Wesley Chu brings us an interesting, if somewhat flawed,
alien invasion story in The Lives of Tao. The overall premise is that there is a race
of parasitic (symbiotic to their view) aliens who crash-landed on Earth back in
the time of the dinosaurs. These aliens
find hosts to inhabit and then work to influence the world around them via
their host. Flash forward to the
present. The aliens have divided into
two sects, each reflecting different philosophies about how to accomplish their
overall goal (evolve a host enough for it to get them off of Earth and back to
their home world). Our hero is an
ordinary, out of shape, generally disaffected modern man when he becomes a host
to Tao (one of these aliens). We then
follow Roen (our hero) as he learns of these aliens, is molded by his host, and
joins in the war.
I found this book very irritating because the aliens take
credit for everything humans do, good and bad. Admire the written words of
Shakespeare --- that was really an alien.
Fascinated by the various martial arts --- again the work of
aliens. Find the Spanish Inquisition a
horrific period in history --- aliens did it not humans. And so on.
In the end it took all agency from humans and left them as nothing more
then the pliable tools of these aliens.
As a human I really didn’t care for this. Furthermore, the humans who are taken over (become hosts) seem
remarkable spineless in terms of just accepting their aliens and agreeing that
whatever they want must really be best.
Truly a horror story over all, though I don’t think the author meant it
to be read that way.
