Waking Gods

Okay, people – it’s giant robot time! This is Waking Gods, Sylvain Neuvel’s follow-up to Sleeping Giants, and it definitely delivers.

Waking Gods: Book 2 of The Themis Files by [Neuvel, Sylvain]

If you have NOT read Sleeping Giants, I promise not to judge. Although, really, why wouldn’t you? The first book introduced us to all our main characters: Dr. Rose Franklin, a physicist with a long-simmering interest in giant robots; Kara, a snark-filled military pilot; Vincent, an egotistical linguist; and our mystery “friend” who seems to run the world. Sleeping Giants lays all the groundwork for this book – the background, the developments, the style – and it is, in my opinion, absolutely necessary to understanding Waking Gods. So, go ahead and read Sleeping Giants if you haven’t; or don’t, and be confused. Totally your call.

Waking Gods picks up about a year or so after the events of Sleeping Giants. The Earth Defense Corps (EDC) is a functional arm of the United Nations, and our characters are fully immersed in it. Dr. Franklin is back in charge, with Kara and Vincent doing PR stunts with their robot, Themis, and all is well. Mostly Kara and Vincent talk to kids and give press conferences; taking Themis for walks is hard because she literally breaks everything she steps on, including roads. A team of scientists is happily studying Themis to reverse-engineer her technology.

But then another robot appears – this time in the heart of London. For a few days, the new robot stands very still and people embrace it without question, mostly because the EDC has been parading Themis around to the masses as a friendly giant of sorts. Then the British government reacts in fear: they attack the new robot. (As a side note, it is not uncommon to see people reacting violently when afraid, but that’s a topic for another post.) Within moments, the robot retaliates and completely vaporizes a large chunk of the city.

This book focuses more on direct interaction – even though actual contact with the aliens is done exclusively through observation of the giant robot behaviours. But it’s not just the robot in London. Pretty soon, giant robots start appearing all over the globe, all of them in large, highly-populated cities. And they aren’t just waving their weapons around and physically attacking humans; they have something much more dangerous: a poisonous gas that reacts with human DNA to cause immediate death. Dr. Franklin and the EDC must work quickly to find out what makes the aliens so deadly and identify how they can fight back against a technologically superior enemy.

It continues the tradition of the first book in the sense that each chapter is really a transcript from an audio interview or case file. And Mr. Burns is back with more lovely stories and his beloved kung pao chicken! I love Mr. Burns; he just seems so unflappably upbeat about everything.

It is so hard to not give spoilers!! I feel like even mentioning that other alien robots show up is a huge spoiler. There were definitely times where I sort of hated the book – more because of certain character arcs than anything else – but overall it was great. And, like the first book, there’s a little twist at the end that opens the door for the series to continue (and it will). If you liked Sleeping Giants, you’ll like this.

Overall: 8/10

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