Review: Sleeping Giants

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review is also found on Goodreads! :)
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Actual Rating: 3.8 stars
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What I love about Sleeping Giants:

1) The premise is so interesting. It was fast-paced and it was filled with exciting twists. It has a lot of potential to be a full-blown sci-fi series that will reel in any robot-loving nerd next door. I can't exactly go into detail without revealing spoilers, but believe me when I say, I did not find anything predictable at all with Sleeping Giants.

2) It wasn't a lot of info dump as I expected. I've read sci-fis that presented a shitload of info within the narrative guaranteed to fry your brain, and this isn't one of them. The science was explained enough for the reader to understand.


3) Although this is a sci-fi novel, it is not limited to that. The political aspects within also provided a multitude of elements that challenged the story. It goes beyond the cliche of whether the President of the United States should push the big red button or not. It dealt with political tactics and power play.

The two things I hated about this book:

1) The style on how it was written. It was written as a series of interviews, phone calls (in the middle of a mission????), and records. It limited a lot of great narrative potential, in my opinion. It left out a lot of details that could have been very helpful in enriching the already gripping premise of the story. It was compared with World War Z and The Martian because of this, but there are key differences on how the technique was used. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War was richer politically. Furthermore it showed a style of historical research, so I understood the need for extensive correspondence and "paperwork". The Martian justified the style because Watney, the protagonist, was alone and in need of documentation and correspondence towards Earth. As with Sleeping Giants, however, it limited the rich details into just 'telling'--the emotions weren't there. Like most Goodreaders would say: "Show it, rather than tell it."

2) The 'love-triangle' angle between the characters. My biggest pet peeve in some sci-fi novels and fantasy novels is how they incorporate love stories within. I would understand if it is integral to the plot, but if it isn't, I would really rather not read about the eye-roll-inducing drama of it. With Sleeping Giants, not only is there a love story, but it had to be a love triangle. Sure, it was the background on what has to be done to Vincent, but I sincerely wish that the drama could have been avoided.

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Overall, I liked the book--just not that way it was written. The Themis Files is off to a good start. I would definitely read the next book (Waking Gods), but I seriously hope Neuvel would reconsider the correspondence style of telling the events. Like I said, it has a lot of potential as a full-blown narrative. :)

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