Waking Gods is the second novel in Sylvain Neuvel’s Themis Files, a series that tells its story through the use of interviews, reports, diary entries, and recordings. I missed the first novel, Sleeping Giants, on its release last year, but when I read it in January it quickly became a favourite and one of the best books I’d read that was published in 2016 – certainly the most intriguing. With that said, and with Waking Gods on the horizon, I knuckled down to wait for its release in the hopes it would answer some questions and deliver more of its distinctive narrative.
From the publisher:
What’s going on?
Turn on the television.
What channel?
Any channel.An unknown vessel, not of this world, materializes in London. A colossal figure towering over the city, it makes no move. Is this a peaceful first contact or the prelude to an invasion?
Every child has nightmares. But the only thing scarier than little Eva Reyes’ dreams – apocalyptic visions of death and destruction – is the habit they have of coming true…
Scientist Dr Rose Franklin has no memory of the last few years. The strangers she works with say she died, and was brought back to life. The question is not just how … but why?
Kara Resnik and Vincent Couture fell in love during war, and have found peace since. They are the thin line of defence against what is coming. But they do not know they have been living a lie.
And a man who claims to have the answers has his own agenda. There are things he cannot say – and others he won’t.
All pieces of an epic puzzle. One we have been trying to solve since the dawn of time…
Almost a decade has passed since the end of Sleeping Giants, yet the Earth Defence Council and all its scientists are no closer to understanding Themis and the technology that powers her. Of course, there have been advancements due to her discovery, and the tours she does over the globe continue to inspire. However, despite Themis being under the control of the EDC, some nations are still keen to use her for themselves. This is soon put to rest with the arrival in London of another robot, one similar to Themis, but not identical, though it is clear that it was built by the same beings. Now all of Earth waits to see what happens, and just what the future has in store.
As previously mentioned, Waking Gods follows the format from Sleeping Giants and tells its story through interviews, news snippets, recordings, diary entries, and other similar styles. It’s a narrative style that works really well for the series, giving first-hand information without bogging itself down with needless info-dumping. However, because of the varied characters that Neuvel tells the story through, we do learn plenty about Themis, as well as the new arrivals – it’s not just the one extra robot, but thirteen of them…
While this form of storytelling works well, it sometimes can come at the expense of the characters. While minor characters may suffer slightly, mainly because they don’t get quite as much page time, the main characters are thoroughly fleshed out and contribute massively to the success that Waking Gods is. Vincent and Kara are a great team that play well off each other, and also add little bits here and there to the answers that are swimming around. Rose is another that contributes in this way, but she’s also a very conflicted individual given her history – not only the one to discover then hand initially, but also that she died and was brought back, though without her memories of Themis. However, it’s the Interrogator that is by far my favourite – there’s just something about him that works so well at not only moving the story forward, but adding entertainment in some dark situations. Suffice to say Neuvel has excelled here.
There is a lot going on in Waking Gods that I haven’t mentioned (because, spoilers!), and all I can really say is you have to read it to get the full effect of what is in store.
So, Waking Gods is not only a worthy sequel to Sleeping Giants, it’s a great novel in its own right. A good cast of characters that not only tell an interesting story, but one that is near-impossible to put down: this really is some stellar science fiction. I can’t wait to see where Neuvel goes with the next instalment. Highly recommended.
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Author: Sylvain Neuvel
April 2017, 336 Pages
Hardcover, ISBN: 9780718181703
Review copy received from the publisher
© 2017 Mark Chitty | @chitman13
