Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel- Book Review

I had Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel sitting on my Kindle just waiting to be read, when I saw that it was a pick this month for Book of the Month Club for the month of July, I started reading immediately. If you would like to try Book of the Month, click the banners or link and use the code "Summer30" to get 30% off a 3 month subscription, a free tote, and sunglasses. 

Imagine you are watching The Avengers, but instead of seeing the whole movie happen from the perspective of Captain America or Iron Man, you heard about the whole thing from interviews with those characters through the eyes...err eye of Nick Fury. This is what Sleeping Giants is and it completely works!

The novel begins with a person falling down a hole, but instead of falling far, the person lands on a giant hand. The hand isn't attached to anything else, nor is it an ancient relic that the Earth knows about, but it is definitely a full hand. Flash forward years later and we learn that there isn't just a hand, but several body parts scattered throughout the world and together they create a giant, female, robot that is controlled using two pilots- one for the arms and one for the legs, except the legs are more like ostrich legs than human legs. The only way for the pilots to control the giant is through a helmet which implants itself upon the user. What is this giant for? Why is it here? Why was it broken up and scattered? What will happen if it is found out?

The entire novel is told through a series of interviews from the hard to control, but deeply loyal female pilot to the Captain America type, but hot headed hero to the plotting geneticist. The characters themselves are archetypes of characters that have been seen in a ton of movies and books, but one needs these types of characters for the interview style book. We don't need complex characters because their complexity would be lost. due to the choice of the archetype characters, we have fully fleshed out characters that we only get to meet "face to face" every fourth chapter or so when we get an interview with that character. Yet, we know all about the person and what the person has done.

The fun of the book isn't just the giant robot, but rather the complexities of putting such a robot together in the midst of these giant world powers. Imagine trying to remove something from the modern day Middle East without them finding out or launching a full attack on the helicopter sent in to grab the piece, especially since each piece is gigantic and destroys whatever is sitting on top of it during the extraction process.

Then there is the giant robot. It isn't piloted the normal way, but rather Battle of the Planets style. How do the pilots synch up, especially when the knees of the robot are backwards? We also see what happens when it is accidentally revealed to the world and it is only in the hands of the US. What are the political ramifications of that?

I know the interview style does not work for everybody, but when done well, such as in this book, it really works. The characters are alive and can be distinguished from one another. The interviewer himself also has personality and interacts with each character in a different way, which is something a few of these interview style books can learn from. It just works and it was a joy to read. This was one of my favorites of the summer.

I gave this one 4.5 stars. 

It is great sci-fi and a fun read. If you are a Book of the Month Club member, you might want to add this to your queue.

Amazon- Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel