The Deaths of Tao

The Deaths of Tao is the sequel to Wesley Chu's The Lives of Tao. It is every bit as entertaining as the first, although in an entirely different way. The buddy cop interplay between Roen Tan and Tao, the Quasing that lives inside him, is still there. The humor and secret history of the world run throughout this book, as well. Zoras, Tao, or Baji open each chapter with a little more history of the Quasing.

One difference, though, comes in the fact that The Deaths of Tao is a second book, and not an origin tale like the first one. This allows Chu to expand the scope of the story. Roen's training and introduction to the world of the Quasing, including the war between Prophus and Gengix (the two Quasing factions), take up the majority of the first book. Now the reader sees the larger story taking place and is exposed to a more in-depth look at the Gengix's plans and the Prophus' attempts to thwart them.

There are also three characters providing the perspective. In addition to Roen and Tao, Jill (Roen's wife) and Baji take a lead role. This is a nice change, because Roen's view tends to be skewed. The Gengix view is shown through the eyes of Enzo and Zoras, who played a part in the first book. Using three point-of-view characters lets Chu take the action around the globe. It also allows him to show simultaneous events playing out as the war between the Quasing reaches critical level.

Another change in this book is that Chu was able to show how the relationship between Quasing and human host was different for each pairing. The personality of the human played a part in this, but so did the personality of the Quasing. A secondary character demonstrated what would happen if the wishes of the Quasing did not line up with the human.
Finally, the tone of this book is much more serious, or darker, than its predecessor. The serious moments in the first book were often offset by the humorous exchanges between Roen and Tan. In The Deaths of Tao, we see how three years of undercover and marital strife take their toll on Roen. Roen is less of the off-the-cuff smart-aleck and understands the consequences of his actions. His dedication to Tao begins to affect his standing in the Prophus command structure. This is a nice, and realistic, development for the character.

The main storyline in this book is sufficiently resolved, but Chu drops a game-changer at the end, and then follows that up with an added scene on the last page that reminds me of some of the post-credit scenes Marvel has been putting into its movies. If he decides to write another sequel, he is set up to take the story on in a new direction.

I enjoyed The Deaths of Tao, and would recommend it to readers who enjoy espionage tinged with sci-fi. Chu's writing style is very easy to read, and the action flows steadily on. I look forward to seeing what he does in the future.

I received a preview copy of this book from Angry Robot Books in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this book. I received it as part of the Hugo packet. I'd heard the author read from the Lives of Tao, so I expected to like this book. Sadly I could not finish it. The conflict, consisting entirely of gunfights and pissing matches, became repetitive and boring. The bad guys are overblown psychopaths. So are the good guys. The only difference seems to be that the bad guys are more overblown in their lack of compassion. Neither of good guys nor bad guys have much in the way of plausible motivation. They seem to be concerned about their honor and egos, not about survival of themselves, their specie, or their families. I found the good guys difficult to relate to or to root for as they faced yet another gun fight to demonstrate their dominance. I so longed for conflict not motivated by male egos and not resolved with violence. Even the female protagonist, Jill, gets in pissing matches.

continues the story line but by showing the perspectives of more than just roen

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.

The Deaths of Tao is the second book in Wesley Chu’s TAO series. In the first book, The Lives of Tao, we met Roen Tan, an overweight lazy guy who, because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, was possessed by an alien named Tao. There are two factions of aliens on Earth — the Prophus and the Genjix. They crash-landed on our planet thousands of years ago and they’re trying to get back to their own planet. They exist only as spirits and must inhabit human bodies if they want to get anything done.

Both the Prophus and the Genjix have been guiding humanity’s technological and cultural development for millennia — all with the goal of eventually developing spacecraft to take them back to their planet — but the two factions have different methodologies. Tao is one of the Prophus, the nice aliens who care about what happens to their human hosts and are trying to build up a benevolent human civilization. The Genjix, in contrast, have a Machiavellian approach — they just want to get off Earth as fast as possible and are willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. They’re responsible for war, dirty politics, global warming, and other evils.

The Deaths of Tao begins a few years after the events of The Lives of Tao. Roen has been traveling all over the world, basically as a spy, trying to figure out what dastardly deeds the Genjix are up to. Something big is about to happen and he hopes to discover what it is so the Prophus can stop it. All of the spying has taken a toll on his marriage. He and Jill, who was inhabited by a Prophus alien at the end of The Lives of Tao, have separated and their son Cameron lives with Jill’s parents because Jill works in Washington D.C. as a congressional aide, trying to block any plans the Genjix try to get through the U.S. congress. Roen laments his broken marriage and orphaned son, but if the Genjix aren’t stopped, the entire human race is in danger. When Roen discovers what the Genjix are doing, he leads a team to try to foil their plans while Jill tries to obstruct their efforts by working the political side.

The plot advances significantly and there are rooftop chases, gun fights, grenades, hand to hand combat, torture, and plenty of other exciting action in The Deaths of Tao. It would make a fun movie. There were more than a few times when I thought characters did really dumb things, or when I thought some event was implausible or inconsistent, or when characters were wisecracking when screaming seemed more appropriate. It’s clear that Wesley Chu’s goal is to entertain us in superhero fashion. He’s not worried about being completely realistic, so there’s a little bit of plot sloppiness that you’ll need to be willing to overlook. Such as when a bullet grazes Jill’s thigh and she ties it off with a handkerchief and goes for margaritas. Or when Roen, an IT technician and computer geek, hides the earth-crushing information stored on his computer with a silly low-security password.

