vagasker
Written on Feb 11, 2020
**A must-read thriller for lovers of The Passage, World War Z, The Martian or Interstellar**
What happens when you make a discovery that changes everything?
Deadwood, USA. A girl sneaks out just before dark to ride her new bike. Suddenly, the ground disappears beneath her. Waking up at the bottom of a deep pit, she sees an emergency rescue team above her. The people looking down see something far stranger...
"We always look forward. We never look back."
That girl grows up to be Dr. Rose Franklyn, a brilliant scientist and the leading world expert on what she discovered. An enormous, ornate hand made of an exceptionally rare metal, which predates all human civilisation on the continent.
"But this thing ... it's different. It challenges us. It rewrites history."
An object whose origins and purpose are perhaps the greatest mystery humanity has ever faced. Solving the secret of where it came from - and how many more parts may be out there - could change life as we know it.
"It dares us to question what we know about ourselves."
But what if we were meant to find it? And what happens when this vast, global puzzle is complete...?
"About everything."
* * *
'Bursts at the seams with big ideas. A sheer blast from start to finish. I haven't had this much fun reading in ages' Blake Crouch, author of the Wayward Pines trilogy
'A stellar debut which masterfully blends sci-fi, political thriller and apocalyptic fiction. So much more than the sum of its parts - a page-turner of the highest order' Kirkus Reviews
'Reminiscent of The Martian and World War Z, this is a luminous conspiracy yarn that shoots for (and lands among) the stars' Pierce Brown, author of Red Rising
- ISBN10 1405921889
- ISBN13 9781405921886
- Publish Date 30 March 2017 (first published 21 April 2016)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 384
- Language English
Reviews
maggiefan
Written on Jul 13, 2019
Amber (The Literary Phoenix)
Written on Sep 22, 2018
I loved this book!
This novel is told through interviews and journal entries, and it was super immersive, which I didn't expect when I started listening to it. Plus, the cast was awesome in this audiobook! I've listened to a couple full case narrations, but this one blew them all away and definitely comes in the top three - possible *the* top - audiobook recording I've every listened to. Brava to the cast!
I thought I would lose interest in Sleeping Giants when they found all Themis' pieces, but the story kept me wrapped up. Sylvain Neuvel is really good at making the reader attached to the characters, so by the time the search was over, I was invested in Kara's future and wellbeing. There's a lot to still know and it definitely feels like a book intended for a trilogy. I'm hooked, though, so I'll be reading more.
liz089
Written on Jan 22, 2018
I read it the whole weekend whenever I had time and could not get enough of it.
Very intriguing story, and even though it was written consisting mostly of interviews.. I really got into it and loved the characters..
REALLY want to get my hands on the second book !!
inlibrisveritas
Written on Aug 29, 2017
Sleeping Giants is an epistolary novel that focuses on the mysterious discovery of large metal body parts hidden all over the world and the team assembled to uncover it’s secrets. This is the book that started my work time audio binges, and now I can barely focus without a good book to listen to.
I didn’t know a lot about this novel going into it, and I definitely didn’t realize it was an epistolary novel or I might have grabbed the actual print copy first, however I’m actually glad I didn’t because it turned out to be such an addicting listen that I blazed through it in a single day. For those that don’t know an epistolary novel is written as a series of documents like emails or security write-ups on video footage, and I think that the format really worked well for this story. It really adds to the suspense because it limits the amount of information you receive, and really works the time periods between each entry to its advantage. To top it off it is told from the point of view of a narrator that remains unnamed and has a very important role to play despite not offering any information on who he is or how he has been positioned in the place of power that he has. As the narrator learns more, so do we…and by the end of the book, there are so many bombshells that it left me reeling.
The story itself is a ton of fun as well, I mean who doesn’t like the idea of finding a giant mysterious object that might be from a civilization lost to time or completely alien? The plot is full of surprising little twists that turn a expect discovery into something that asks ‘just how far are we willing to go?’. We have a handful of characters (who are named) that play a variety of roles.My favorite though is Kara Resnik. She’s brash and bold and becomes the programs unassigned protector. She is fully on board with going as far as she needs to, to see the project complete but she doesn’t ask that anyone else do the same. I love how unapologetic she is even though it sometimes gets her into trouble.
