"Brilliant science fiction masterpiece"
Reviewed by Debbie Wiley
Posted April 26, 2016
Science Fiction
A mysterious artifact is accidentally located by a young
girl named Rose Franklin. Seventeen years later, Rose
finds herself heading up a secretive team to unlock the
mysteries of this artifact- a giant hand. The team,
consisting of pilots Kara Resnick and Ryan Mitchell,
linguist Vincent Couture, and geneticist Alyssa
Papantoniou, is charged with exploring every angle, from
the scientific to the more obscure. As additional pieces,
and subsequently further questions, arise, the team
begins to wonder what exactly the purpose is behind this
seemingly alien artifact. Will their revelations be used
for peaceful purposes or is a world war looming?
SLEEPING GIANTS is the first book in the Themis
Files series and wow, what a phenomenal way to kick
off a series! SLEEPING GIANTS had me hooked from the very
first interview. Between Kara's defiant attitude and the
clever but humorous interrogator, I read until my eyes
wouldn't stay open any longer. The characters are well
developed, keeping the reader engaged in their actions,
both heroic and horrific.
The situation becomes quickly entangled in politics, both
global and of a more personal nature. I like that Sylvain
Neuvel explores the potential abuse of such technology
and the impact the working conditions have on the various
characters. The underlying conspiracies remind me a bit
of the X-Files (and the mysterious smoking cigarette man)
and I can't wait to see what we discover in future books
in the Themis Files.
Told entirely through interviews conducted by a shadowy
figure, SLEEPING GIANTS is absolutely brilliant! I'm a
huge fan of the epistolary writing format and Sylvain
Neuvel uses it to full effect, creating a science fiction
masterpiece that asks just as many questions as it
answers. Sylvain Neuvel creates distinct voices for each
character, ensuring the reader is never confused about
the details during the interviews. I love all the
characters, but I must admit that the enigmatic
interviewer captured my attention even more so than the
brash, but oh so vulnerable, Kara Resnick. SLEEPING
GIANTS is one of my best reads so far this year and I
highly recommend it to any science fiction fan!
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?
ExcerptFILE NO. 003INTERVIEW WITH DR. ROSE FRANKLIN, PH.D.,
SENIOR SCIENTIST, ENRICO FERMI INSTITUTE
Location: University of Chicago, Chicago, IL —-How big was the hand? —-6.9 meters, about twenty--three feet; though it seemed
much larger for
an eleven--year--old. —-What did you do after the incident? —-Nothing. We didn’t talk about it much after that. I went
to school
every day like any kid my age. No one in my family had ever
been to
college, so they insisted I keep going to school. I majored
in physics. I know what you’re going to say. I wish I could tell you I
went into
science because of the hand, but I was always good at it. My
parents
figured out I had a knack for it early on. I must have been
four years
old when I got my first science kit for Christmas. One of those
electronics kits. You could make a telegraph, or things like
that, by
squeezing wires into little metal springs. I don’t think I
would have
done anything different had I listened to my father and
stayed home that
day. Anyway, I graduated from college and I kept doing the only
thing I knew
how to do. I went to school. You should have seen my dad
when we learned
I was accepted at the University of Chicago. I’ve never seen
anyone so
proud in my life. He wouldn’t have been any happier had he
won a million
dollars. They hired me at the U of C after I finished my Ph.D. —-When did you find the hand again? —-I didn’t. I wasn’t looking for it. It took seventeen
years, but I
guess you could say it found me. —-What happened? —-To the hand? The military took over the site when it was
discovered. —-When was that? —-When I fell in. It took about eight hours before the
military stepped
in. Colonel Hudson—-I think that was his name—-was put in
charge of the
project. He was from the area so he knew pretty much
everyone. I don’t
remember ever meeting him, but those who did had only good
things to say
about the man. I read what little was left of his notes—-most of it was
redacted by the
military. In the three years he spent in charge, his main
focus had
always been figuring out what those carvings meant. The hand
itself,
which is mostly referred to as “the artifact,” is mentioned
in passing
only a few times, evidence that whoever built that room must
have had a
complex enough religious system. I think he had a fairly
precise notion
of what he wanted this to be. —-What do you think that was? —-I have no idea. Hudson was career military. He wasn’t a
physicist. He
wasn’t an archaeologist. He had never studied anything
resembling
anthropology, linguistics, anything that would be remotely
useful in
this situation. Whatever preconceived notion he had, it must
have come
from popular culture, watching Indiana Jones or something.
