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Book review – The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu
ISBN-13: 9780857663320
Publisher: Osprey Publishing, Limited
Publication date: 10/29/2013
Pages: 464

A few months ago I reviewed The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu, a fantastic action adventure that successfully blended sci-fi, spy fiction and snark. It told the tale of depressive couch potato Roan Tan as he was sucked into an alien civil war by an entity named Tao that took up residence in his head. As much as I loved The Lives of Tao, I think The Deaths of Tao is even better.

One of the strengths of The Lives of Tao was how relatable Roan was; he was the right mix of lazy everyman and determined potential spy. In Roan has become the spy he was striving to be in the first book, and it has cost him terribly. Estranged from the love of his life, Jill, and the rest of his family, Roan is still fighting the good fight in the war between the human friendly Prophus and the utterly indifferent Genjix. Roan is not only a spy in his own right, he shows far more independence from Tao in this book as he’s more of a full partner rather than an unwilling participant.

The snark is still front and center in the relationship between Roan and Tao, and it gives The Deaths of Tao some much needed lightness. For all that The Lives of Tao had some very dark moments it was the Star Wars: A New Hope to The Deaths of Tao ‘s The Empire Strikes Back. It’s far clearer in this book the scope and the costs of the war that’s being fought behind the scenes of the human world. Even the Prophus are prepared to sacrifice thousands of human lives in order to win, and it’s a fact that weighs heavily on the narrative.
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