Two warring factions of stranded symbiotic aliens have been merging with and manipulating humanity for millennia to recreated the technology to leave Earth. A great premise, but the author has three very different ideas and cannot decided which story to actually tell.What I'm guessing was the original idea (based on the title) is the story of the alien Tao and all the famous people he merged with throughout the ages. This has been relegated to a flavor paragraph at the beginning of each chapter (is there a word for those?) which barely affect the book at all.The other two stories are (1) a wise alien joins the mind of a bumbling human Roen and teaches him to be a spy and a better person and (2) an unstoppable generic super-spy has an exciting super-spy adventure. Obviously there is a huge contradiction between "bumbling human" and "unstoppable super-spy" so the reader gets to experience narrative whiplash as we are jerked back and forth between these stories. Let me relate one of the incidents in the book (vaguely enough to avoid spoilers). Since he's a bumbler, Roen gets a bunch of fellow agents killed and kidnapped. But since he's a super-spy, he gets to lead the response team. But since he's a bumbler, he gets his team killed and shot multiple times himself. But since he's a super-spy, he defeats a super bad guy one-on-one while seriously injured.I actually enjoyed the early story that was focused on Roen and how someone living as a total loser might turn his life around given the opportunity. I enjoyed the conflicts between Roen and Tao. I especially enjoyed when Roen questioned if turning your life around involves endless training and risking death and killing other people, was that really better than his formerly slovenly life. I wish the author has stuck with that story.However, even if the author had chosen to go with a generic but consistent super-spy story I would have given this three stars. Maybe we truly are living in a era of short attention spans where few people care if the whole book fits together, but I believe both the author and editor are responsible for looking at a book and saying "What is the heart of this story? Why does the heart also have a kidney and a liver stuck in it? A heart can't work like that. Let's believe that this heart is strong and artful and worth writing about and not randomly graft other stories onto it." When out-of-shape IT technician Roen woke up and started hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumed he was losing it. He wasn’t. He now has a passenger in his brain – an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Now split into two opposing factions – the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix – the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries. Both sides are searching for a way off-planet, and the Genjix will sacrifice the entire human race, if that’s what it takes. Meanwhile, Roen is having to train to be the ultimate secret agent. Like that’s going to end up well…
What do You think about Lives Of Tao, The (2013)?
Excellent book. Very well written and entertaining.
—Alejandra
Garbage. A headache pressed between two covers.
—yashruparel
