Rob

Picked this one up from the library. Did the audio, which is narrated by Tom Felton himself. It's non-fiction, so in general the narrator doesn't matter much, but there was some times when he would slip into Draco or do some accents or whatever to add a little extra to his story.

I didn't know about any of the post Harry Potter stuff (or most of the pre-Harry Potter stuff for that matter). He's had a fairly interesting life and the book had some good stories in it. He also talked about his mental health issues and how that led to his issues with drugs and alcohol.

The parts I enjoyed the most were the Harry Potter bits, something that is a lot harder to do these days. I don't want anything to do with JK Rowling, but I still love the books and enjoy the movies despite her recent crusade to be an awful human being.

Tom certainly mentions her a few times. It's hard to know what he feels about her now, but certainly he comes off as grateful to her for the books and what Harry Potter has meant to his life.

I like to think the best of people and it's not his job to take a stand on someone else's beliefs. I'm also not certain when this book was written vs. when JK Rowling started her crusade.

So if you're all out on Harry Potter, I totally get it and probably will want to take a pass on this book. But if you still love it like I do, and want some interesting stories about his time on the films, this is a good book to check out.

I'm never a big fan of short stories, just when things start going they end. So I tend to like/rate them less than full novels.

I thought this one did a good job of feeling like a complete story and not just the start of something though.

Executive Summary: A fun present day sci-fi story that will cause you to never look at history the same way again.

Full Review
I had never heard of this series or Wesley Chu until Sword & Laser did an interview with him back in April. Not long after, the first two books of this series were on sale so I added them to the ever increasing pile. Recently, I was looking for something to read. A few people recommended this as a good light read and I'm happy to agree.

Aliens are among us. The conspiracy theorists are right. They've been inhabiting humans since the days of the neanderthal. Tao has inhabited some of the best leaders in history including Genghis Khan and Zhu Yuanzhang. His current host Edward is an elite field agent.

Then everything goes sideways and Tao ends up in an overweight 30-something computer programmer named Roen (hey that's me! well, not that overweight, but still!) whose life is going nowhere.

This is really more of a spy thriller with a sci-fi backdrop than it is your typical technology near-future sci-fi story. Roen doesn't obtain magic powers, highly advanced weapons or a jet pack.

What he does get is thousands of years of experience and expertise of the alien symbiote named Tao. Can Tao use his knowledge to turn Roen from overweight slob into something that can pass for a field agent? He had better because there is a civil war between the two factions of aliens that has been raging for hundreds of years, and Tao's side is losing.

The book is well written, with enjoyable characters. The is a decent amount of humor throughout keeping things pretty light. I really enjoyed the way Mr. Chu incorporates the Quasing into our history.

This book was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to picking up the sequel just as soon as I have some more time. Highly recommended!

Executive Summary: A fun present day sci-fi story that will cause you to never look at history the same way again.

Full Review
I had never heard of this series or Wesley Chu until Sword & Laser did an interview with him back in April. Not long after, the first two books of this series were on sale so I added them to the ever increasing pile. Recently, I was looking for something to read. A few people recommended this as a good light read and I'm happy to agree.

Aliens are among us. The conspiracy theorists are right. They've been inhabiting humans since the days of the neanderthal. Tao has inhabited some of the best leaders in history including Genghis Khan and Zhu Yuanzhang. His current host Edward is an elite field agent.

Then everything goes sideways and Tao ends up in an overweight 30-something computer programmer named Roen (hey that's me! well, not that overweight, but still!) whose life is going nowhere.

This is really more of a spy thriller with a sci-fi backdrop than it is your typical technology near-future sci-fi story. Roen doesn't obtain magic powers, highly advanced weapons or a jet pack.

What he does get is thousands of years of experience and expertise of the alien symbiote named Tao. Can Tao use his knowledge to turn Roen from overweight slob into something that can pass for a field agent? He had better because there is a civil war between the two factions of aliens that has been raging for hundreds of years, and Tao's side is losing.

The book is well written, with enjoyable characters. The is a decent amount of humor throughout keeping things pretty light. I really enjoyed the way Mr. Chu incorporates the Quasing into our history.

This book was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to picking up the sequel just as soon as I have some more time. Highly recommended!

I struggled a bit with this at times. My attention would drift. I'd go several days without picking it back up, often opting for a podcast instead. It got better as it went along and I already bought the final book in the series, so I will probably wrap it up later this year, but there are some other books I plan to listen to first.

Stephen Brand once again does an excellent job with the narration. This really helped me get through the slower parts when I was less interested.

Executive Summary: A fun present day sci-fi story that will cause you to never look at history the same way again.

Full Review
I had never heard of this series or Wesley Chu until Sword & Laser did an interview with him back in April. Not long after, the first two books of this series were on sale so I added them to the ever increasing pile. Recently, I was looking for something to read. A few people recommended this as a good light read and I'm happy to agree.

Aliens are among us. The conspiracy theorists are right. They've been inhabiting humans since the days of the neanderthal. Tao has inhabited some of the best leaders in history including Genghis Khan and Zhu Yuanzhang. His current host Edward is an elite field agent.

Then everything goes sideways and Tao ends up in an overweight 30-something computer programmer named Roen (hey that's me! well, not that overweight, but still!) whose life is going nowhere.

This is really more of a spy thriller with a sci-fi backdrop than it is your typical technology near-future sci-fi story. Roen doesn't obtain magic powers, highly advanced weapons or a jet pack.

What he does get is thousands of years of experience and expertise of the alien symbiote named Tao. Can Tao use his knowledge to turn Roen from overweight slob into something that can pass for a field agent? He had better because there is a civil war between the two factions of aliens that has been raging for hundreds of years, and Tao's side is losing.

The book is well written, with enjoyable characters. The is a decent amount of humor throughout keeping things pretty light. I really enjoyed the way Mr. Chu incorporates the Quasing into our history.

This book was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to picking up the sequel just as soon as I have some more time. Highly recommended!

I have mixed feelings on this one. I struggled with the characters, including Mickey. His view on people doesn't vibe with my own. His choices that lead to him becoming an expendable are not ones I'd make, but I guess I understand. Most of the supporting characters are worse, except maybe Nasha.

For me the thing that kept me picking the book back up was the story itself. There is a bit of a mystery and I wanted to know what happened. Mickey did grow on me as the book went along. He had some interesting character growth. The book explores a lot of ideas about what is self.

I guess there is a sequel, but I'm not likely to pick it up. I am fine with this as a stand-alone.

I will continue the series, but every time I pick up a new book in this series I'm reminded how much I can struggle with the writing. I love the characters, the world building and the overall plot has me interested. That said there are just huge lulls of infodumps or overexplaining things and I just sort of tune out. I want to see where the story goes. This book finished much stronger than it started.

The narration is fantastic as always. I think it's a huge help to get through the slow parts of the series. I was annoyed when the book got delayed, but I'd rather it be delayed than have a different narrator.