Fortunately
for him, he had competent people surrounding him. Still, it
must have
been awkward, being in charge and having no idea what’s
going on most of
the time. What’s fascinating is how much effort they put into
disproving their own
findings. Their first analysis indicated the room was built
about three
thousand years ago. That made little sense to them, so they
tried
carbon--dating organic material found on the hand. The tests
showed it
to be much older, somewhere between five thousand and six
thousand years
old. —-That was unexpected? —-You could say that. You have to understand that this flies
in the face
of everything we know about American civilizations. The oldest
civilization we’re aware of was located in the Norte Chico
region of
Peru, and the hand appeared to be about a thousand years
older. Even if
it weren’t, it’s fairly obvious that no one carried a giant
hand from
South America all the way to South Dakota, and there were no
civilizations as advanced in North America until much, much
later. In the end, Hudson’s team blamed the carbon dating on
contamination from
surrounding material. After a few years of sporadic
research, the site
was determined to be twelve hundred years old and classified
as a
worship temple for some offshoot of Mississippian civilization. I went through the files a dozen times. There is absolutely
nothing, no
evidence whatsoever to support that theory, other than the
fact that it
makes more sense than anything the data would suggest. If I
had to
guess, I would say that Hudson saw no military interest
whatsoever in
all this. He probably resented seeing his career slowly
wither in an
underground research lab and was eager to come up with
anything, however
preposterous, just to get out of there. —-Did he? —-Get out? Yes. It took a little more than three years, but
he finally
got his wish. He had a stroke while walking his dog and
slipped into a
coma. He died a few weeks later. —-What happened to the project after he died? —-Nothing. Nothing happened. The hand and panels collected
dust in a
warehouse for fourteen years until the project was
demilitarized. Then
the University of Chicago took over the research with NSA
funding and
somehow I was put in charge of studying the hand I fell in
when I was a
child. I don’t really believe in fate, but somehow “small
world” doesn’t
begin to do this justice. —-Why would the NSA get involved in an archaeological project? —-I asked myself the same question. They fund all kinds of
research, but
this seems to fall outside their usual fields of interest.
Maybe they
were interested in the language for cryptology; maybe they
had an
interest in the material the hand is made of. In any case,
they gave us
a pretty big budget so I didn’t ask too many questions. I
was given a
small team to handle the hard science before we handed
everything over
to the anthropology department. The project was still
classified as top
secret and, just like my predecessor, I was moved into an
underground
lab. I believe you’ve read my report, so you know the rest. —-Yes, I have read it. You sent your report after only four
months. Some
might think it was a little hasty. —-It was a preliminary report, but yes. I don’t think it was
premature.
OK, maybe a little, but I had made significant discoveries
and I didn’t
think I could go much further with the data that I had, so
why wait?
There is enough in that underground room to keep us guessing
for several
lifetimes. I just don’t think we have the knowledge to get
much more out
of this without getting more data. —-Who is we? —-Us. Me. You. Mankind. Whatever. There are things in that
lab that are
just beyond our reach right now. —-Ok, so tell me about what you do understand. Tell me about
the panels. —-It’s all in my report. There are sixteen of them,
approximately ten
feet by thirty--two feet each, less than an inch thick. All
sixteen
panels were made around the same period, approximately three
thousand
years ago. We .?.?. —-If I may. I take it you do not subscribe to the
cross--contamination
theory? —-As far as I’m concerned, there’s no real reason not to
trust the
carbon dating. And to be honest, how old these things are is
the least
of our problems. Did I mention the symbols have been glowing
for the
last seventeen years, with no apparent power source? Each wall is made of four panels and has a dozen rows of
eighteen to
twenty symbols carved into it. Rows are divided into
sequences of six or
seven symbols. We counted fifteen distinct symbols in total.
Most are
used several times, some appear only once. Seven of them are
curvy, with
a dot in the center, seven are made of straight lines, and
one is just a
dot. They are simple in design but very elegant. —-Had the previous team been able to interpret any of the
markings? —-Actually, one of the few sections of Hudson’s report left
intact by
the military was the linguistic analysis. They had compared
the symbols
to every known writing system, past or present, but found no
interesting
correlation. They assumed each sequence of symbols
represented a
proposition, like an English sentence, but with no frame of
reference,
they couldn’t even speculate as to their interpretation.