Sleeping giants is definitely a contender for my favorite sci-fi book this year! I found it to be one of the most addicting audiobooks I’ve ever listened to, and with all of its twists and turns, I have no idea where the second book will truly lead which is rather exciting!
Leah
Written on Jul 5, 2017
This was such a good read. I'm so excited to see where this series is going. I'm so glad I took a punt on this book because it was a brilliant read.
mary
Written on Dec 13, 2016
Entertaining read, but not much depth to the characters. The story felt a little incomplete then I remembered it is a trilogy. I will continue with this series, hopefully with the next installment I'll become more invested in the characters.
cornerfolds
Written on Sep 10, 2016
Initial reaction:
I decided to read Sleeping Giants on a whim when a friend mentioned that it sounded interesting. I'd never heard of this book, being outside of my normal circle of YA, and I wasn't a fan of World War Z or The Martian. However... I am a huge fan of conspiracy theories as well as Ancient Aliens (which I had a hunch this might be related to), so I decided to grab the audiobook when I had the chance!
Sleeping Giants is told in the form of interviews and journal entries, which makes for a really unique reading experience. Listening to the audiobook was a fantastic idea because I got to hear this as if I was sitting in on the actual interviews as they happened. Many, many characters make appearances in this book. Some become important and some fade into the background quickly, but each one has something relevant to add. It's honestly such a weirdly written book that it's hard to connect with any one character, but at the same time I felt incredibly invested in each of their stories and outcomes. The one person who ties them all together is the man conducting the interviews, who we never do learn much about. He reminded me a lot of the Smoking Man from The X-Files, only even more mysterious.
There isn't much in the way of filler in this book because of the format and I really loved that! I wouldn't say the pace is necessarily fast, but there isn't much time wasted either. I loved following along as each new piece of the robot was uncovered and assembled and found myself on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what would happen when it was complete!
My favorite part about this book is obviously the conspiracy! I love, love reading about conspiracy theories no matter how good or bad they actually are and Sleeping Giants has a good one! I'm honestly not sure why this was marketed as World War Z meets The Martian, to be honest. If I was the publisher I'd probably have thrown X-Files in there somewhere, although maybe that's just not what's "in" right now. Regardless, that's the vibe I got from this one. Although the pace isn't breakneck, I always wanted to know a little bit more. I wanted to know what the robot was, where it came from, what it was intended for, and I had a hard time turning the audiobook off when I needed to. This story is fascinating! Sleeping Giants is also loaded with twists, turns, and revelations!
Sleeping Giants was wrapped up well enough without a huge cliffhanger, then there was the epilogue which completely blew my mind and now I'm trying (and failing) to wait patiently for Waking Gods, which comes out in like a million years April 2017. Like I said, the pace was very steady and I'm not sure I would've made it through this book if I'd read the physical copy, but the cast who performed the audiobook made it come to life! Sylvain Neuvel has done an incredible job of putting together a story that's entirely unique and may produce mildly obsessive behavior. I would definitely recommend this book to fans of sci-fi or conspiracy theories!
Actual rating: 4.5 stars
pamela
Written on May 15, 2016
Epistolary style is difficult for even the most talented of writers. Neuvel has a strong basis for its use, but it didn't read as realistic. With the exception of a very few, the documents were primarily a collection of transcribed interviews by a shadowy protagonist who seems to be the puppet master of the piece. The way he speaks however simply isn't natural or realistic. He asks questions to further the plot and develop character, but they are questions which simply wouldn't be relevant or realistic in that particular context. Why would he be asking about personal relationships rather than say, a psychologist?
Despite these unrealistically probing questions attempting to create a sense of character, it was not particularly effective in this. The characters of the scientists and pilots involved in the recovery operations and subsequent study of the mysterious figure were shallow and two dimensional. I felt no sense of kinship, interest or empathy with any of them. The only character I had any strong feeling toward was a scientist whom I assume was meant to act as the antagonist, but this was simply because the way she was written was so utterly annoying that I didn't like reading about her. Her inclusion in the project at the later stages defied logic. She was almost a caricature of an evil scientist.
I still enjoyed this book, because conceptually it was brilliant. I just really wanted more out of it. I'll read the rest of the series when it's released because I can see a lot of potential in this book. Let's hope book two is a bit more polished and believable than this installment.
http://iblamewizards.com/review-sleeping-giants-sylvain-neuvel/