In the gripping sequel to Sleeping Giants, Sylvain Neuvel’s innovative series about human-alien contact takes another giant step forward. “Sleeping Giants may have debuted his thrilling saga, but Waking Gods proves that Neuvel’s scope is more daring than readers could have imagined.”—Paste As a child, Rose Franklin made an astonishing discovery: a giant metallic hand, buried deep within the … discovery: a giant metallic hand, buried deep within the earth. As an adult, she’s dedicated her brilliant scientific career to solving the mystery that began that fateful day: Why was a titanic robot of unknown origin buried in pieces around the world? Years of investigation have produced intriguing answers—and even more perplexing questions. But the truth is closer than ever before when a second robot, more massive than the first, materializes and lashes out with deadly force.
Now humankind faces a nightmare invasion scenario made real, as more colossal machines touch down across the globe. But Rose and her team at the Earth Defense Corps refuse to surrender. They can turn the tide if they can unlock the last secrets of an advanced alien technology. The greatest weapon humanity wields is knowledge in a do-or-die battle to inherit the Earth . . . and maybe even the stars.
Praise for Waking Gods
“Kick-ass, one-on-one robot action combines with mind-bending scientific and philosophical speculation. Series science-fiction fans will enjoy this follow-up filled with unexpected revelations and a surprise finale.”—Booklist
“Pure, unadulterated literary escapism featuring giant killer robots and the looming end of mankind. In a word: unputdownable.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Sheer escapist fun.”—Shelf Awareness
Don’t miss any of The Themis Files by Sylvain Neuvel:
SLEEPING GIANTS | WAKING GODS | ONLY HUMAN
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This was a very quick, entertaining read. This is the second book in the series and is rather different from the first. The action and the stakes are bigger in the second book. Most of the work needed to create the main characters was done in the earlier book. One of the main characters had to deal with a major existential crisis (What is a person? What is a copy of a person?). But for the most part, this one, the second book in the series, was driven by the giant robot war. And this is a war in which humanity is hopelessly outgunned.
This series has echoes of prior SF stories, especially the anime series “Evangelion”. There is even a mention of Evangelion towards the end of the second story – which I thought was a nice touch.
If you liked the first book of the series, I think you will enjoy this one.
Waking Gods is a terrific follow up to Sleeping Giants! Neuvel kept the same basic format: interview transcripts and journal entries to narrate the story. You might think this would inhibit character development or being able to visualize the story, but it really doesn’t. The personalities of the main characters shine through, as well as a rich story about love, fear, and the end of the world. Taking place years after the original novel, you jump right back into the action. There are quite a few heavy themes explored here, but the story kept me interested to the very end. Loved it!
I really enjoyed this but I didn’t love the ending. I know it’s a bridge to the third book so I’m sure once I read Only Human next month that I will probably appreciate this one more.
Continuing from Sleeping Giants, the story only gets crazier as the alien technology is revealed.
Continuing from the first book, Sleeping Giants, Waking Gods expands on where the story of the discovery of the robot parts leads to. This installment brings in far more of the aliens, as well as a great sequence that somewhat reveals the identity of the ‘mystery man’, who by the way, is voice acted incredibly well through the audiobook versions.
Also like the first book, this story is told through diary entries and mission logs. It’s a format that might take some getting used to, but the plot is an incredible one.
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A great sequel that was just as good as the first book. Sylvain may have made it to my favorite author’s list. I’m definitely looking forward to future works from him. I loved that this story really was completed in this second book but yet it ended with the possibility of more to come. This is a very clever story with a sense of plausibility. My favorite kind of science fiction! Well done.
Audiobook.
I have a love-hate relationship with this book/series. It’s so well written and I love the characters (except a certain evil geneticist). Basically, the hate part comes from certain characters that don’t make it through to the end of this book. I am still devastated. But I’m also beyond curious as to where the final book (this is a trilogy right?) will take us.
I don’t usually care for trigger warnings, either including them in reviews or reading them in other’s reviews, but there’s some content in this book that even dark-hearted me found it difficult to stomach. It’s mostly because I was hearing it happen, and this audiobook is so well done it’s basically a movie in your mind. There’s a gruesome torture scene, and in the audio the sounds and the back and forth between those torturing and the person being tortured seriously made me nauseous. So, essentially what I’m saying is *trigger warning for torture.*
^That said, I can’t recommend this series enough. If you’re an adult and can handle some of the more serious elements in the series (see above), it’s a must read or listen. It reminds me of The Illuminae Files trilogy by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman in the fact that the format the book is narrated or told is very different. Both audios are also full cast. The Themis Files are more like transcripts, but it’s so fascinating.
In THE SLEEPING GIANTS (Book 1), Rose Franklin discovered a giant hand that turned out to be a piece of a giant and very futuristic robot. This prompted her to devote her adult life to learning about this giant and its purpose in her world. In WAKING GODS, Rose is now an adult. Her world has become even more dangerous, as giant robots, even larger than the one she had discovered, start materializing in all the major cities of the world. When the threat of these giants is discovered and millions are killed, Rose finds she must be the one to save the human race. But how?
