The Days of Tao by Wesley Chu (Tao)

8/10

The Days of Tao by Wesley Chu is a novella length story set after the events of the original Tao trilogy. Chu describes this book as a bridging novella that will help to set the scene for his new trilogy with all new characters. And it works, not just as a bridging novella but also as an entertaining story. You could probably read this without having read the Tao trilogy, but I don't think you would get much out of it - The Days of Tao is definitely aimed at fans of the series.

The story follows Cameron Tan, the new host for the alien entity known as Tao, and gives us a snapshot of his life as a college student and as a secret Prophus agent in training. When a high value asset turns up in Greece needing extraction to a Prophus safehouse, Cameron is the only Prophus agent available for the mission who is capable of getting the asset to safety.

The Days of Tao is a fast paced story, commencing with an assassination and the threat of world war, and continuing to up the ante page by page with chase sequences, fist fights, shoot outs, sabotage and betrayal. Cameron Tan is young, brash, and unwilling to listen to the ancient alien that inhabits his body. He makes plenty of mistakes which can be rather frustrating to read, but he appears capable of learning from his mistakes which is a positive. This story is far from being a game changer, it's not pushing boundaries, but it does a fine job of keeping the reader engaged from start to finish.

Chu does a great job with the characters here, as he did with all the characters in the main trilogy. Chu gives us a diverse cast, who range from awesome asskickers to filthy backstabbers to scared runaways. Cameron gets the majority of the screen time and he owns his scenes, even if it results in him making stupid decisions and then having to deal with their consequences almost immediately. The novella size means that we don't get to explore any of the characters with any depth, but hopefully we get to see more of them in The Rise of Io whenever that comes out.

I had a fun time with this book and it left me wanting more and more from Chu set in this universe full of ancient aliens. The Days of Tao was long enough to scratch that itch, but too short to completely satisfy me, and now I’m left hanging out for The Rise of Io. If you are a fan of the series I think you will get a real kick out of this book.