Not funny, just a lot of fighting

Somehow I got the idea that this book was going to be funny, and it wasn’t. It was really pretty tedious, too much detail about how an out-of-shape IT guy has to go through a personal training regime in order to be an adequate “host” for an alien who has decided to co-habitate in his body with him. There are glimmers of an interesting, millennia-long backstory of how these aliens have meddled in human affairs, but it is told, not shown, and basically amounts to a bunch of supposedly “advanced” beings who cannot figure out how to make peace with each other. The bad guys are cardboard, and the good guys are not much better, they are a bunch of power hungry, vengeful kids fighting in a playground, only their playground is all of human history.

If you like endless descriptions of workouts, handgun training, martial arts training, and fights between people who spend all their time learning to shoot guns and throw kicks, this book is for you.

If you like complex stories with characters you actually care about, move along to the next book on your “to read” list.

[I listened to this as an audio book read by Mikael Naramore. I wish the reader would have differentiated more between the voices. Since a lot of the dialog happens inside the characters’ heads as they discuss things telepathically with the aliens who are inside them, it was frequently difficult to tell whether they were talking with their “inside” voices or their “outside” voices. Presumably this was done in different fonts in the print version, which would have made some passages clearer but ultimately would not have improved the book, in my opinion.]

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13 people found this helpful

Realistic take on secret agent with aliens

Stereotypical overweight programmer gets to live out dream of being trained as a secret agent. Only it's a realistic version of a secret agent with all the boring parts and there's an alien voice inside his head. I was worried it would be too similar to The Host but it's completely different.
Funny and was refreshing to read something with modern day pop culture & geeky references. First half should be used for workout motivation showing the large amount of work involved in getting an overweight couch nerd into shape.
I think it went too far with the amount of influence aliens had on human evolution. According to it every single historical event or person was influenced by the aliens. Has a somewhat surprising ending and written with intention of a sequel.

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4 people found this helpful

Not complex enough for me

For me it wasn't as complex as I'd like. Characters were pretty basic without too much depth. The main character was okay but toward the end he just didn't have the growth and depth I usually enjoy. The narrator was good but his British accents weren't very good. His females were okay and didn't annoy me. Also toward the end the writers subconscious sexism came through a bit. A lot of basic questions weren't answered like if the aliens can reproduce and the hosts didn't seem concerned with their lack of privacy during intimate moments. Luckily there weren't very many intimate moments so it didn't occur to me for a while. Also the action didn't really make feel anything. I didn't feel on the edge of my seat. A main character's death barely bothered me probably because I saw it coming. I probably won't listen to the next in the series.

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3 people found this helpful

Awful, I couldnt get past the first chapter

I couldn't listen to this. The narration is terrible and all the characters sound the same so I don't know who is speaking. Audible please take this horrible book back.

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3 people found this helpful

I loved it! I need the next book in the series!

I loved this book! I just finished it and I can not wait for the next book. I am so glad this will be a series. The book is fun. You have a protagonist that you can not help love because he is overweight, unhappy at his job, fruitlessly going to clubs to try and meet someone and absolutely enduring. It is good enough I am listening to it a second time currently

The story is about an alien that inhabits the human body of our protagonist. He wasn't exactly our aliens first choice but beggars can not be choosers. You follow the transition of our protagonist learning of his alien inhabitant, figuring out he is not crazy, and developing a positive relationship. Roan gets involved in a war between two different factions of aliens who have been influencing human evolution for years. Our host has been Ghengis Khan, Laffayette, and several other notables.

Wesley Chu is extremely funny and utilizes multiple pop culture and historical references. This is a book you will enjoy and feel good after reading. Sci fi lovers, spy novel lovers, and anyone who ever wanted an escape from a boring job to become a secret agent will enjoy it. Even better we get the complaining of not getting to eat pizza and being forced to run until you fall down from complete exhaustion. There is no magical transition. Mikael Naramore does a great job. His interpretation of Roan and Tao are perfect. He has some difficulties with some accents and interpretation of women but it is not enough to rate him low for the narration. I find his narration very enjoyable.

