You can do this, Cameron. You have intelligence, competence, and experience on your side.

“You’re right. I can handle this job on my own. I got this,” he huffed as he tried to make himself believe those words.

I was referring to me.

WHAT'S THE DAYS OF TAO ABOUT?
Cameron Poe is about to graduate from college—he would've graduated already if he hadn't picked up a D in Art History, of all things. To make up for that before he can start training to be a full-fledged Prophus operative, he's taking a summer class in Greece with a couple of his friends. It's a relaxing time in a fascinating part of the world with an interesting group of students—and a chance for one last college romance before he has to focus.

But then a Prophus agent needs immediate extraction because he has vital information to share, his life is in danger, and the Genjix are about to take their aggression to the next level throughout the world. And Cameron's the closest thing that the Prophus have to an operative in the country.

Cameron can't abandon his friends, though—and they won't abandon their classmates—so he ends up dragging along most of the group on his rescue mission (why make things easy for himself?)

WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT THE DAYS OF TAO?
I bought this shortly after its publication, and have no idea why I didn't read it until now (and don't get me started on The Fall of Io). If it accomplished nothing else, it got me thinking about the series and remembering how much fun it was.

I don't remember what I thought of them while reading them (and I'm not going to look), but I remember the Tao novels being a little longer than they needed to—that's not a criticism, but I think they could have been tightened up a bit. Not this—the advantage of the novella—there's not an ounce of fat to this, not one wasted word. That's not to say that it's all plot or anything— Beyond the action and the extraction, there are some good character moments, some necessary development of Cameron, and a couple of laughs—but this novella never slows or drags for a moment. Once the agent says he needs extraction (and, even before that), we're off to the races and you'd better be buckled up.

Looking at this book's place in the series, it serves to put the action and the characters (including Io) in place for The Rise of Io. Was this a necessary bridge between the Tao and Io books? Not really no. That's one thing about these Subterranean Press books—they're a nice bonus to completists, but people who don't want to/are too slow to shell out the money for the nice hardcovers (and don't want to go ebook or audiobook) don't miss anything they need. But man, it was a nice way to spend an hour or so with some old friends. I really enjoyed this and would commend it (even at this late date) to fans of Tao and the Tan family. ( )

Thanks to Netgalley!

This was a delicious appetite-whetter. It may be just a novella, but it sets the stage wonderfully for the after-coming-out party war between the two alien species.

I particularly liked the character building for Cameron Tao, far from being a reluctant hero, but he's one that tends to bite off just a bit more than he can chew, and for all the right reasons.

It's a close to the heart novella about friendship and betrayal and the consequences of your actions. I really got into the Escape-From-Greece scenes, too. Am I going to be on the lookout for more of the Tao novels because of this?

Oh hell, how could I hold back? Like I said, this was TASTY. ( )

Review from The Speculative Herald: http://www.speculativeherald.com/2016/04/29/review-the-days-of-tao-by-wesley-chu...


The Days of Tao novella is set several years after Rebirths of Tao and features Cameron who is settled in college. I have always loved the interactions between Tao and whoever is hosting him so this instantly made my must read list.

Cameron is trying to lead a normal type of life. Something he has not been able to do, pretty much since forever. His parents lives revolve around the Genjix/Prophus war, and as a host he has been trained to join them since birth. He finally has the opportunity to put all that aside and study abroad in Greece. This is a wonderful chance for him to finally be on his own and try to fit in and do all the normal things that typical kids do. Classes, homework, peer pressure, making friends. All that good stuff.

But, Cameron? He’s not a typical kid. Typical kids don’t have aliens in their brains telling them things. Typical kids don’t have parents heading up a war. So, of course, Cameron is pulled out of his moment of typical college life when a Prophus agent in Greece needs extraction and Cameron is the only available agent that can help. As Cameron gets involved, the shit totally hits the fan and Genjix are taking over Greece and where ever else they can near by. So now, in addition to getting the agent out, he now has to do so in a locked down police state.

