The Deaths of Tao - Wesley Chu

   2013; 460 pages.  Book 2 (out of 3) in the “Lives of Tao” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Action-Intrigue; Sci-Fi Fantasy; Humorous.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    Right now, there’s a global war going on, and not many people are aware of it.  That’s probably because it involves two factions of an alien race that was marooned on Earth a long time ago when their spaceship crashed here.  How long ago, you ask?  Well, the dinosaurs were walking around back then.

 

    Our planet’s atmosphere is toxic to them, but they’ve found an effective way to overcome that.  They simply “inhabit” the body of a living creature.  It could be a human being, it could be a shark, it could be a brontosaurus.  The earthly creature is referred to as its “host”.

 

    Nowadays, the two alien factions—the Prophus (the good guys) and the Genjix (the baddies)—both utilize humans almost exclusively as their hosts.  But the Prophus view the arrangement as sort of an equal partnership (kind of like roommates), while the Genjix consider it a master-slave relationship.  Guess which one’s the master.

 

    So the next time you hear voices in your head—well, just a single voice, actually,—choose your words back to it carefully.  You don’t whether it’s a Genjix or a Prophus.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Deaths of Tao is the second book in Wesley Chu’s (completed) trilogy called “Lives of Tao”.  The Prophus-Genjix conflict is heating up, and the Prophus continue to get the worse of it.  The protagonist from the first book, Roen Tan, is back again, along with his Quasing (that’s what you call an alien that’s inhabiting your body) Tao.  This time he shares the spotlight with his wife Jill (although they're separated now), who’s Quasing is named Baji, and an up-and-coming an bad guy named Enzo, who’s Quasing is named Zoras.

 

    There are 45 chapters covering the 460 pages of the story, and for the most part, they cycle among the three protagonists.  There are a bunch of plotlines, but the three main ones mostly take place in Taiwan (Roen’s), China/Tibet (Enzo’s), and the US (Jill’s).  The Taiwan setting became my favorite, because you very rarely find a novel set there and because it is where the author was born.

 

    If you’re a lover of Action-Intrigue stories, The Deaths of Tao is the book for you.  All three storylines have plenty of it.  The fight scenes are well-written and easy to follow: you can feel the punches, kicks, bullets, and deaths.  The intrigue is equally fascinating – why are the Genjix so concerned about US trade sanctions, why is a Quasing prison camp in Tibet so crucial to their long-term plans, and where in the world did Dylan disappear to?

 

    Each chapter opens with a short “intro” written by one of the Quasing.  It’s not crucial to the story, but it is a clever way to give the reader their version of “history” here on Earth.  I chuckled at the mention of durian; I once had an opportunity to partake of this fruit when I was traveling in Asia, but passed on it.  I think I would do the same with the “stinky tofu” mentioned here.

 

    The ending, or “endings” to be precise, are okay but incomplete.  Each of the three main storylines closes with an exciting battle, but none of the plot threads are resolved.  That’s “none" as in "zero”.  The Prophus are still in dire straits, only they’re more dire now.  Both sides have suffered some deaths, including both Quasing and humans, but the losses by the Prophus are far more grievous.  The human world has become more aware of aliens amongst us, but discover there’s not much they can do about it.

 

    Oh well, that’s why there’s a Book Three, The Rebirths of Tao.

Kewlest New Word ...

    Ghillie Suit (n.) : a type of camouflage clothing designed to resemble the background environment such as foliage, snow, or sand

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 216 ratings and 150 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.91/5 based on 3,580 ratings and 329 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Zoras watched with disdain as Enzo played the crowd like a politician walking the rope line.  Keeping his face stoic, he touched the outstretched hands and made eye contact with the worshipping masses.  It was a far cry from how Devin, who played the role of an isolated Egyptian Pharaoh, treated his people.

    You are a god.  Remember that.

    “A god who leads, Guardian.”

    To lead is a human trait.  A god demands obedience.  (pg. 79)

 

    Sixteen behind you.  Ten on both sides.  All armed and probably awful shots.  Four bosses in front.  Oh, and you have Hutch, the narcoleptic guard.  You got a plan to get out of this?

    (…) He shrugged.  “I got nothing.”

    I find it ironic that you had a plan to fight your way out of Prophus Command, but not out of a triad warehouse.  I am starting to doubt your loyalties.

    “Or intelligence.”

    Or will to live.

    “Or delusions of invincibility.”  (pg. 166)

 

“He should be alright when he wakes.” (…) “Ground hit him in the head when he jumped out of a second story window.”  (pg. 223)

    There are some nits to pick.

 

    There’s a moderate amount of cussing in The Deaths of Tao, 16 instances in the first 20% of the book.  That’s not excessive, but given that I didn’t note any adult situations or other R-rated stuff, it has to be asked whether the cusswords could've been omitted.

 

    More serious is the abundance of errata, something other reviewers also pointed out.  Spelling miscues such as eying/eyeing might be shrugged off as choices of British-vs-American English. But grammar boo-boos like “Sure buddy”/”Sure, buddy”, “several startled crewman”, and “could happened” are just sloppy proofreading.

 

    So are continuity issues such as a guy named Jim showing up (page 432), followed one paragraph later by Roen asking where Jim is, and being told one paragraph after that that Jim was blown out to sea by a grenade.

 

    The most egregious typo is the misspelling of “Genjix” on the back cover of the book, where it is rendered as “Gengix”.  Sheesh.  Angry Robot Publishing is already rivaling Tor Books as the publishing house with the worst set of copy editors.

 

    At the other end of the Picky-to-Egregious Scale was a chemical cited on page 315 as “Osmium Quintoxide”.  We’ll forgive the chemistry issue regarding Osmium’s possible/impossible valence states.  But calling those five Oxygens “quintoxide” instead of “pentoxide” is like fingernails-on-the-chalkboard to a chemist.

 

    Still, cusswords can be tolerated when they’re used in moderation, typos and grammar can be corrected by copy editors, and if you aren’t a chemist, you won’t care whether it’s quintoxide or pentoxide.  True, the ending doesn't tie up any plot threads, but the story has lots of action, significant character development of all three protagonists, and a rapidly deteriorating outcome for the Prophus that now seems inevitable.

 

    7½ Stars.  In summary, The Deaths of Tao didn’t captivate me the way Book 1, The Lives of Tao did (and reviewed here).  But that doesn’t merit the 1-star and 2-star ratings that some reviewers gave it.  Book 2 in any trilogy is mostly just tasked with linking the first and third books together in a coherent, if forgettable, manner, and The Deaths of Tao does that successfully here.

 

    For comparison, consider J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy.  You probably remember the epic endings in both The Fellowship of the Ring (Book 1) and The Return of the King (Book 3).  But how much, if anything, do you recall about the ending of Book 2, The Two Towers?