TAU 4

by Victoria Waks

On a distant planet of the Homeworld Alliance, Dr. Stephen Weller, acclaimed expert in behaviour, is about to penetrate one of the great mysteries of his field. After months of determined planning and care, he will finally enter Altair Base, a high security experimental research facility, whose dark work has as its only focus the war efforts against the hostile planets of the Outworlds. There he will meet the being known as Tau 4, the terrible, and now uncontrollable brainchild of Dyle Carzon - brilliant, enigmatic, and ruthless - the force behind a military project that has traveled a shadowed and increasingly bloody path from medical miracle to the edge of horrific destruction. But Weller is not what he appears to be. This is a story of deceit and betrayal, of obsession and determination. It chronicles the universal struggle between strength and right, the clash between creator and created. TAU 4 takes the reader to strange worlds of storm and ancient jungle, to the life and death battle of a warrior people and to the unavoidable conflict of a man who refuses to accept the limits of his own humanity, and a creature who is just beginning to learn her own.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

496 pages, Paperback

First published October 22, 2007

Reviews

[Roger Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has to have been inspired by the Star Wars series. It has a lot of action and is weak on the science. Most of the battle scenes just seem to be made for the Star Wars kind of special effects and I can just see it being made into a movie very similar to Star Wars. It even has a forest people involved intimately in the plot that I think are Ewok analogs. Read it for the excitement, but don't read it for intellectual stimulation. It makes no pretense to be other than just entertainment, but at that it succeeds quite well.

[Mical · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started off very well and engaged me quickly, which I enjoy. Towards the end it got verbose, however, and the tension that the author kept in the story got to be too much. No release after the build up. I give it three stars and hope the sequel corrects this.

[Brian Pettera · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent story of corporate greed, genetics gone wild, Space opera, rogue ship captains, and a young woman's struggle to control the power of the beast that raged within her. Excellent storytelling in this New Age yet old style Sci-Fi novel.