Review: 'The Many' by Sylvain Neuvel

I read Sylvain Neuvel's Sleeping Giants back in 2016 and loved it, although I never got around to reading the rest of the Themis Files books. When I saw The Many, however, his first stand alone in a while, I dove at the chance. I'm glad I did because I had a delightful time with this. Thanks to Solaris and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 21/04/2026
Publisher: Rebellion; Solaris

“I’m you now. We all are.”

When advertising executive Carole Veilleux loses it at Booker’s donut shop and bites Booker on the arm, it’s about the most interesting thing to happen in the small city of Marquette, Michigan, in years.

But that’s only the beginning of the story. Carole and Booker find their minds merging, in a collective that extends to include Carole’s husband Shivansh and local doctor Evelyn Schlapp. The four of them become the beginning of something larger and stranger than they could ever have imagined.

The Many begins with a tick that comes across something in the woods. We then switch to the inhabitants of the small town of Marquette, especially Carole, who one day bites Booker. Through different POVs we get an understanding of what happened, but then these POVs begin to shift, expand, and we come to realise that people are becoming connected. It is not just Carole and Booker, who find themselves mind melding, but also Carole's husband, Shivansh, and a local doctor, Evelyn. This is merely the beginning, however, as the question becomes whether to keep their new-found connection secret or to let more people in on it. The Many is in many ways an absolutely hilarious novel, while also being deeply serious. There are moments and chapters which had me laughing out loud, although I can't share more to avoid spoilers, but there were also moments that deeply touched me, which spoke to out shared nature as humans and our place in this world. At just over 300 pages, The Many isn't an overly-long novel, but it does pack a punch and tells a great story.

From Sleeping Giants I already knew that Sylvain Neuvel had a real skill for playing with narrative, figuring out different ways to tell a story. One of those is through form, with Sleeping Giants featuring diary entries and interviews, but in The Many it not so much in the form but in the nature of the perspective. The Many switches POVs consistently, but at a certain point these POVs themselves begin to change. Through these different POVs, the novel becomes something of a polyphonic novel that nonetheless speaks with a single voice. When Carole and Booker merge, they are still themselves and yet Carole is now also a Black man while Booker is also a married white woman. As their network develops and grows, people suddenly find themselves quite literally in the shoes of others, becoming aware of each others' desires, fears, and thoughts and discovering that truly humanity is one, that ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexuality, etc. do not, in a good way, matter. Neuvel addresses police violence, gender transition, racism, and more and while there is no easy, straightforward solution to any of these issues, The Many does offer insight and commentary in a way that feels both sharp and subtle. In a way the message that we are all the same if we could only see it is a little cliche, but the way that it is told makes The Many a gorgeous book.

I give this novel...

4 Universes!

I had an absolutely lovely time with The Many, which is both funny and touching, sad and uplifting. Sylvain Neuvel is an excellent Sci-Fi writer and I will definitely be dipping back into the Themis Files series.