Review by Fire_KAT -- Project Tau by Jude Austin

[Fire_KAT]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Project Tau" by Jude Austin.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Project Tau by Jude Austin is a Sci-fi novel about two humanoid creatures known as Project Tau and Project Kata. Set a thousand years in the future, it starts off with a college student who sneaks into a cloning facility called GenTech. Hoping to impress a group of frat students, he attempts to retrieve a photo of Project Tau. But his plans are cut short when he’s captured and persuaded to sign a contract that gives the scientists permission to experiment on him. Believing him to be another project, they treat him as they would any project, mercilessly beating him and torturing him, even going so far as to genetically modify him so that he can be sold to the military as a weapon.

This book is a great example of how to handle a dark story. The author isn’t shy about throwing in gruesome details about what GenTech does to projects. Tau and Kata are jabbed, abused, electrocuted, and just treated as badly as possible in order to break them. The author even tosses in other uncomfortable subjects such as sexual assault. I feel the subject matter is handled pretty well, and I also love how the author still manages to throw in a bit of humor. One of my favorite examples is when one scientist blasphemes simply to make the one next to him flinch, knowing full well this person is a Christian and hates hearing the Lord’s name said in vain.

The characters are easily the best part of this story. Tau is portrayed as an inquisitive child, always ready to learn and ask questions but submissive to the torturous training of the scientists. His friend, Kata is also ready to learn all he can, but purely to help them both escape. In contrast to Tau, Kata is far from docile. Despite constant punishment, he doesn’t hesitate to defy the scientists, even cursing them out when he wants to. But what I found the most intriguing were the mindsets of the scientists, particularly Chatton and Reinfield. Chatton is determined to prove that Christianity can coexist with Science. Reinfield probably had the most interesting inner conflict of any character in this book. A reader can guess early on that he has a problem with dishing out pain to the projects. But like Chatton, there seems to be more humanity within him compared to other characters and I did enjoy reading how he eventually comes to terms with how sick GenTech is. The sleuthing he does to uncover the truth about one of the projects was also fun to read.

Next to the characters, I think the themes and questions raised are equally as enjoyable. Tau has no rights since he was grown in a lab, hence his constant subjection to pain. The scientists did such a good job with his creation he is easily mistaken for a human, not just in appearance but even in demeanor. So if he feels pain and fear like a regular human being, why treat him so differently? As demonstrated by Dennison, one of the villains, it seems like it doesn’t matter if the victim is a project. When GenTech gets hold of a human, he treats him with just as much abuse as he does Project Tau, even manipulating him to a point where he questions if even he is a project. When we see this character’s inner struggle, it’s hard not to question the same things. Did genetic mutation change him so much he no longer can identify as human?

The pacing is great and the tone remains tense throughout the entire book. There’s hardly any moment of peace, as the reader isn’t always sure what will come next, particularly with the projects. I’m a little torn on the way this is written though. Some adverbs felt awkward to read, and at times the writing felt a little like a teen book. But these are just minor problems that don’t harm the story in the slightest. On top of this, I found no typos so this book is edited extremely well.

I give this book a 4 out of 4. It has a great plot, great pacing, and it does a very good job implementing some seriously dark subjects. The characters are brilliant and the themes are absolutely bone-chilling. This is not a kid’s book by any means. It’s crammed with swearing and covers plenty of uncomfortable ideas. As the author has stated, this is mostly a character-driven story, so action sequences are dropped to a minimum. I would recommend this to an adult who loves the Sci-fi genre and doesn’t mind gruesome subjects.

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Project Tau
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