“We’re not heroes. No one is. Every movie we watch, every book we read, we see people who can solve every problem, face every danger all on their own. But in real life, Vincent, we just call the cops. That’s what I did.”
Author: Sylvain Neuvel ⭐⭐⭐.5 Publisher: Penguin
I have been meaning to get to this book review for weeks now, having finished the book in September, and even featuring it in my September Reads. However, the full review just never seemed to want to get written. After some pondering, I realised why that was. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this world!
Only Humanis the end of the road for the Themis Files, the science fiction trilogy, that I discovered this year. To recap, the story follows the discovery of a giant robot, which is subsequently named Themis, and its relation to an alien race whose presence on earth is proven by the existence of the robot. Reviews of the first two books in the series, Sleeping Giants and Waking Gods can be found on the blog as well.
The second in the series left us with one of the most epic cliffhangers I have ever read: our protagonists find themselves stranded on an alien planet. Which of course meant that I was scrambling to pick up the next book. The story picks up ten years later, the format following that of the previous two, telling the tale through interviews and journal recordings of the characters experiences. However, it also included a new feature of retrospectively flipping between two locations, Earth and the alien planet.
After two books, my list of questions was getting absurdly long, so it was incredibly cathartic to read more about the aliens themselves. Learning about their beliefs and way of life brought an understanding of their motives that had been lacking in the previous two novels.
However, what I found most riveting about this novel was Neuvel’s projection of the human race. How would they react after an alien attack? Time and time again, science fiction disaster films will detail the action and violence that erupts, but what is lacking is how the world changes post these encounters. Neuvel’s representation is a rather dire one, presenting a cautionary tale of using yet another disaster as a global excuse to create divisions between people.
Neuvel drops nuggets of wisdom throughout the novel, the kind you expect to find in speeches and monologues, drawing parallels to the injustices we see around the world in the past couple of years. While they are thought-provoking, and poignant, they are tinged with an element of anger that seems to permeate throughout the whole novel. Maybe it’s because of the characters experiences being more directly witnessed. Whatever the reason, the tone of the trilogy shifts in this last installment, and potentially not to its favour.
The whole series has taken us on a literal journey. However, though I could not imagine another conclusion to the series, I was left feeling a little bit disappointed. Though we learn a lot about the aliens and their world, the book ultimately comes down to humans not being able to handle the fact that they are not the most superior sentient beings.
Including a fair amount of teenage angst, parts of the novel similarly felt as if Neuvel had written the world have a tantrum at not being at the top of the metaphorical food chain. Neuvel seems to imply that the world is in need of a guardian, as we have demonstrated our inability to look after ourselves. While elements of truth my cling to that opinion, it does leave one feeling a little morose after finishing the book, and unsure if we are still reading a fictional tale, or a commentary on human nature.
Nevertheless, this and the previous installments are worth every minute spent reading, as the journey is delightful, tragic and ultimately enlightening.
Do you like your novels to obviously include the author’s opinions? Let me know in the comments what you think and if you’ve read this series!
~S~
