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A review by sipping_tea_with_ghosts
Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel
2.0
The lackluster and bloated end of a trilogy that honestly started losing steam as soon as the first book ended. I never regarded this series as gospel at any point, but even my modest expectations were steadily dashed, disappointment manifesting to a point where I had to force myself to finish this slog of a third entry.
Neuvel's choice of writing style honestly comes off as a product of laziness more than a stylistic endeavor, abandoning well told exposition and descriptive set pieces for people screaming what's happening. It all just reads like the chats you have with people on Facebook, including exaggerated lettering and stretching out of words.
(Example being: IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII HHHHHHHHHAAAATTTTTTEEEEEEEE YYYYOOOOOUUUU)
This was tolerable in the first book where the story was more about discovering the properties and implications of alien technology on Earth, but as the series heightened its conflict to world ending stakes and giant robot fights, this consistent back and forth of Character A says they've been hit, Character B swears, Character A screams leaves the brain mentally starved of cool visuals that could be provided by the writer actually doing their job and making a scene to imagine.
But onto issues regarding this book specifically, did you want an epic finale that possibly pushes the stakes even higher or raises new questions on how humans can deal with the horrid events that took place in Waking Gods? Well you're not getting it here.
The entire story is basically two plots:
a.) Daughter gets into a screaming fight with her dad all the time
b.) A bureaucracy simulator on an alien planet that's basically as vague, boring and plodding as real life politics. I get it if that was the point, but that doesn't make it fun to read.
When the story isn't focusing on that stuff, it just divulges into dollar store clearance philosophy about why humanity is self destructive and how everyone will discriminate against others for the most minute of reasons. If this was actually handled well and didn't make characters sound preachy, I'd be ok with it but it has about as much place, nuance and subtlety as the out of place pop-culture references in the text as well.
I really hoped this book would turn its slow beginning around and make the 330 page read worth it, but it didn't. This last book is twice as long than it needs to be, feels like it was rewritten once or twice and even the ending is limp and uninteresting. Just read Sleeping Giants and give up after that.
Neuvel's choice of writing style honestly comes off as a product of laziness more than a stylistic endeavor, abandoning well told exposition and descriptive set pieces for people screaming what's happening. It all just reads like the chats you have with people on Facebook, including exaggerated lettering and stretching out of words.
(Example being: IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII HHHHHHHHHAAAATTTTTTEEEEEEEE YYYYOOOOOUUUU)
This was tolerable in the first book where the story was more about discovering the properties and implications of alien technology on Earth, but as the series heightened its conflict to world ending stakes and giant robot fights, this consistent back and forth of Character A says they've been hit, Character B swears, Character A screams leaves the brain mentally starved of cool visuals that could be provided by the writer actually doing their job and making a scene to imagine.
But onto issues regarding this book specifically, did you want an epic finale that possibly pushes the stakes even higher or raises new questions on how humans can deal with the horrid events that took place in Waking Gods? Well you're not getting it here.
The entire story is basically two plots:
a.) Daughter gets into a screaming fight with her dad all the time
b.) A bureaucracy simulator on an alien planet that's basically as vague, boring and plodding as real life politics. I get it if that was the point, but that doesn't make it fun to read.
When the story isn't focusing on that stuff, it just divulges into dollar store clearance philosophy about why humanity is self destructive and how everyone will discriminate against others for the most minute of reasons. If this was actually handled well and didn't make characters sound preachy, I'd be ok with it but it has about as much place, nuance and subtlety as the out of place pop-culture references in the text as well.
I really hoped this book would turn its slow beginning around and make the 330 page read worth it, but it didn't. This last book is twice as long than it needs to be, feels like it was rewritten once or twice and even the ending is limp and uninteresting. Just read Sleeping Giants and give up after that.