Sleeping Giants

Book 1 in the Themis Files series

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This book is an excellent reminder of why I prefer to read books written by women. The women in this are drawn with a crayon.

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Here’s how a female PhD talks about the upper torso section of a 20-storey stone robot she is assembling from parts found scattered around the globe:

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FILE NO. 037 INTERVIEW WITH DR. ROSE FRANKLIN, PH.D. Location: Underground Complex, Denver, CO —Definitely a girl! I couldn’t stop grinning when they brought the chest in. Her breasts aren’t that large, given her size, but they’re still bigger than my car. Perky … She must have been the envy of all the giant girl robots back in her day.

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How stupid. I’ve never heard a woman (let lone a doctor!) speak about another woman like this. Sheesh.

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And there's this passage in which a character (a helicopter pilot for the US Army) who had previously been characterized as being difficult, irascible, and obstinate suddenly becomes someone else:

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She offered me coffee but I told her I’d wait in the car. I should have said yes to that coffee, because she made me wait out there for a good half hour. I was flipping through radio stations when I saw her walk out. Wow! is all I can say.

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I’m not sure I would have recognized her if it wasn’t her house. She wore a short skintight red dress, heels, the works. It made her legs look … —Longer? —Yes. I was looking for something more … Anyway, she had done something to her hair. I couldn’t tell what it was … something though. She even had makeup on.

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The whole thing was totally unlike her, but she just looked amazing. She obviously felt a bit out of character. She wasn’t nearly as bold as usual. She looked amazing and … vulnerable.

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Ugh. The only thing that saves this book from the burn pile is the idea that humanity finds pieces of a stone being which is many thousands of years old, and which has been made from a substance that can only be found (in such great quantities) in outer space.

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The drama and high-jinx surrounding the geopolitical reaction to it is dumb and unbelievable.

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The way this author creates characters is flat and un-nuanced. The women are either beautiful and deadly or kind and motherly. Please.

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Even the way the material is presented is lazy. Every single chapter is done in interview format, and the reader is not privy to who the main interviewer is nor what he is after. What that an intentional choice used to create mystery? If so, I’d bet it was accidental.

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I'm loathe to read the other books in the series, but I’ve seen from the cover of the 2nd book that the stone robot lady will come to life - which does sound interesting.

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