Book Review
Title: Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel (Themis Files Book 2)
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: 5 Stars
It has been a while since I read Sleeping Giants by I absolutely loved it and started to read this book before I put it down for some reason. After months I am finally picking it up again and I am eager to learn more about these aliens and whether or not they are going to make an appearance. Waking Gods opens with Rose Franklin or the version of her that is younger and didn’t die in the explosion that is now continuing with the previous Rose’s research but this Rose feels that Themis wasn’t left here for Earth’s protection but to be hidden from anyone that wanted to find it and the aliens didn’t count on humans putting Themis together which is why another robot, Kronos has been sent to London. Meanwhile, the Earth Defence Corp or EDC is sending Themis to interact with this new robot to figure out who or what is piloting it and how it appeared fully formed in a London park when it took them years to find all the pieces and put Themis together. So far it has been nearly a decade since the first Rose died meaning the timeline of this series might span at least one generation maybe more but I am excited to see what secrets they uncover with the arrival of Kronos.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, thing are beginning to move very quickly as Themis is on her way to London but many including Rose don’t think it is a good idea. They have been observing Kronos and it hasn’t moved an inch until the British military decide to make their presence known and it ends up wiping out a good portion on London and it leaves over 100,000 people dead. By the time Kara and Vincent arrive in Themis, Kronos isn’t willing to talk with them and begins firing leading to a fight between the pair. Themis doesn’t seem to have any effect on the other robot but it can certainly hurt them but Kara comes up with a crazy idea. She tells Vincent to run at the other robot and tackle it to the ground where they use their energy shield to disrupt Kronos’ and cut it in half. The pilots inside are already dead whether this is from cutting the robot or whether they killed themselves is unknown but they are currently being studied although all agree that these aliens are just young soldiers doing their job. Behind the scenes many people think that they are going to come back and try again on a larger scale and they really need to figure out what the purpose of the robots is and why Themis was hidden away on Earth. Honestly jumping back into this series even after months was easy and I picked up the story again easily too, the plot line with Rose is the best as from what I understand she is the same Rose that died only a she is a booted copy from four years before when she had a car accident in Ireland and the two mysterious men discussing it making it seem like they made a copy of her information or what she is made up of and when she died they rebooted her so she was alive again which means Rose has some significance to the aliens but for what reason is still unknown.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, things are getting interesting now since the geneticist from the first book who harvested eggs from Kara has been found and explains that Vincent and Kara’s daughter, and a potential new pilot was who she was going to collect and the Russians might get to her first unless she is given a pardon which they might have to do in order to understand what is happening. Rose is tempted to kill herself since she thinks she is a clone or copy of the previous Rose when she isn’t and our mysterious man offers to set up a meeting with Mr. Burns since he seems to know a lot about these robots and the aliens that made them and she accepts. However, this is overshadowed when Themis suddenly disappears and it seems that Vincent has figured out how the robots can move larger distances without having to walk. This unfortunately means that Vincent is trapped alone in an unknown location although potentially still on Earth without Kara to properly pilot Themis. In his log Vincent is trying to replicate whatever he did to make Themis move and it is working and now he just has to get somewhere where he can see or from the others to be able to pick up the GPS signal which they haven’t been able to do since he disappeared. They have also learnt that the aliens are very human like apart from their unique leg bones and that they have ANA instead of DNA which essentially proves that life can come from any base as long as it is stable and can replicate itself which means there might potentially be more than one alien species out there.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, the story spans a year in a very short space of time where the mysterious man coordinating everything learns that there are now 14 robots like Themis on Earth but they aren’t doing anything and while Themis and Vincent returns and he has found a way to move her long distances quickly, Kara has gone missing. They soon learn that Ryan contacted her explaining that she has a daughter and Kara has now gone on a rescue mission for her even though it can be completely confirmed whether there is a girl and whether or not she is a Kara and Vincent’s child since Alyssa might be lying since her life hangs in the balance. However, when one of the robots begins to emit a gas that cause sepsis in the people that breathe it in and causes death in less than 20 minutes, Rose thinks that the survivors aren’t random. The survivors vary in age and background as well as their proximity to the robot when it emitted the gas, but they know that there are people on Earth that are the descendants of the aliens and these might the survivors of the attacks thanks to some natural immunity from their not entirely human genetics but only their genetics can confirm this theory. This means that Alyssa is probably going to be brought back into the team while they send people after Kara and her potential daughter. These robots and aliens obviously don’t have peace in mind and it almost seems like they are wiping out any of the humans that don’t share their DNA but there is still the question of what role Rose plays in all this and why they brought her back from the dead.