The Lives of Tao

Executive Summary: A fun present day sci-fi story that will cause you to never look at history the same way again.

Full Review
I had never heard of this series or Wesley Chu until Sword & Laser did an interview with him back in April. Not long after, the first two books of this series were on sale so I added them to the ever increasing pile. Recently, I was looking for something to read. A few people recommended this as a good light read and I'm happy to agree.

Aliens are among us. The conspiracy theorists are right. They've been inhabiting humans since the days of the neanderthal. Tao has inhabited some of the best leaders in history including Genghis Khan and Zhu Yuanzhang. His current host Edward is an elite field agent.

Then everything goes sideways and Tao ends up in an overweight 30-something computer programmer named Roen (hey that's me! well, not that overweight, but still!) whose life is going nowhere.

This is really more of a spy thriller with a sci-fi backdrop than it is your typical technology near-future sci-fi story. Roen doesn't obtain magic powers, highly advanced weapons or a jet pack.

What he does get is thousands of years of experience and expertise of the alien symbiote named Tao. Can Tao use his knowledge to turn Roen from overweight slob into something that can pass for a field agent? He had better because there is a civil war between the two factions of aliens that has been raging for hundreds of years, and Tao's side is losing.

The book is well written, with enjoyable characters. The is a decent amount of humor throughout keeping things pretty light. I really enjoyed the way Mr. Chu incorporates the Quasing into our history.

This book was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to picking up the sequel just as soon as I have some more time. Highly recommended!