Aaron

That's it. I'm done. I tried. I really tried. [b:Divergent 13335037 Divergent (Divergent, #1) Veronica Roth https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328559506s/13335037.jpg 13155899] held my attention long enough to make me think there was hope for this series. Then this sucker came along and I discovered that I didn't really care about anyone or anything Ms. Roth was feeding me. Zero caring.I wanted this series to fill the gap that had been left since [b:Mockingjay 7260188 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3) Suzanne Collins https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1358275419s/7260188.jpg 8812783] ended. No such luck. :(

At first, the one distinct thought this book gave me was, “What the...?” The topic of this book - an adolescent alien hunter searching for his parents' extraterrestrial killer - is somewhat of a departure from Patterson's usual mystery works.

However, as I progressed through this book, I started to really enjoy it. Patterson's lending of a sassy demeanor to his main character produces an excellent sense of adventure (not to mention that the kid's powers of creation are pretty darn cool).

While the story progresses nicely, Patterson leaves some very loose ends. The Prayer - the beastly thing that murders Daniel's parents in the opening chapter - isn't seen again through the rest of the book (the great majority of the story revolves around Daniel's hunt of alien #6, Seth). This may mean Patterson intends to continue this story elsewhere, but it didn't seem terribly clear.

Overall, Patterson's writing style (including his trademark 1-2 page chapters) and his craft of an intriguing story make this an excellent read.

There are two ways to look at the quality of this book: standing on its own and as part of a larger whole. Far beyond whether you enjoy the books that the publishers liken it to – World War Z, the Martian, etc. – I think that the perspective you choose will ultimately decide whether you enjoy Sleeping Giants or not.

On its own, Sleeping Giants is a 3 or 3.5 star book. It's premise is fascinating, but the surface is barely scratched. Its interview-style format is engaging, but doesn't quite carry the backward-facing, “what was it all for?” gravitas and confusion that World War Z employed so beautifully (while using the same style). It's dialogue and characters are interesting and feel real (for the most part), but they don't carry the blend of intelligence, wit, and sarcasm that made The Martian's Mark Watney so appealing. Viewed in this light, Sleeping Giants is creative enough to be noticed and fresh enough to avoid feeling derivative, but ultimately comes across like a “half effort” that never quite finds its footing.

However, when viewed as part of a larger whole (read: when understood that it is intended to be part of a series), Sleeping Giants is easier to swallow. The idea that this book serves as a premise to a larger story is intriguing enough to continue on.

For the majority of this book, I hovered around a 3 or 3.5 star rating. It was an entertaining thriller, full of twists, transformations, and “didn't-see-that-coming” moments. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with it; indeed, the overall tone was dark, exciting, and encouraged me to continue.What leaves me at 3 stars is the sad realization that after such a monumental effort, this is not a book that belongs in the Robert Langdon mythos.The book's premise - wherein Professor Langdon is called upon to save the world from the machinations of a madman (in this case, one fueled by a deep understanding of and dedication to Dante's [b:Inferno 15645 Inferno (The Divine Comedy, #1) Dante Alighieri http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333579470s/15645.jpg 2377563]) - fits. This is what we expect from a Langdon story and early on, it delivers. There is a sense that the world of Dante will permeate the story in profoundly macabre ways.Unfortunately, that premise slowly disappears. Chase scenes ensue ad nauseam, stopping only to overwhelm the reader with every historical fact about the European environment in which Landon is running (a mechanism that, although it served Brown well in [b:Angels & Demons 960 Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1) Dan Brown http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303390735s/960.jpg 3338963] and [b:The Da Vinci Code 968 The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2) Dan Brown http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg 2982101], is overplayed here). Chapters stream by and, in my case, left me with a sense of, “Well, okay - but when are we getting to the good stuff?”What is the “good stuff”, you ask? One needs only to look at the previous three Landon novels for inspiration. In all three, Dan Brown took his time to weave in the types of historical mystery that hover between ludicrous and profoundly possible. These elements made the expected thriller/chase scenes more interesting: the race fulfilled the desire to find clues, solve puzzles, and put together astounding theories. There was a sense of adventure, conspiracy, and higher meaning.Inferno only has an inkling of that. As someone who has read and enjoyed [b:The Divine Comedy 6656 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320552051s/6656.jpg 809248], I was thrilled by the idea of Robert Landon descending into Dante's world and watching the visions of Inferno permeate that adventure. It just didn't happen. Elements of Dante, his life, his poetry, and the higher meaning exposed by his philosophies were only briefly touched on. At times, it seemed as though Dan Brown, desiring to have an archetypal “historical great work” to fit into a Langdon adventure, somewhat haphazardly settled on Inferno. It's as if Brown took his trademark thriller ingredients, tossed them into a blender, and in the middle of the process, jammed in a few pages of Inferno. The concoction just isn't satisfying.As the book hurtles towards its conclusion, the aforementioned plot twists add some spice and excitement; unfortunately, by this point, it's too late: there simply isn't enough time left to recreate the magic that came so easily in the previous three Langdon books.And so, I give this 3 stars - I wanted an Angels & Demons-esque mystery, but instead, I got [b:Deception Point 976 Deception Point Dan Brown http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1266447971s/976.jpg 3135896] with some neat art and architecture thrown in.

This book definitely delivers on the promise of “a hair-raising experience.” Crichton is a master of creating suspense and holding secrets until a good way into the book.

That said, this was not one of my favorites. While the book started favorably enough, it lost its suspense about 200 pages in. While I thoroughly enjoyed the segues into biological studies, they tended to detract from the main story - so much so that once I was 5/6 through the book, I began to think, “He's running out of room to create a really smash-up ending.” The unfortunate result is that I hardly felt any suspense during what should have been a climactic ending.

A good (and fast read), but definitely not the late Crichton's best work.