Waking Gods (2017) is the sequel to last year’s breakout debut and Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Science Fiction, Sleeping Giants. In Sleeping Giants, Sylvain Neuvel introduced readers to Dr. Rose Franklin who, as a child, fell into a hole and discovered a giant metal hand. Driven by passion and destiny, she would grow up to identify, discover and put together the remaining pieces of a giant metal goddess,
April 4th, 2017. Jason Golomb, Jana Nyman and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Sylvain Neuvel | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
Sylvain Neuvel’s Sleeping Giants honorably borrows from notable films — Pacific Rim, The Iron Giant, and the Indiana Jones series — in this creative take on first contact in a contemporary world of shadowy government operatives, high tech archaeology, and mystery-shrouded alien technology.
Rose Franklin was the little girl who fell into the mysterious metal hand. Years later, with a physics Ph.D. in hand, Dr. Franklin is appointed to lead the investigation into the metal object.
April 21st, 2016. Jason Golomb, Jana Nyman and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 5 | Sylvain Neuvel | SFF Reviews | 10 comments |
A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel
Sylvain Neuvel’s A History of What Comes Next (2021) has both an intriguing premise and a potentially tense conflict at its core, but due to some issues with structure and style, the execution didn’t allow the book to achieve its potential.
Two women, Sara and her daughter Mia, are sort of Space Race Zeligs (look him up, youngsters), inserting themselves in key times and places to push humanity toward the stars. To that end,
February 10th, 2021. Bill Capossere and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 2.5, 3 | Sylvain Neuvel | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Chaos Function by Jack Skillingstead
Jack Skillingstead’s latest novel, The Chaos Function (2019), has a fairly straightforward premise: a young journalist accidentally receives the ability to shift reality from one possible timeline to another, though not without disastrous consequences. The first time she performs this shift, it’s purely by accident, though that doesn’t make the new future any less grave. Each time she shifts to another possible timeline without returning to the original, the consequences become more and more dire, until she is left with a terrible choice: return reality to its intended course or watch the entire world destroy itself.
April 5th, 2019. Jana Nyman´s rating: 3 | Jack Skillingstead | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Since I fell in love with Sylvain Neuvel’s giant robots and sardonic narrator in Sleeping Giants, I’ve been curious to see what he would write next. The Test (2019) is an excellent novella, quite different from THE THEMIS FILES trilogy, though some similar themes are touched on and there are similarities in the narrative technique.
I went into reading The Test totally cold,
March 11th, 2019. Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Sylvain Neuvel | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The giant robots are back! Only Human (2018) wraps up Sylvain Neuvel’s excellent THEMIS FILES science fiction trilogy with some surprising plot turns. *Expect some spoilers for the first two books, Sleeping Giants and Waking Gods*
At the end of Waking Gods, the robot called Themis was suddenly transported back home to her original planet by remote command of her alien makers,
May 1st, 2018. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Sylvain Neuvel | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Sylvain Neuvel burst onto the science fiction scene last year with his debut hit, Sleeping Giants, a 2016 Fantasy Literature favorite. The sequel, Waking Gods, is available on April 4, 2017. Tadiana and Jason were able to borrow a little time from the French Canadian author to learn about his passion for science fiction, backwards-bending knees, and the second novel in his THEMIS series, Waking Gods. After reading the interview, check out our reviews of of the new novel.
April 4th, 2017. Jason Golomb and Tadiana Jones | Sylvain Neuvel | Author Interviews, Giveaway! | 17 comments |
This week’s word for Wednesday I lifted entirely from a Haggard Hawks tweet: SPREZZATURA is deliberate nonchalance, or the act of making something difficult look effortless.
Awards:
The Israeli Society for Fantasy and Science Fiction has announced its 2016 Geffen winners.
The Baen Memorial Contest is open for fiction about near-future space exploration. The deadline for submissions is February, 2017.
(Thanks to Locus Magazine for both items.)
Books and Writing:
October 26th, 2016. Marion Deeds | World Wide Wednesday | 7 comments |
The professional reputation of Nebraska-born writer L. Ron Hubbard, it seems to me, has taken a double hit since his heyday in the 1940s. Hubbard, of course, was the founder of the cultish sect known as Scientology, and ever since the release of his initial article on Dianetics in the May 1950 issue of John W. Campbell’s Astounding Science-Fiction, and the founding of the group two years later, his name has been unavoidably linked to this oft-maligned pseudoreligion.
December 6th, 2018. Sandy Ferber´s rating: 4 | L. Ron Hubbard | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Here are our favorite books published in 2016. Hover over the cover to see who recommends each book. Click on the cover to read our review.
Please keep in mind that we did not read every SFF book published this year, so we know we’ve missed some good ones! Please add your comments — we’d love to hear your opinions about our list and to know which were YOUR favorite books of 2016. What did we miss? One commenter chooses a book from our stacks.
ADULT SFF
MIDDLE GRADE / YOUNG ADULT SFF
ANTHOLOGIES / COLLECTIONS
NON-FICTION
AUDIO
December 29th, 2016. FanLit | Best of the Year, Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 25 comments |
I had it on my list to reread (which means I looked over at the bookcase one night, saw it…
Marion, I'm saving James (and Orbital) for after my semester ends so I can devote my undivided attention to them.…
Susan, glad you enjoyed. Samuel Jackson should absolutely play him in the movie!
Troy, 100% agreed. Sadly the BBC adaptation is also confused about this. They seem to think Orciny is some kind…
Hey Marion! The weather is the *same* in Ul Qoma and Beszel in the novel. They even have a recurring…