{"id":4296,"date":"2025-05-14T15:00:28","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T21:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=4296"},"modified":"2025-02-25T22:11:42","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T05:11:42","slug":"book-only-human-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/14\/book-only-human-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Only Human (2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OnlyOnly Human
<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2018
Author: Sylvain Neuvel
Length: 352 pages<\/p>\n

While I was not actively looking forward to finishing this trilogy, I\u2019m glad I finished it for the sense of closure it brought. I still think Sleeping Giants<\/em><\/a> had such an intriguing concept in how it relayed information to the reader, but that you could only really make that work for a single book. With a cliffhanger in each book of the series, I was hoping Only Human<\/em> would wrap up everything and provide a satisfying conclusion. It certainly did its best to answer all the questions that came up during the previous books, but the ending didn\u2019t particularly wow me.<\/p>\n

The difficulty of maintaining a narrative through reports and journal entries is only exacerbated here because the human characters are the only ones who can convey what it is like to live on an alien planet. The jumping back and forth between the past and present was an OK way to hide some of the bigger reveals, but the biggest problem is the snarky nature of most of the characters. I know it\u2019s likely written for laughs, but after a while it becomes tiresome as the events unfold.<\/p>\n

In terms of its message, Only Human<\/em> didn\u2019t feel like it had anything new to say. Introducing the aliens after everything that they put humanity through in Waking Gods<\/em><\/a> felt somewhat anticlimactic as the major action of this book centered on the same old arms race between countries on Earth. Sure, the moral of the story was perhaps clearer here than in the previous books, but probably more as a foot stomp to make sure the readers got the point of the entire series. If I were to recommend the Themis Files<\/em> again, I\u2019d suggest readers stick to just the first book.<\/p>\n

An ending that tied up loose ends but didn\u2019t particularly wow, I give Only Human<\/em> 3.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only HumanYear: 2018Author: Sylvain NeuvelLength: 352 pages While I was not actively looking forward to finishing this trilogy, I\u2019m glad I finished it for the sense of closure it brought. I still think Sleeping Giants had such an intriguing concept in how it relayed information to the reader, but that you could only really make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,54],"tags":[1020,649,55,4142,4141,4139,8,337,235,2080,4140],"class_list":["post-4296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-0-stars","category-book","tag-1020","tag-alien","tag-book","tag-giant-robot","tag-mecha","tag-only-human","tag-review","tag-sci-fi","tag-science-fiction","tag-sylvain-neuvel","tag-the-themis-files"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4296"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4302,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296\/revisions\/4302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}