Now, first I want to mention, I love Chu’s sense of humor and the witty comments that come from Tao. But this section here is where the story got a bit dicey for me. So, in this super dangerous area, with this critical task of securing an agent, Cameron somehow decides to bring along like half of his dorm. OK, not actually half of his dorm, but definitely more than just a a couple close friends. He’s a sweet kids, concerned for his new friends. I get that he wants them to be safe. But my word of advice is to just not think about it. Ignore any disbelief here, don’t try to rationalize how Cameron decided this would be an awesome idea bring them with him on this very dangerous and very important mission and just go with it. These kids dragging their luggage and belongings through the deserted streets trying to find safety, just think about the story as it is being told and don’t question why they are there. The story is fun, but logically it might be hard if you think about it too much. This is a novella, its meant to be short and fun, and it is.

My only other concern is I just didn’t care for any of the secondary characters a whole lot. I think some of this just comes from being a shorter form of story telling, so there wasn’t a chance to flesh them out all. So at times I felt like they were just angsty tag alongs that I kinda wished Cameron had left behind. Maybe this is why I thought a bit more about why did he bring these kids along? I suspect not everyone will feel this way though. The story overall is still fun, full of action and it is a quick read. I definitely recommend fans of Chu’s work to give it a read. For readers new, I recommend starting with either The Lives of Tao or Time Salvagers. ( )

I won The Days of Tao by Wesley Chu in the black and white scifi/fantasy/horror novella surprise giveaway at Little Red Reviewer. Thank you Andrea for some fun reading.

The Days of Tao is a science fiction novella that reminds me of The Host by Stephanie Meyer and the TV show Person of Interest.

Cameron is a college student and an agent of Prophus. He gets caught up in a war between Prophus and Genjix and is given the task of extracting Nazar who has vital information. He struggles to make the right decisions and save his college friends at the same time. He is courageous, though naive and learns some valuable lessons.

The Days of Tao is a coming of age story and Wesley Chu’s writing brings Cameron to life within the pages. The action is fast paced and the adventure makes the characters shine, some of them surprising me by their actions. I am still not sure of who the traitor was, but I see why Cameron he made the difficult choice he did. We have to live with the decisions we make and so does Cameron. After all…no one can ask us to do more than our best. ( )

Cameron Tan is having a summer break – somewhat enforced by his less than impressed mother – a very important figure who is not amused by his latest grades. It’s a break from his training as a Prophus operative – carrying the alien Quasling in his mind – but not too unwelcome

That is, until he finds himself on the front lines of World War 3.

This book was fascinating and frustrating

Fascinating because I love the world setting and the concept. People bonding with a Quasing, alien beings who then bring their experience and knowledge to the partnership while at the same time drawing human nations into their own civil war. I like the balance of this, Tao brings experience, knowledge and intelligence to the partnership with Cameron, but he doesn’t bring super powers or awesome abilities. He has insight and intelligence to offer, but skills and abilities are all Cameron‘s own. Including his great combat skills

It’s also easy to make a character a combat monster and call it done – but Cameron has a lot of stress riding on him that no amount of combat ability can really change. He has huge expectations laid on him, a large legacy to fill, demanding parents, a demanding Tao and hard decisions to make. In many ways, no matter how dangerous he is, he is not even remotely ready for this task. In fact, his doubts and difficulties make his combat skills seem almost surprising – which says a lot about the ideals I’ve absorbed from the genre. A male protagonist who can cause so much damage is surely super confident and can’t have any doubts! In Cameron we see skills and insecurity, ability and inexperience and a whole lot of doubts and pressures that he’s desperately not ready for

It’s also one of those books where you can sit there smugly as an audience and say “you’re making the wrong decision” because there’s an obvious, logical choice. But it’s easy to make those logical choices when you don’t have an emotional connection to those left behind.

I think that may be one flaw of this book – because while Cameron’s growth, conflict and emotional development is impressive and excellent – I can’t say the same for the people around him. I think it’s because the book is pretty short and there are a lot of people and they kind of just become names. I mean, from Cameron’s reactions I can see how painful it would be for him to leave a person behind or to see them hurt –but I don’t have any connection to these characters.

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