Book Review: Sleeping Giants

Today, we will be reviewing Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel, a sci-fi fantasy novel about a giant robot. The beautiful book cover is enough for me to give this novel a read. But we will see if this novel holds up and is worth reading!

Sleeping Giants Summary

When 11-year-old Rose finds a giant robot hand by accident near her home, it changes her life. Fast-forward 17 years later and Rose is now researching the same giant robot hand that she discovered. Things take a turn when an army helicopter crashes into another piece of the giant robot.

After learning more about the robot hand, questions arise. Is it alien technology or forgotten knowledge?When the robot hand accidentally shoots laser from its hand and destroys the building they are researching in, doubts creep in.

Should the army be researching this weapon and how dangerous is it in the wrong hands? It is up to Rose to figure out what the robot is capable of and where it came from before its too late.

Commentary

Sleeping Giants was released in early 2016 and was nominated for a ton of awards. While it missed out on most of them, it did win the 2018 Seiun Award (Japan) for the best translated novel. You don’t often hear about novels in English winning awards in foreign countries.

Reading Sleeping Giants was a thrill because it plays up on your childhood imagination. We all dream of discovering something old and cool in our backyards as a kid. Rose happens to do just that and it takes over her life.

The novel is well written and the plot and writing will make you forget about everything else. Neuvel does a great job keeping the suspense in this book. But that magic doesn’t carry over to the sequel Walking Gods. I lost interest in the Themis Files series after that and never got into it to finish the trilogy.

Just because I didn’t like it doesn’t mean you won’t. Sleeping Giants was great and it has a ton going for it. Maybe you will have better luck finishing the series than I did. It is a great science fiction novel and plays with some great troupes.

While I don’t recommend the series, I definitely recommend this book because Neuvel has an active imagination and takes the book in a great direction. If this was a standalone novel, then it would have been a lot better. Until next time, happy reading!

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