SLEEPING GIANTS, the first book in Sylvain Neuvel's Themis Files series begins when a young girl, Rose Franklin goes out to ride her birthday bicycle but ends up lying on her back on top of a huge metal hand at the bottom of a pit. Seventeen years later, Dr. Franklin leads a team to discover what it can about the mechanical hand: what it's made of, why it's here and where it came from. The team consists of two helicopter pilots, Kara Resnik and Ryan Mitchell as well as a linguist and a geneticist. Much of the story surrounds their experiences as a team working in very close, cramped conditions. Trust me, it's not all unicorns and rainbows.

Neuvel doesn't use a traditional narrative style to tell his story but introduces the reader to his characters through interviews, journal entries and a few news articles. While this sets us apart from the characters a bit, it doesn't take away from our ability to get to know them. The interviewer himself, who seems to pull all the puppet strings behind the scenes but answers to few, stands out as a favorite for me. Neuvel is at his best during the interviews with snappy dialogue, insights into characters,, all overlaid with bits of humor and manipulation.

The team races to find more parts to the "giant," and begins answering the whys and werefores of its past, present and future. The story raises questions of what this technology will be used for: Will it be for peace or war? And are all of the team's actions justified? Neuvel tackles ethical questions, and perhaps my one main quibble with this book is if he's taking on too much.

Neuvel's story answers some of the questions the reader has but raises many more: One mysterious character brings up potential history for the giants, I still want to know more about the background of the narrator and to whom he (I think) reports. But Neuvel's caps off his tale with a blow- your-mind cliffhanger that will have readers craving the next book. I enjoyed this thriller/science fiction story, but something kept me from loving it. I still can't put my finger on what that something is, but SLEEPING GIANTS is definitely worth a read for genre fans.

Book Summary

An inventive debut in the tradition of World War Z and The Martian, told in the cutting-edge cadences of interviews, journal entries, transcripts, and news articles, Sleeping Giants is a literary thriller fueled by a quest for truth—and by a struggle for control of earthshaking power.

A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her 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. Carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.

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 unraveling 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?

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