Getting in Touch with Tao

I discovered on the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Science Fiction, Wesley Chu’s, Tao series beginning with the first book, The Lives of Tao. After downloading a free sample I was immediately hooked and went to the local bookstore and purchased the paperback and began reading. I have to really like a book to go and spend hard-earned cash on it.

As I began reading I was reminded of the old movie, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, but as I continued to plunge into the plot I realized this was so much more and so much better. Chu has taken an idea and developed an exciting, funny, suspenseful adventure I highly recommend.

Tao is a Quasing, one of many amorphous spirit-like aliens from a far distant world, trapped on Earth who must inhabit living hosts to survive. Due to circumstances frequently beyond a Quasing’s control the choice of host can be less than desirable. Since the era of the dinosaurs the Quasings have been on Earth influencing conditions to benefit their race. Most recently the Quasings have split into two factions: the Prophus, of which Tao is a member, and the Genjix. The two groups of aliens battle against each other with their human hosts caught up in the middle. During the opening scenes Tao has no choice but to transfer into the first viable host he can find: Roen, an obese, out-of-shape, computer geek with a penchant for frozen pizza and scotch.

The comedy ensues when Roen begins to hear Tao talking to him inside his head. Naturally, Roen thinks he is going crazy. Once Tao convinces his sloppy host that he isn’t crazy and he’s not hearing schizophrenic voices Roen’s education begins. In a very short time Tao must transform his reluctant, fat, sedentary host into a lean mean super-spy-machine to combat the Genjix’s attempts to destroy the Prophus and the Humans.

The first 75 pages had me laughing out loud so much that I kept awakening my wife who was trying to sleep. This book was too good not to share. The next day I began the book all over again, reading it out loud to my wife and twenty-two year old son. They loved it! We read two to three chapters a night until we finished. I just purchased the second book in the series and can’t wait to read it to my family so we can find out what happens next.

The story moves at a rapid pace and the reader is quickly drawn into the characters. I found myself entirely absorbed in Roen’s character and his new Prophus friends. We cheered when our hero made good choices and groaned when it was apparent he was about to make a bad choice. While the main story tugs you along the backstory—presented as an epigraph before each chapter—is equally engrossing. Here the writer really gets creative and turns history upside down and asks the question: was Genghis Kahn host to an alien?

My only gripe—and it’s a small one—is that in this story, like so many other stories where there is an alien race, the aliens are far more advanced intelligently and technologically than we lowly humans. I suppose it is necessary for the story, otherwise it just wouldn’t work, but why do writers place humans as the inferior species?

While there is quite a bit of drinking and a few profane words scattered throughout the story, Chu refrains from using the F word and there is no graphic sex. I felt completely comfortable reading this story to my wife and son.