Training montages are also fun.īut the book really needed another draft or two to come together. Tao shares some interesting backstory/worldbuilding through the lives of his previous hosts, including Genghis Kahn.

Roan and Tao are fun characters and engage in some good adversarial banter. So, that's a good basic premise, and our way into it is nice and solid, if familiar: alien (Tao) finds himself without a host, er, unexpectedly and is forced into one he would have never chosen, a chubby IT geek named Roan, who is a few unconvincing training montages away from being a useful tool in the alien war. Over the years, different faction have sprung up within the body snatchers, who are now in an all-out war (typically manifested as external wars between human nations, as anyone interesting or in a position of power is probably hosting an alien). Since the dawn of time, then, these hitchhiking ETs have been hanging out in various hosts, communicating with them and slowly manipulating the course of evolution and the development of human culture (and cultural conflicts) in an effort to steer us into producing the technology that will send them home.Ĭareful observers will note that this is not massively unlike the core philosophy of Scientology, except without the parts about a giant volcano and Tom Cruise jumping on couches. Which at the time was pretty much just dinosaurs. But not very good, you know? I love the premise - that bodiless aliens crash-landed on Earth millennia ago, and discovered that while the climate was inhospitable to their gaseous forms, they could inhabit the animal life populating the planet. It's a really fun book, don't get me wrong. The Lives of Tao has all the exuberance of a passion project banged out in a rush during National Novel Writing Month. The series is currently in development at Sony Pictures Entertainment. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Paula, and two boys, Hunter and River.Ĭhu's newest novel, The Art of Prophecy, published by Del Rey Books, is the first book of The War Arts Saga, an Asian epic fantasy inspired by wuxia. He has acted in film and television, and has worked as a model and stuntman, and recently returned from summiting Kilimanjaro. Robert Kirkman tapped Chu to write The Walking Dead: Typhoon, the first Walking Dead novel set in Asia.Ĭhu is an accomplished martial artist and a former member of the Screen Actors Guild. He is the coauthor of the Eldest Curses series with Cassandra Clare. His debut, The Lives of Tao, won the American Library Association's Alex Award, and was a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Science Fiction.

He was the 2015 winner of the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. Wesley Chu is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of twelve published novels, including the Tao, Io, and Time Salvager series.

The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu