Book Review: Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel

Only Human

by Sylvain Neuvel

Gray Planet Commentary

• Fun and easy read
• Moments of brilliance and insight
• Dissatisfying ending

Gray Planet Indices

• Sense of Wonder Index: 40/100
• Literature Index: 20/100
• Good Book Index: 65/100
• Magic Factor: 20/100

Warning: There are minor spoilers in this review.

Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel is the final installment of the Themis Files trilogy. The first book was Sleeping Giants, the second was Waking Gods.

The trilogy started out as a classic science fiction puzzle story. Rose Franklin, as a young girl, discovered a giant robot buried in her backyard. Seventeen years later, as an adult, Rose, now a physicist, works to understand the giant robot, which is an artifact of an alien civilization. Along with Kara Resnick and Vincent Couture, Rose attempts to determine the purpose and function of the giant robots (there end up being lots of them), and the motivations of the aliens who created them.

In Only Human, Rose, Vincent, Eva (Vincent’s ten year old daughter by Kara Resnick), and General Eugene Govender, have been transported to the home planet of the creators of the giant robots after the events of Walking Gods. As with the other two books of the trilogy, the book is epistolary—the story consists of a sequence of documents or interviews of the characters.

Only Human is a quick, breezy read. Chronologically, we skip back and forth between the time Rose, Vincent and Eva spend on Esat Ekt, the home planet of the Ekt, the builders of the robots, and the present time of the novel, which takes place on Earth, after the three have been transported back home in one of the giant robots, Themis.

On Esat Ekt, the Ekt are in the midst of a political upheaval caused by their interference with human development on Earth thousands of years ago. The Ekt (in Waking Gods), had murdered millions of humans in an attempt to correct that interference. The guilt they feel as a result of the massacre causes them to reverse course and their political system becomes gridlocked trying to guarantee they never again interfere with other cultures. This puts Rose, Vincent, and Eva in limbo while on Esat Ekt. Are they prisoners, or hostages, or what?

On Earth, governments have reacted to the knowledge of the aliens and their interference in human history and development by identifying and persecuting (even executing), all people who have a large amount of alien DNA as a result of the Ekt’s interference.

Neuvel has created two diverse cultural milieus that are in the midst of xenophobic revolutions that result in horrific treatment of some citizens based on arbitrary racial or genetic differences. The feel of this, particularly in the sections that take place on Earth, is similar to the current day political situation in the United States—demonizing immigrants. This cultural phenomena is not hinted at in the previous two novels, and I wonder if the third was written after 2016 and has taken on some tone of Trumpism and Brexit and the migrant problems in the EU as a result.

Neuvel has a style that gives immediacy to his characters as the point of view switches frequently from document to document in the epistolary style. We slowly learn how Rose, Vincent and Eva end up back on Earth, and more details about the political situation on Earth. Neuvel occasionally dazzles with interesting perspectives on the cultural and political situations he has created on Esat Ekt and on Earth. But these deep insights are not enough to give the novel the depth necessary to make it significant. Neuvel attempts to define the driving cultural and political forces on Esat Ekt, but doesn’t succeed. He doesn’t quite make me believe in his world, particularly Esat Ekt, and the narrative becomes trivial.

Similarly, the events on Earth and Vincent’s and Eva’s actions within them are unrealistic and without sufficient motivation. Neuvel creates a complex situation in the conflict between Vincent and his now grown daughter Eva, which seems portentous and which is intertwined with the political rivalries of nations. But neither Vincent nor Eva has anything invested in the political sides they end up fighting for. Sides are chosen for them, or occur by happenstance—they are not the agents of their choices and again the resulting conflict becomes trivial.

Rose is not engaged in any of this—she is distant from it, and from most events in the novel. She longs to return to a normal life, to abdicate the pressure and responsibility of the position events and her own actions in the previous books have thrust upon her. But Neuvel ignores this and uses Rose as the agent who resolves the world’s conflicts even though she has done her best to abdicate her responsibility and authority. Worse, the solution Rose implements is Machiavellian at best and cruel and inhuman at worst.

I enjoyed the book and wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it, but if you expect a satisfying resolution to the situation Neuvel has created in the first two books of the trilogy, I fear you will be disappointed like I was.