Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

When out exploring the woods one day a young girl falls through a hole in the ground. When found some time later she's seated in the middle of a metallic turquoise hand the size of a rowing boat. Which sounds like the setup to a contemporary retelling of The Iron Man but author Sylvain Neuvel quickly veers away from that and gives us something else. 

Specifically he moves the narrative ahead twenty years to a point where a team of scientists, headed by that same young girl from my opening sentence (now grown-up), and military personnel have studied the hand enough to surmise that there are other pieces of this oversized body buried out there. 

He gives us a story that's part political thriller and part science fiction, told through a series of interviews, reports, diary entries and articles. The majority of the extracts centre on a core group of people, all of whom are fully fleshed out across the course of the novel, with all of the interviews being conducted by a single enigmatic figure who seemingly has a vested interest in rebuilding this turquoise giant.

Obviously the titular giant is what gives the book its science fiction elements. The first half of the novel is very much dedicated to investigating its mysterious origins and advanced capabilities. The latter half is where things take a surprisingly political turn, with various factions appearing to attempt to wrest control of the giant. Pleasingly the science fiction isn't left behind at this point, the emphasis is simply switched to the ramifications for what the technology and its origins mean for twenty-first century humanity as a whole. 

There are similarities with Max Brooks's World War Z. Both are a collection of interviews used to explore humanity's way of coping with an event that changes the way the world works, with a relatively generic sci-fi trope as a starting point and centrepiece. Though it's worth noting that while the zombie outbreak was never given a definitive origin in WWZ and a different tack is taken here, with the giant's origins clearly being something Neuvel is interested in exploring and explaining.

Sleeping Giants is a satisfying and surprisingly breezy read. It makes excellent use of its narrative form, has something to say about how politicians react to a crisis (poignant given the world we're living in), and does a great job with its central science fiction element. If you're looking for a fun holiday read look no further.

Dave