Wesley Chu

Wesley Chu is the author of The Lives of Tao a novel on symbiotic aliens in human hosts. His second book, The Deaths of Tao, is supposed to be released October 29, 2013 but there may be some hiccup. I think we can trust to get the next installment by the end of the year. The write-up that is currently on goodreads says the events are five years after those of The Lives of Tao, but that could also be subject to change since not much is being let out of the bag by either Chu or the publishers, Angry Robot.

Website: http://www.chuforthought.com/

The Lives of Tao

The Lives of Tao written by Wesley Chu is the story of Roen, an overweight middle-age man who hates his job and himself and Tao, an alien who resides within host bodies. Tao's task is to stop the Genjix, aliens like himself who intend to take over the world and rule humans. Tao's host dies one night whilst fighting the Genjix, and Tao is forced to find a new host. The only one available: Roen.

The first third of the book is quite amusing, mainly Tao reprimanding Roen for being such a huge slob and trying to get him fit and combat trained. His trainer is Sonya, a very attractive woman who has a good alien (Prophus) with her. Roen's roommate is stunned when Roen starts eating right, working out and hanging out with pretty girls. The novelty is portrayed really well.
The next third is a little boring, mainly why me, this is too hard stuff. The last third I didn't like at all. Lots of high-action fighting but not a whole lot of plot, and the timeline was hard to follow. The ending, which is supposed to be really sad, wasn't written as well as it could have been, and once again timing was a little difficult to understand.

I did enjoy the symbiotic aliens, and thought the good aliens and bad aliens teams were believable, but the rest of the book just didn't live up to the first third, progressively getting worse as you read more.

2.4 stars

Astarte

Christian Schoon

So, that awesome book I just recently reviewed, Zenn Scarlett? Well, here's a bit about the author, Christian Schoon.

According to something-beautiful.org who managed to score an interview with Christian Schoon, a large inspiration to his writing is all the animals he takes in for the many rescue and animal welfare groups he's part of. Most interesting thing on his bio (at least in my opinion) is the year he spent in Sweden as a foreign exchange student, which may seem normal to some, but Sweden sounds like a really cool (no pun intended) place :)
His debut novel, Zenn Scarlett, will be availble for download and purchase from May 7th. It's really fantastic, so go read it

Books:
Zenn Scarlett

His blog: http://www.christianschoon.com/

I have a feeling we'll see great things in the future from this author.

Happy Reading,
Astarte

Zenn Scarlett

Hello all!

First off, may I just say I LOVED this book. It was amazing. And as Christian Schoon's debut work, it's certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Zenn Scarlett, a seventeen-year-old girl, lives on Mars in a religious cloister. Currently training to become an exoveterinarian (pretty much a vet for aliens - typically very large or very dangerous aliens) she has three tests to pass before she can go onto the next part of her training. With the cloister facing possible shutdown, due to the townspeople's attitudes towards aliens, and suspected sabotage, will she be able to pass her tests to get one step closer to her dreams? And will the mind-melds she keeps having with the animals help or hinder her?

So, off to my review now. I've already said I loved it, but I'll say it again. I Loved It. This books was just the right amount of weird, with excellent descriptions of the all the aliens, so you can actually picture them perfectly. Upside of this, it makes for some amazing mental pictures whilst you're reading. Downside, I really, really want a rikkaset (a animal about the size of a cat, with violet tiger stripes and a cream body, a ringed tail, lynx ears, and big golden eyes. Rikkasets can also turn invisible and are as smart as chimps. Zenn's one, Katie, is learning sign language) odds are though, I won't get one :(
Zenn herself is a pretty great main character too. From the very beginning she is exceptional from those around her. She's possibly one of the youngest trainee exoveterinarians ever, she's training in a time when it's not popular to be an exo, as there is so much bad feeling towards aliens on Mars, she's dealing with the stresses of study for her exams (a huge workload, as you can imagine) along with her wierd mind-thing and sabotage of the cloister. And yet, she doesn't break down at any time, she just does what needs doing. Some might say that Schoon hasn't made her 'realistic' but I loved her. And her confusion was pretty clearly shown when she started thinking about Liam, a cute boy from town who seems to be pretty helpful whenever Zenn is concerned.

Now that you're all desperate to read it, it will be released on May 7th by Strange Chemistry, so you should definately all go buy it, or harass your local librarian until you get it. It really is worth it.

With the cliff-hanging ending I'm hankering for the next one in the series, which unfortunately does not as yet have a release date.

This book gets a 5.9 stars out of 5

Happy Reading (which if you read this book, you really will get)
Astarte