Read All About It: Sleeping Giants

I really, really, really, really enjoyed Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel. I haven't read a book in this style before, but I understand that The Martian was written in the same manner. Sleeping Giants isn't a traditional novel, and instead is a gathering of interviews, journal entries, and news articles to make up an extremely interesting and I could barely put it down to sleep.

There is an extensive cast of main characters, including Dr. Rose Franklin, our mysterious interviewer, and several military members and a host of other essential and non-essential persons. It was an interesting look at how the world would deal with discovering alien tech buried deep under the Earth, and with such a diverse group of wonderful, unique people.

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The whole story was intriguing, centered around the premise of finding a giant, alien robot under the ground, seemingly by chance after exposure to a certain isotope. Our narrator gathers a team to discover pieces of this robot, attempt to discover what it is and what its purpose is, and even to pilot the massive robot. This novel is an intense circle of personnel and personal accounts that covers a topic normally not considered in modernity.

I loved the mystery of the narrator who directed the interviews. He obviously knew every angle of the story and knew how to bring together the right people for the job at hand. He also knew more than he let on, which helped me make the connection between the narrator and our author, which is always an interesting connection. Our narrator is not omniscient, but many of the characters think he is, and it's a dichotomy that I really appreciate and that I hadn't seen before.

I especially appreciated all of the female characters. They were all strong, capable women (even if some of the motives were slightly suspect), and I admired their dedication to a project that had no clear outcome or result. Because of the nature of this project and the possibility of extraterrestrial involvement, the novel picks up as an ideal example of science fiction that could have real-world implications. It involves several governments, military organizations, linguists, scientists, and even the President of the United States to create a realistic modern setting and illustrate the complications that could arise from the existence of alien life and intelligence.

This novel is a masterclass is building a world from first-hand accounts rather than from personal point-of-view narratives, and sets a hopeful precedent for future novels in the same style, which I can't wait to read.

Sylvain Neuvel is a great author, and brought together a difficult narrative through the viewpoint of different people from widely different backgrounds, and did it magnificently. I look forward to reading more of Neuvel's work, especially the sequel to this work, Waking Gods. It came out in April, and I highly anticipate picking it up.