Sylvain Neuvel is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

science fiction writer, known as the author of ''The Themis Files.'' He was born in

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and raised in the suburb of

L'Ancienne-Lorette L'Ancienne-Lorette is a city in central Quebec, Canada. It is a suburb of and an enclave within Quebec City. It was merged with Quebec City on January 1, 2002 as part of a 2000–2006 municipal reorganization in Quebec, but, after a 2004 refere ...

."Sylvain Neuvel's buzzed-about debut novel asks age-old sci-fi question: Is there anybody out there?"
''

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'', May 6, 2016. Neuvel was educated at the

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (UdeM; ; translates to University of Montreal) is a French-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university's main campus is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Côte- ...

and the

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, and runs his own professional

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agency. ''The Themis Files'' trilogy begins with his debut novel ''Sleeping Giants''. It follows a group of scientists, led by a physicist named Rose Franklin, as they track down and assemble a giant robot of mysterious origins, scattered across the Earth. The idea for ''Sleeping Giants'' first came to him when his son asked him to build a toy

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...

. Not just any toy robot, he wanted one with an extended back story, wanted to know where the robot came from and what it did. The novel is written in an atypical format, laid out in back-and-forth dialogues, journal entries and documentation rather than through traditional narration. Neuvel first submitted the novel to literary agents in 2014 and received 50 rejections. The novel was published by

Del Rey Books Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn, by Penguin Random House. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It ...

in 2016. It began accumulating favourable buzz after ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' published a rave review of the galley copy it had received. The novel, which was a longlisted contender for the 2017 edition of ''

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'', has been optioned by

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for development into a film and was sold for translation into twenty languages. It was a finalist for the 2016

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for Best Science Fiction, the 2017 Compton Crook Award and for the Concordia University First Book Prize at the 2016

Quebec Writers' Federation Awards The Quebec Writers' Federation Awards are a series of Canadian literary awards, presented annually by the Quebec Writers' Federation to the best works of literature in English by writers from Quebec. They were known from 1988 to 1998 as the QSPELL ...

. Neuvel has also been announced as one of three contributing authors on the upcoming ''

Black Mirror ''Black Mirror'' is a British anthology television series created by Charlie Brooker. Individual episodes explore a diversity of genres, but most are set in near-future dystopias with science fiction technology—a type of speculative fictio ...

'' book project. The first book is set to release February 2018 and will feature a collection of short fiction by each author.

Bibliography

Themis Files series

# ''Sleeping Giants'', Del Rey (2016) # ''Waking Gods'', Del Rey (2017) # ''Only Human'', Del Rey (2018) * "File N°1743" (2016, short story) * "File N°247" (2016, short story) * "FILE NO. 002" (2017, short story)

Take Them to the Stars series

# ''A History of What Comes Next'', Tordotcom (2021) # ''Until the Last of Me'' (2022)"66 works of Canadian fiction to watch for in spring 2022"

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, January 11, 2022.

Standalone

* '' The Test'', Tordotcom (2019)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neuvel, Sylvain 21st-century Canadian novelists Canadian male novelists Canadian science fiction writers Writers from Quebec City French Quebecers Living people 21st-century Canadian male writers Canadian male non-fiction writers 1973 births 21st-century Canadian translators