Read this!

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3 people found this helpful

It's OK

It starts with an engaging premise, and decent characters. However, as it proceeds it feels as though the plot relies on cliche plot devices. If you have seen Hollywood movies you have a good idea of what is going to happen, and how. I found the book enjoyable at times, until some of the fight scenes. The fight scenes are redundant and cliche, and with the book down. When one arose it was tough to slog through. I do not anticipate reading this again.

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2 people found this helpful

so many clichés

Sometimes a book is so awful you keep listening just to see how awful it gets. this is a series of clichéd secret agent tropes layered on run of the mill body snatcher alien tropes mixed with a mid 20s protagonist who still has not passed nerd teen development stage. and every character is uninteresting and zero dimensional.

decent narration however.

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2 people found this helpful

An underrated listen !

I urge to listen to this story...if... you like action, sci-fi . Those are not uncommon combinations. However, I find that many times the action overwhelms the characters in a story. This is not the case with "The lives of Tao". Wesley Chu takes the time to develop his main characters and we care about them. We also feel the conflict he is dragged into. This story works on many levels. The reader added to the pleasure by making sure we knew who was involved when and giving them their voice. I was sad when we got to the end and am looking forward to book 2.

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2 people found this helpful

Something

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Overall, yes. The vast majority of the book was enjoyable, only beginning to wear as the main character continued to use the same tired lines of thought and worn out phrases to express himself. There was the sense that the author was trying to poke fun at or reference cheesy spy and action classic tropes, but being boring for the sake of being cute is still being boring.

I will say that I became swept up in the world he created of secret behind-the-scenes alien warfare throughout history, and loved the basic concept of the book. Would even be interested to see more stories set in this universe, but perhaps with a different tone.

The core problem was perhaps one of target audience. The further I got into the book, the more I felt that this would have made an excellent teen or young adult book, even though it was clearly not trying to be. It felt too toothless, the main character almost impossibly immature after a point, to be about adults. Perhaps if I had started it viewing it as a book for teens I would have been lenient.

Would you ever listen to anything by Wesley Chu again?

Probably. This felt like a sophomore attempt, a talented and imaginative writer still trying to break free of the bounds of convention and, for lack of a better term, self-doubt. Many times he began down a good path only to fall back on the same outcomes, situations, and phrases. The bulk of the work, however, was fine.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Mikael Naramore?

Yes. Naramore's narration was overall good, his inability to deliver an English accent not withstanding. HIs characters were clearly defined and consistent, which is important in a book that contains multiple simultaneous conversations occurring on different levels.

Could you see The Lives of Tao being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Yes, but it would accused of being something of a "Chuck" rip-off. I think it would make a fairly good TV series. It could be fun to cast the voices of impressive older actors (Patrick Stewart springs to mind) as the disembodied aliens giving advice, with young up-and-coming TV talents in the leads.

Any additional comments?

I would recommend saving your money and hoping for a sequel. It's a great world, but the characters don't live up to it. Centuries of military wisdom and experience consistently give way to blind, short-sighted action, and the main character pretty stubbornly refuses to mature, think, or grow. Until a sudden last act change where he becomes a collected yet bloodthirsty freedom fighter without any real expectation.

The book tries for high mindedness, but ends up feeling like it was written for 14 year old boys. I look forward to seeing whether this author can bring his visions in line with his talent in the future.

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2 people found this helpful

Interesting Premise

Any additional comments?

This book has an interesting premise, and Wesley Chu delivers a good story to back it up. I enjoyed the book from start to finish, and look forward to the sequel.

My only quibble is the "training montage" part of the story does seem to have a bit of a gap somewhere. In other words there's a hole where the hero jumps from fat lazy oaf to super bad ass secret agent without adequate explanation.

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2 people found this helpful