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, over four million people are dead and it’s going to get worse unless they can solve the mystery behind the aliens. Alyssa makes a good start when she learns all the survivors of the gas has a huge amount of rare genetic mutations in common which is statistically impossible but somehow it happened. She is also compared the DNA of the survivors to those of the alien pilots to see if they are related in some way like Mr. Burns. However, all of the aliens including the one in Central Park begin releasing gas all over the world which is going to have devastating effects on the human race. The people in charge also aren’t reacting well as seen when a nuclear bomb is dropped on Madrid with no warning killing everyone in the city. Things get even worse when the facility is flooded with gas, Vincent is ordered to take Themis to a safer location outside the gas’ reach but Rose and our mysterious narrator won’t make in time. They take refuge in the clean room designed to contain biological attack but even this isn’t enough to stop the gas and it seems like our mysterious man succumbs to the effect of the gas although Rose’s fate is unknown. They did also try recovering Kara and her daughter but neither are anywhere to be found and there isn’t much point in looking for them now when the likelihood of them being dead is very high but this means they don’t have the two pilots they need to move Themis around and she is going to useless against the other robots.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, millions upon millions are dead and Rose has had to step into the role left by our mystery man and run the entire show and hopefully come up with something to save the human race but she’s at a loss and doesn’t know what to do. She meets with Mr. Burns but this meeting doesn’t give her the answers she was hoping for and she continues to muddle through doing the best she can. Kara manages to find Vincent with Eva, their daughter at her side but the gas is closing in on them and they try to get to Themis before it’s too late. Kara goes last making sure Vincent and Eva make it into Themis but there isn’t time for her and she sacrifices herself so her husband and daughter have a chance at survival. This obviously deals a huge blow to Vincent and it causes some tension between him and Eva since he is a stranger to her. However, Eva seems to have an ability, to see briefly into the future and she saw Kara’s death months before it happened and she knows what is coming next. She tells Rose about a black rain that will wipe everyone out including her and Vincent meaning there will be no one to pilot Themis unless she does something and she wants to learn to pilot Themis even though none of the adults think it is a good idea. Vincent finds a letter from Kara addressed to him and one for Eva as well explaining the situation and giving him the advice he needs to be there for Eva without trying to force himself into a role that isn’t for him, to try and not be like his father but to just be himself and let Eva come to love him naturally the way she did. Obviously killing off two important main characters at this point was absolutely stunning but there’s no time to dwell on them since they have seen huge black spots in space like something is hiding behind them and they have no idea what it is or how to prepare for it.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, Rose finally gets the breakthrough she is looking for when she realises that most of the humans on Earth have been contaminated with the alien DNA and that’s what they are wiping out. The aliens are trying to remove all traces of themselves from Earth and only the survivors of the gas are pure humans but in order to show the aliens that humans would have evolved this way without their DNA, Rose needs to destroy a robot using no technology developed in the last 3000 years. She eventually comes up with a bacteria that destroys radioactive material and uses on a small piece of a robot and it successfully stops it working whether or not this will work on a whole robot remains to be seen. As Rose begins putting her plan into action Eva gets a vision of it failing and Rose being crushed so she and Vincent in Themis go to help which only provokes the robot in the park into attacking but Rose’s plan works and the robot is disabled. At this point all the robots come to Rose before disappearing, during the celebrations of their victory Themis powers on and as Eva is the only one uninsured she looks through the headset only to realise they aren’t on Earth anymore. The ending of Waking Gods was amazing and I think in Only Human we might actually get some communication between the people transported to their planet, the General, Rose, Eva and Vincent and the alien race but I have no idea what twists Neuvel is going to throw at us in the final instalment.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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