Only Human - Sylvain Neuvel

Only Human – Sylvain Neuvel (2018)

In her childhood, Rose Franklin accidentally discovered a giant metal hand buried beneath the ground outside Deadwood, South Dakota. As an adult, Dr. Rose Franklin led the team that uncovered the rest of the body parts which together form Themis: a powerful robot of mysterious alien origin. She, along with linguist Vincent, pilot Kara, and the unnamed Interviewer, protected the Earth from geopolitical conflict and alien invasion alike. Now, after nearly ten years on another world, Rose returns to find her old alliances forfeit and the planet in shambles. And she must pick up the pieces of the Earth Defense Corps as her own friends turn against each other.

My Review of Only Human

(3.5 / 5)

Overall this was a satisfying conclusion to a fabulous sci-fi series, however it wasn’t fantastic.

Most of the characters are back in this third instalment of the Themis Files. Well of course except for the ones who died in the last book… Vincent, Eva, Rose and the colonel are stuck on Themis, and Themis isn’t exactly in Kansas anymore… They are on another world. What is the world like? How will they get back? And what will they come back to?

I must admit I was slightly underwhelmed by the alien planet they found themselves on. It was a bit too similar to ours and it lost me a little bit. The whole story sort of goes off in another direction in this one, not that that’s a bad thing. It was just not what I was expecting.

It still had the awesome metaphors similar to the first two books, something I absolutely love about this series! But overall the entire tone of it was just… Different…

I still admit that the second was my favourite, but I still enjoyed this one.

It did have some great twists and turns, and there is no denying that Neuvel is a extremely talented writer! Can’t wait to check out other stuff he has done!

Did I enjoy the narration?

Yes and no. Eva and Rose had different narrators which I must admit, annoyed me. Vincent was still the same narrator, and a few of the other characters, but the audio version did lose some of the magic from the first two audio books. I imagine its hard to get the same narrators to do 3 books straight when there are so many of them!

I REALLY didn’t like Eva. Like, REALLY didn’t like her. Whenever she had a scene I cringed a little inside. She was an absolute brat. Especially on Ekt. I just wanted to punch her at times. I just feel a lot of the characters lost some of the qualities that made me like them in the first two.