'Sleeping Giants' by Sylvain Neuvel: EW review
By Isabella Biedenharn Updated April 29, 2016 at 12:00 PM EDT
Sleeping Giants (Themis Files)
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Like Andy Weir's The Martian, Neuvel's debut is entertaining as a book, but its galaxy-sprawling scope feels better suited for the big screen (and yes, Sony already snatched up the film rights). Told through interview transcripts and journal entries, this first part of a planned trilogy follows a group of scientists as they dredge Earth for pieces of a 20-story humanoid robot. The team suspects an advanced alien race left the device here for us millennia ago—as does the mysterious man with murky motives to whom they report. The story is enticing, but the book's interview format keeps us distant from the most climactic events: Characters describe them, but we just want to see them ourselves. B