Review: Waking Gods

Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel
The Themis Files #2
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: April 4th, 2017
Source: Netgalley
Date Read: 4/5/17 to 4/14/17
325 pages

As a child, Rose Franklin made an astonishing 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.

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I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Quotes taken from ARC may or may not be in the published edition.

I read this awhile back, but I actually received this from Netgalley as a "Wish for it", and I wasn't expecting it at all. So I had to fit this in my reading schedule, because I HAD TO. I didn't absolutely adore the first book, Sleeping Giants (my review here), but I did at least enjoy it! I pretty much enjoy anything that is extra-terrestrial.

If you haven't read Sleeping Giants, I'll try to be non-spoiler-y in my review. Well, I will mark anything as spoilers so you're good!

Well, to start off, I definitely enjoyed this second installation of the series! So if you are thinking of starting this series, I can say that it does get better! Basically, in the first book, we're introduced to this huge robot thing (think Iron Giant), and the different body parts have been scattered around the world. The characters in the books (or at least one of the main characters), believe that this robot was left behind by a superior alien race, left to us as humans in order to defend ourselves. Because why leave such a powerful machine in our hands otherwise? 

That theory is quickly destroyed in this sequel.

Overall, I enjoyed this a ton. I think much more than the first book. Though again, my complaints kind of remained the same across the series. The first is that I have little to no memory of the characters. The format is similar to books such as Illuminae, in that the story is told in logs, interviews, and phone calls. But because of this, there are multiple times where we as the reader need to be brought up to speed as to what happened. I felt that this second book did a better job with this by showing us the important scenes through live action webcam videos or phone calls, which wasn't greatly executed in the first book. So I applaud that.

Other than that, I'm a bit stressed because [spoiler] EVERYONE IS DEAD and HOW EXACTLY CAN WE GO ON? I think mainly since the main mysterious dude that brought everyone together is DEAD, I don't know how the series will go on? [end spoiler] I guess I will have to trust that the author knows what they're doing.

Either way, I will definitely be keeping up with this series. I'm very excited to see how this concludes, though I don't really have any hope that there will be a very happy ending. I can HOPE.