it with the world or keep it for themselves, and it leads to some dangerous consequences.
I love that you pulled these questions out of Sleeping Giants because I think it only builds as the series grows. Reading Only Human, the third and concluding book, I was thinking of these similar themes. How do we deal with the knowledge of the unknown, the fact that we probably aren’t alone here. I’m glad you liked Sleeping Giants. I think it’s a really unique trilogy and the hardcover books are gorgeous!