More problematic for me was that this story was told from multiple perspectives — including Jill and the aliens on both sides — and all those other voices are not done as well as Roen’s is. Roen’s transition from a slob to a successful secret agent in The Lives of Tao was humorous and fun. Jill’s meetings with U.S. senators and phone calls to her worried parents are not. Jill does some training with a handsome male agent in this book, but we’ve seen all that before and she’s just not as appealing as Roen is. Also, because this story starts after Roen and Jill have had a son and are broken up, I felt like I missed a lot of potentially interesting material, some of which probably would have made me understand and care more about Jill and Cameron.

Readers who are most interested in the war between the alien sects will probably be pleased with The Deaths of Tao — that part of the plot moves rapidly and there are significant occurrences and a major cliffhanger at the end. Readers who loved The Lives of Tao mainly for its humor, tone, premise, the fun of watching Roen develop, and the gradual understanding of the alien presence on Earth, may be slightly disappointed in The Deaths of Tao. Chu continues to give us plenty of examples of how the aliens have influenced human history, but now that the premise is no longer novel, these details are just not as cool as they were in the first book.

I continue to listen to Audible Studio’s version of the TAO series which is nicely narrated by Mikael Naramore.

Deaths manages to improve on some areas in the series, namely the speed of the plot and the development of characters, but falls short on exactly what made the first book so enjoyable in the first place, the buddy cop dynamic of Tao and his host Roen.

Aside from the enjoyable moments of the book, of which there were plenty, I was honestly disappointed only by the ending, which was about as predictable as endings can be. The book was a good one overall, and a worthy if not particularly explosive sequel to the first installment.

The sequel to the amazing Lives of Tao skips over the typical sophomore slumps and is another entertaining thrill ride. The story is set a few years later after the first novel takes place and continues the shadow war between the Genjix and the Prophus. Those who enjoyed the first book's Roen/Tao relationship will be sure to enjoy this one too. I had to finish this book before putting it down.

I couldn't get enough of the characters from The Lives of Tao, so I was excited to read the sequel. The characters of Roen and Tao have grown, and the action is ramped up. Chu raised the stakes for the war between the two alien factions, so the plot seemed fresh. I loved it as much as the first one, and I can't wait for book 3!

When I started this book I was also a little surprised that it did not immediately follow the first book. In fact, it starts out from Jill's perspective, and a few years after the previous novel. It took me a little time to get used to it, but soon the author puts you back into Roen and Tao and you feel comfortable being with the pair that you got to know so well in the first book. I really enjoyed the little prologues in the beginning of each chapter. They really give you a sense that this is a story that's part of a long story. There is so much fast-paced action in this book, yet still punctuated by a lot of wry humor.

I am not quite sure what fiction category these Tao books should be. The alien aspect should put these in science fiction, but it's also action-adventure, and historical fiction too. Anyway, there's a lot in these books for a lot of readers to enjoy.

I have to admit, that this is not what I was expecting in the sequel, but it totally worked. The story is split among three different perspectives this time – Roen & Tao, Jill & Baji, and an angry Genjix duo of Enzo & Zoras. Even though Roen & Tao are my favorite, using three wildly different characters stationed in different parts of the world gave the story an epic international arena to play out in. The war between the Genjix and the Prophus is heating up, and things are looking bad for the Prophus. But it’s up to them to put a stop to the next phase in the Genjix plans, because if they succeed it could mean the death of everyone.

This book is not as light-hearted and funny as the first book. S*** got REAL, and while there were a few moments of banter between Roen and Tao, for the most part everyone is too busy fighting the war to be joking around. I missed the humor, but things were so intense that I was flying through the pages and biting my nails. What it lacked in humor it made up for in excitement and suspense. And there is no Second Book Syndrome here – no filler, no boredom. Second books are hard, and it’s really impressive that Chu, a relatively new author, managed to increase the tension and leave me with almost no complaints.

The Deaths of Tao was a wild, action-packed ride that had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. There NEEDS to be a third book. The last couple pages had some absolutely crazy plot twists and I need more. Until then, I’ll be over here wondering about the fate of the planet in the aftermath of this book.

I will finish The Live of Tao trilogy, and I will probably enjoy the third book. After all, I enjoyed the first two, including "The Deaths of Tao" -- but it's not like I'm doing cartwheels here.

Wesley Chu's series revolves around a hidden alien species that has driven human cultural evolution since homo sapiens appeared on the planet, and how an internal division among the aliens drags humans into their struggle. That internal division also threatens the future of human beings, so there are a lot of chips in the pot.

There is also a lot of violence in the plot, as Roen Tan and other members of Prophus battle the bad guys from the Gengix. Roen also is dealing with a fracturing marriage and a son he rarely sees, so there are plenty of subplots to go around.

The fight scenes are overlong and hard to believe -- too many near-death experiences are avoided -- but Chu showed in the first book he's willing to sacrifice some main characters if the plot demands it.

All in all, this isn't a great series, or top-shelf book (3.5 stars is about right), but the pages turn and the payoff was surprising enough to keep me on board for volume three. But then again, I'm not rushing out to get it either.