Sylvain Neuvel (born 1973) is a

Canadian Canadians () 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 their being ''C ...

science fiction writer, linguist, and translator. He is the author of the series ''The Themis Files'' and ''Take Them to the Stars''.

Early life

Neuvel was born in

Quebec City Quebec City is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Census Metropolitan Area (including surrounding communities) had a populati ...

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 r ...

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

Montreal Gazette ''The Gazette'', also known as the ''Montreal Gazette'', is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper which is owned by Postmedia Network. It is published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the only English-language daily newspape ...

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

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (; UdeM; ) 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-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on M ...

and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

Literary career

''The Themis Files'' trilogy begins with Neuvel's debut novel ''Sleeping Giants''. It follows a group of scientists 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 Neuvel's son asked him to build a toy

robot A robot is a machine—especially one Computer program, programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions Automation, automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the robot control, co ...

with an extended back story. The novel is written 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 an imprint (trade name), imprint of the Random House Group, a division of Penguin Random House. The imprint was established in 1977 under the editorship of Judy-Lynn del Rey and her husband, author Lester del Rey. Today, th ...

in 2016. It began accumulating favourable buzz after ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...

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

Canada Reads ''Canada Reads'' is an annual "battle of the books" competition organized and broadcast by Canada's public broadcaster, the CBC. The program has aired in two distinct editions, the English-language ''Canada Reads'' on CBC Radio One, and the Fre ...

'', was optioned by

Sony Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and rec ...

for development into a film. It was a finalist for the 2016

Goodreads Choice Awards The Goodreads Choice Awards is a yearly award program, first launched on Goodreads in 2009. Winners are determined by crowdvoting, users voting on books that Goodreads has nominated or books of their choosing, released in the given year. Most boo ...

for Best Science Fiction, the 2017 Compton Crook Award and for the Concordia University First Book Prize at the 2016 Quebec Writers' Federation Awards. Neuvel was announced as one of three contributing authors of a ''

Black Mirror ''Black Mirror'' is a British anthology series, anthology television series created by Charlie Brooker. Most episodes are set in near-future dystopias containing Science fiction, sci-fi technology—a type of speculative fiction. The series i ...

'' book, but the project was shelved in 2018.

Other work

Outside of his literary career, Neuvel runs a professional

translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

agency.

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'', Tordotcom (2022)"66 works of Canadian fiction to watch for in spring 2022"

CBC Books CBC Arts () is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that creates and curates written articles, short documentaries, non-fiction series and interactive projects that represent the excellence of Canada's diverse artistic communitie ...

, January 11, 2022. # '' For the First Time, Again'', Tordotcom (2023)

Standalone

* ''No Kindness Too Soon'', Audible (2022) * '' The Test'', Tordotcom (2019)

References

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