Their work was
thorough enough and documented at every step. I saw no
reason to do the
same thing twice and I declined the offer to add a linguist
to the team.
With nothing to compare this to, there was logically no way
to arrive at
any sort of meaning. Perhaps I was biased—-because I stumbled onto it—-but I felt
drawn to
the hand. I couldn’t explain it, but every fiber of my being
was telling
me the hand was the important piece. —-Quite a contrast from your predecessor. So what can you
tell me about
it? —-Well, it’s absolutely stunning, but I assume you’re not that
interested in aesthetics. It measures 22.6 feet in length
from the wrist
to the tip of the middle finger. It seems to be solid, made
of the same
metallic material as the wall panels, but it’s at least two
thousand
years older. It is dark gray, with some bronze overtones,
and it has
subtle iridescent properties. The hand is open, fingers close together, slightly bent, as
if holding
something very precious, or a handful of sand, trying not to
spill it.
There are grooves where human skin would normally fold,
others that seem
purely decorative. All are glowing the same bright
turquoise, which
brings out the iridescence in the metal. The hand looks
strong, but
.?.?. sophisticated is the only word that comes to mind. I
think it’s a
woman’s hand. —-I am more interested in facts at this point. What is this
strong but
sophisticated hand made of? —-It proved nearly impossible to cut or otherwise alter by
conventional
means. It took several attempts to remove even a small
sample from one
of the wall panels. Mass spectrography showed it to be an
alloy of
several heavy metals, mostly iridium, with about 10 percent
iron and
smaller concentrations of osmium, ruthenium, and other
metals of the
platinum group. —-It must be worth its weight in gold? —-It’s funny you should mention that. It doesn’t weigh as
much as it
should so I’d say it’s worth a lot more than its weight, in
anything. —-How much does it weigh? —-Thirty--two metric tons .?.?. I know, it’s a respectable
weight, but
it’s inexplicably light given its composition. Iridium is
one of the
densest elements, arguably the densest, and even with some
iron content,
the hand should easily weigh ten times as much. —-How did you account for that? —-I didn’t. I still can’t. I couldn’t even speculate as to
what type of
process could be used to achieve this. In truth, the weight
didn’t
bother me nearly as much as the sheer amount of iridium I
was looking
at. Iridium is not only one of the densest things you can
find, it’s
also one of the rarest. You see, metals of this group—-platinum is one of them—-love
to bond
with iron. That’s what most of the iridium on Earth did
millions of
years ago when the surface was still molten and, because
it’s so heavy,
it sunk to the core, thousands of miles deep. What little is
left in the
Earth’s crust is usually mixed with other metals and it
takes a complex
chemical process to separate them. —-How rare is it in comparison to other metals? —-It’s rare, very rare. Let’s put it this way, if you were
to put
together all the pure iridium produced on the entire planet
in a year,
you’d probably end up with no more than a couple metric
tons. That’s
about a large suitcaseful. It would take decades, using today’s
technology, to scrounge up enough to build all this. It’s
just too
scarce on Earth and there simply aren’t enough chondrites
lying around. —-You lost me. —-Sorry. Meteorites; stony ones. Iridium is so rare in Earth
rocks that
it is often undetectable. Most of the iridium we mine is
extracted from
fallen meteorites that didn’t completely burn up in the
atmosphere. To
build this room—-and it seems safe to assume that this is
not the only
thing they would have built—-you’d need to find it where
there are a lot
more than on the Earth’s surface. —-Journey to the center of the Earth? —-Jules Verne is one way to go. To get this type of metal in
massive
quantities, you’d either have to extract it thousands of
miles deep or
be able to mine in space. With all due respect to Mr. Verne,
we haven’t
come close to mining deep enough. The deepest mines we have
would look
like potholes next to what you’d need. Space seems much more
feasible.
There are private companies right now hoping to harvest
water and
precious minerals in space in the very near future, but all
these
projects are still in the early planning stages.