Once again, Sylvain Neuvel has created an intriguing and suspenseful novel that the reader cannot put down. Using only journal entries, recorded minutes from Parliament, interviews, surveillance logs, and other official records as the sole means of providing the narration of this story, the author lends a sense of both reality and urgency to this tale. This method of narration really puts the reader into the middle of the drama, creating a sense of stress and anxiety. This novel, peopled with realistic, life-like characters, provides the reader with pure escapism. This amazingly-creative tome is what readers look for in reading!
Things I liked: It’s entertaining and fast paced- not significantly different from the previous one in terms of writing style and all that. I intend to read the next one. The short chapters make it easy to pick up and put down when you’re in between tasks or waiting for something. The characters have a good gender balance and the female characters are written like people (not sure why it’s classified as “women’s action” though- gender isn’t especially relevant to the story, there just happens to be an equal number of female characters).
Things I didn’t like: what drew me to the previous book was that it seemed like the plot was going to revolve around discovery of information about where Themis came from and how she worked and stuff like that. By the end it turned into an action book, but I hoped the next one would carry on the discovery quality from the beginning of the first book. This sequel was just an action book all the way through- which I’m not a fan of, but I understand it’s a matter of taste. They do make discoveries, but they’re mostly pragmatic discoveries to solve action-related problems and not so much to assuage curiosity or bring to light further mysteries. So it wasn’t what I’d hoped for, but it’s not bad for what it is. Perhaps the problem was with my expectations.
This sequel was fulfilling! Full of thrills, answers and a whole lot more surprises.
The nameless interrogator who wields power turns out to be a creation of believable circumstances. This story’s state of affairs is still filled with military machinations, pioneering female characters of various ages and moral fibers. As well as drastic earth altering, fly by the seat of your pants decision making made by so call experts and world leaders that is a bit disturbing to realize they really aren’t as knowledgeable as they want the masses to believe.
Looking forward to the next adventure with Themis and her imperfect and intrepid humans.
This is such a marvelous series! I read the first book when it came out, and have been eagerly waiting for the sequel – there was a rather huge cliffhanger (handled very well), and if that wasn’t enough, I was just plain curious to see where the exceedingly talented Mr. Neuvel would take his story… Well, he took it in a startling direction – startling, but not entirely unanticipated. That isn’t to say that it was at ALL stereotypical or predictable. Rather, that if one gave thought to the assumptions generated by the first book (sorry to be vague, but spoilers are the death of great books, and I won’t risk them), the direction of this one would be one of a number of likely options. But the fact of that direction/the major plot line here is not the point – the point is entirely in the execution and the details, and that is where this series is so exceptional…
If you are not familiar with the series, check out the book blurb for Sleeping Giants, the first in the series. Given how things ended, I was not sure what on earth (that’s a rather silly pun, if you’re familiar with the series at all) to expect – but it wasn’t this. Things have heated up rather significantly between books one and two – years have passed, seemingly in the blink of an eye. That’s rather how time passes in these books all the time – there are no benchmarks for time, no sense of whether Themis was found in the past, present, or future, no sense of how much time elapses between the various “files” that comprise the story. This is one of the things I like – and also find frustrating. I do think it’s smart, especially in a series and in science fiction, to avoid dating your story (hello, 2001: A Space Odyssey…) since that can create expectations (and disappointments) when the “future” comes and goes. It is challenging, however, to keep things straight without any explicit internal timeline in a complex and ever-developing story like this one. The text of each file does always explain the time-lapse, but the jumps are often uneven in duration and the timeline can be difficult to maintain if you read speedily like I do (I flip back and forth a bit in these books). Still, it’s not at all a distraction – it contributes to the feeling of authenticity in the “series of files” format.
Interestingly enough, this format has never been an issue for me. Generally speaking, I do NOT like epistolary or non-traditional narratives – I usually find them jumpy and difficult, and rarely am I able to really lose my self in the story when it is presented that way. Not so at ALL here. Despite the unusual format and varying styles of each “chapter”/”file”, somehow the whole thing comes perfectly together into a coherent narrative that tells a most compelling story about a brilliant and extraordinarily well-developed cast of characters facing a set of wild circumstances utterly beyond their control.
This is an excellent series – beautifully crafted, insightful in its exploration of the dark side of humanity (and its responses to dark events), and utterly original. I’ve read alien stories before. I’ve read discovery stories before. I’ve read end of the world stories before. I’ve read “let’s learn who we are through strife and conflict” stories before. But I’ve never read a story that comprises all of those concepts into one unified tale full of science and miracles, despair and possibility. And wait until you get a load of the cliffhanger THIS TIME… If you haven’t read Sleeping Giants yet, start the series right away. Then rush out to get this one. You won’t be sorry.
My review copy was a granted wish on NetGalley.