Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel [NON-Spoiler Review]

Title: Waking Gods

Genre: Science-fiction

Publication Date: April 4, 2017

Rating: 4.25/5

“I just thought… I thought he’d be able to weasel his way out of this, twist God’s arm, tell him he had nude pictures of him or something.”

Waking Gods is the anticipated sequel to Sleeping Giants. You can check out my non-spoiler review HERE or HERE. I am so excited that I was able to get an ARC through the NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Waking Gods takes place 10 years after Sleeping Giants. After the discovery of a giant robot the world has now been exposed to the reality that there is life outside of Earth. These aliens are technologically more advanced than we could have ever dream of. Now that we know they exist, should we begin to prepare for an apocalypse?

Ten years later society is forced to answer that question when robots begin falling from the sky and landing all around the world in the Earth’s most populated cities and begin to kill us by the millions.

The story is told in the same format as Sleeping Giants. There are a series of interviews, military reports, journal entries, and live news broadcasts. The same characters that were in book 1 are in book 2, as well as some new faces. Questions are answered regarding our nameless mystery guy. And, the fate of the world is in the hands of two pilots, a geneticist, a physicist, and a ten-year old girl.

The story keeps you hooked the entire time. Just when you think that things are finally settling down something happens that makes you say ‘WHOA’. You keep wondering what this alien civilization wants from us and how can we possibly defend ourselves when they can so easily erase all human life on earth?

Despite the millions of deaths that occurred, this book was funny and filled with sarcastic characters that I love. The story is somewhat predictable yet there were a few outcomes that I did not see coming that kept me wanting more.

One thing about this story that doesn’t make me jump over the moon and want to shove this book in people’s faces is that the format in which the story is told makes it more difficult to connect with the characters. You never really know what the character is thinking. Your perception of them is solely based on the things they say and do rather than reasoning behind their actions. It's easier to empathize with a villain if you know his reasoning behind their madness.

Besides that this book is funny, has a unique format, and it involves alien civilizations with GIANT ROBOTS. What’s not to love?