Billed as Book One of the Themis Files this exciting and confident debut novel is a gripping mix of techno-thriller and SF. If you enjoyed the film Interstellar or the novels of Michael Crichton or, further back, Arthur C. Clarke then this will hit the spot for you. It combines fast moving and tense geo-political plotting and tensions with a genuine sense of wonder. From the very first chapter we are left asking big questions about what the events of the book mean for mankind and our place in the universe and as the pages go by and you learn more these questions only get bigger and more urgent. Neuvel manages his world changing revelations very well and our perspective on them is always grounded by seeing them through the eyes of a strong set of characters.
The book begins with the discovery in America, by a young girl, of a huge artefact in the shape of a hand. By the time the girl has grown up to become Dr. Rose Franklyn we know only that the hand is impossibly ancient, incredibly high-tech and made from a metal that we barely understand. It also becomes clear that the hand was once attached to a body. As the USA struggles to learn what the hand is and where it came from a race develops around the world to find and claim the rest of the body the book also starts posing questions that stretch far beyond the bounds of earth and promise an even wider adventure for later novels.
**A must-read thriller for lovers of The Passage, World War Z, The Martian or Interstellar**
What happens when you make a discovery that changes everything?
Deadwood, USA. A girl sneaks out just before dark to ride her new bike. Suddenly, the ground disappears beneath her. Waking up at the bottom of a deep pit, she sees an emergency rescue team above her. The people looking down see something far stranger...
"We always look forward. We never look back."
That girl grows up to be Dr. Rose Franklyn, a brilliant scientist and the leading world expert on what she discovered. An enormous, ornate hand made of an exceptionally rare metal, which predates all human civilisation on the continent.
"But this thing ... it's different. It challenges us. It rewrites history."
An object whose origins and purpose are perhaps the greatest mystery humanity has ever faced. Solving the secret of where it came from - and how many more parts may be out there - could change life as we know it.
"It dares us to question what we know about ourselves."
But what if we were meant to find it? And what happens when this vast, global puzzle is complete...?
"About everything."
* * *
'Bursts at the seams with big ideas. A sheer blast from start to finish. I haven't had this much fun reading in ages' Blake Crouch, author of the Wayward Pines trilogy
'A stellar debut which masterfully blends sci-fi, political thriller and apocalyptic fiction. So much more than the sum of its parts - a page-turner of the highest order' Kirkus Reviews
'Reminiscent of The Martian and World War Z, this is a luminous conspiracy yarn that shoots for (and lands among) the stars' Pierce Brown, author of Red Rising