Nonetheless, if you
could harvest meteorites in space, you could get a lot more
iridium, a
whole lot more. —-What else can you tell me? —-That pretty much sums it up. After a few months of looking
at this
with every piece of equipment known to man, I felt we were
getting
nowhere. I knew we were asking the wrong questions, but I
didn’t know
the right ones. I submitted a preliminary report and asked
for a leave
of absence. —-Refresh my memory. What was the conclusion of that report? —-We didn’t build this. —-Interesting. What was their reaction? —-Request granted. —-That was it? —-Yes. I think they were hoping I wouldn’t come back. I
never used the
word “alien,” but that’s probably all they took out of my
report. —-That is not what you meant? —-Not exactly. There might be a much more down--to--earth
explanation,
one I just didn’t think of. As a scientist, all I can say is
that humans
of today do not have the resources, the knowledge, or the
technology to
build something like this. It’s entirely possible that some
ancient
civilization’s understanding of metallurgy was better than
ours, but
there wouldn’t have been any more iridium around, whether it
was five
thousand, ten thousand, or twenty thousand years ago. So, to
answer your
question, no, I don’t believe humans built these things. You
can draw
whatever conclusion you want from that. I’m not stupid; I knew I was probably putting an end to my
career. I
certainly annihilated any credibility I had with the NSA,
but what was I
going to do? Lie? —-What did you do after you submitted your report? —-I went home, to where it all began. I hadn’t gone home in
nearly four
years, not since my father died. —-Where is home? —-I come from a small place called Deadwood, about an hour
northwest of
Rapid City. —-I am not familiar with that part of the Midwest. —-It’s a small town built during the gold rush. It was a
rowdy place,
like in the movies. The last brothels were closed when I was
a kid. Our
claim to fame, besides a short--lived TV show on HBO, is
that the murder
of Wild Bill Hickok happened in Deadwood. The town survived
the end of
the gold rush and a few major fires, but the population
dwindled to
about twelve hundred. Deadwood sure isn’t thriving, but it’s still standing. And
the landscape
is breathtaking. It’s sitting right on the edge of the Black
Hills
National Forest, with its eerie rock formations, beautiful
pine forests,
barren rock, canyons, and creeks. I can’t think of a more
beautiful
place on Earth. I can understand why someone would want to
build
something there. —-You still call it home? —-Yes. It’s part of who I am although my mother would
probably disagree.
She appeared hesitant when she answered the door. We barely
spoke
anymore. I could sense that she resented the fact that I
never came
back, not even for Dad’s funeral, that I left her all alone
to cope with
the loss. We all have our way of dealing with pain, and I
suppose that
deep down my mother understood that this was just my way,
but there was
anger in her voice, things she would never dare to speak out
loud but
that would taint our relationship forever. I was OK with
that. She had
suffered enough; she was entitled to resentment. We didn’t
talk much the
first few days, but we quickly settled into some form of
routine. Sleeping in my old room brought back memories. When I was a
child, I
often snuck out of bed at night and sat by the window to
watch my dad
leave for the mine. He would come to my room before every
night shift
and have me pick a toy to put in his lunch box. He said he
would think
of me when he opened it and come spend his lunch break with
me in my
dreams. He didn’t talk much, to me or to my mother, but he
knew how
important little things can be for a child and he took the
time to tuck
me in before every shift. How I wished my dad were there so
I could talk
to him. He wasn’t a scientist, but he had a clear view of
things. I
couldn’t talk to my mother about this. We’d been having short but pleasant discussions for a few
days, which
was a welcome change from the polite comments about food
we’d been
exchanging since I arrived. But what I did was classified
and I did my
best to steer our conversations away from what was on my
mind. It got
easier with every week that went by, as I found myself
spending more
time reminiscing about childhood mistakes than I did
thinking about the
hand. It took nearly a month before I hiked to the site where I’d
first seen
it. The hole had long since been filled. There were small
trees starting
to grow back through the dirt and rocks. There was nothing
left to see.
I walked aimlessly until nightfall. Why did I find the hand
first?
Surely there must be other structures like the one I fell
in. Why did no
one find them? Why did it happen on that day? The hand had
been dormant
for millennia. Why did it happen then? What triggered it?
What was
present twenty years ago that hadn’t been for thousands of
years? Then it hit me. That was the right question to ask. I had to
figure out
what turned it on.
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