Wednesday, December 5, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Fall of Io by Wesley Chu

Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher, Angry Robot Books, in advance of the novel's release on January 1, 2019 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way (if I'd not liked the book, I just would not have reviewed it). 

The Fall of Io is the fifth book in Wes Chu's Quasing universe that began with the Lives of Tao trilogy (The Lives of Tao, The Deaths of Tao, The Rebirths of Tao) and the second book in this new Io trilogy, which began with 2016's "The Rise of Io."  I read all four of those books within the span of a week back in 2017 and liked the Tao trilogy a lot - it was a really fun action series with some great characters and dialogue and I was looking forward to the continuation of this universe.  And while I didn't love The Rise of Io as much as its predecessors, I was disappointed that a sequel didn't seem to be coming back when I read it.

Two years later, The Fall of Io appeared on Netgalley and Amazon and I got really excited - and was even more excited when I got an ARC from the publisher.  And that excitement was justified honestly; whereas The Fall of Io is on par with the best of the Tao trilogy, and a really really fun book thanks to some great characters, great dialogue, and some fun action scenes.  Now I can't wait for the next book in this series and hope there will be further books beyond that.

For those who missed these books, they follow a world where secretly for centuries an alien race (the Quasing) who shipwrecked on earth ages ago has been involved with human history, with their energy forms merging with human bodies, resulting in those aliens being able to talk to the humans within their own heads.  The aliens got into a civil war - with half (the Genjix) wanting to drive humanity to deadly conflict while the other half (the Prophus) wished to help humanity peacefully.  The Tao trilogy followed Roen Tan, a young man (at the start) who accidentally becomes the host of a Prophus Quasing named Tao, and has to fight to save humanity from the Genjix.  The series was incredibly fun because Tao was hyper-competent (and had been inside the heads of some of the most famous humans in history) and the witty dialogue between Roen and Tao, as well as the other characters, was a lot of fun.

The Io series is a new trilogy set two decades or so later after the Tao trilogy, featuring a young woman named Ella Patel who comes into contact with a Quasing named Io accidentally.  But where Tao was hyper-competent, Io is at best incompetent, having only guided hosts in the past to ignominious deaths.  The result is a very less competent partnership with a very different vibe.

Note:  You can start the Quasing books with either the first Tao book (The Lives of Tao) or the first Io book (The Rise of Io), but starting with this book will have you very lost.  Honestly I wouldn't even start with the first Io book - these two books are better enjoyed if you understand the references to the Tao books, as a few major characters recur from there.  

---------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------
2 Years after Ella first became host to Io and became involved in the Prophus-Genjix conflict, Ella and Io are once again on their own, with Ella having been expelled from the Prophus academy in Australia for her inability to fit in with Prophus discipline standards.  Now in Japan, Ella is working to try and build a criminal empire - or as Io would call it: running her little street gang stealing things to sell on the black market.  Ella's efforts aren't helped by her still caring heart....or Io's not always helpful advice in her head.  

But Ella and Io won't be able to stay independent for long, as the Genjix has put a huge bounty on capturing them for some reason....and Alexandra "Shura" Mengsk is determined to capture them in order to triumph in her power play for power among the Genjix. And the Prophus aren't far behind also, including the only man Ella has ever loved as well as one old man Prophus agent mysteriously dragged out of retirement.

It will take all of Ella and Io's skills in order to survive this mess, with everyone gunning for them for some reason.  The only problem?  They don't really have much skill at anything - with Ella's soft heart and Io's lack of competence making it only more and more likely they'll wind up in a situation they will forever regret.....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rereading my twitter review of The Rise of Io, my biggest complaint was that I didn't really love the chemistry between Ella and Io, especially as compared to the prior trilogy's equivalent relationship between Roen and Tao.  That is absolutely not the case with The Fall of Io - the relationship and dialogue between Ella and Io is brilliant here, and makes this book so damn good.  Again it's a totally different relationship that the one between Tao and Roen - they're more like bickering partners at this point who are together seemingly only by necessity than blood-bonded allies, and Chu is great with the dialogue.  It helps that Chu no longer plays up Io merely as an incompetent unhelpful Quasing - her advice isn't ever as brilliant as Tao's, but it's still advice that would often be good if Ella would take it.  Of course, Io has her own agenda which isn't always aligned with Ella, for additional friction - as the reader finds pretty clearly in the blurbs that begin each chapter from Io's perspective about what happened in the two year time-gap, Io's definitely a bit of a jerk.  Still, Ella is incredibly easy to love as the good-hearted rogue who can't be tamed and makes a great distinct protagonist.  

The other difference between this book and its predecessor is that there are significant other major characters who are big players in this book who the book spends time with.  In particular, each chapter switches off between Ella/Io's POV and one of two other characters - the antagonist Shura and Prophus agent "Makita" (whose real identity will be obvious to anyone who's read the other books from the beginning).  And they're really interesting characters - Shura's desperation in her attempt to reclaim her power among the Genjix makes her a lot of fun as an antagonist, especially when she's forced to be a little humble, and Makita is a pretty natural extension of that character's story from the prior books in this series and he's still a lot of fun, especially as he's now not only a normal human, but one well past his prime basically having a post-mid-life crisis.  

As always with this series, the plot is fast paced, often with some great action happening with all of the characters.  It really works very damn well, from the beginning when the three main characters' plots are kind of separate to the second half where they all unite in the same location.  And the action is really great in its diversity - this is a plot where we have the characters getting involved not only in the alien civil war (with their highly-skilled strike teams) but with yakuza, Tokyo police,and small time crooks also getting involved to cause pretty large amounts of havoc - the best type of situation for Ella/Io to be involved with.  

For the second trilogy in a row, the book ends on a pretty major change of the status quo (and thus a pretty big cliffhanger) but it really works as a satisfying ending, and I hope we get the conclusion to the trilogy in a much shorter period of time than the last one.  Because this series remains some of the most fun scifi action I've read since I came back to the genre and really begs to be made into a movie/TV series.  


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)