Review of Project Tau
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Jeremy Harrington
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- Latest Review: Project Tau by Jude Austin
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Review of Project Tau
[Following is a volunteer review of "Project Tau" by Jude Austin.]
Project Tau by Jude Austin is an excellent book, with an interesting and well-thought-out plot. It tells the story of Kalin Taylor, a young man of impressive mental ability, but little in the way of social prospects. Kalin has been accepted a year early into a prestigious university, and in a desperate bid to improve his social standing, sets out to infiltrate a highly secretive research laboratory as a fraternity initiation prank. As one may expect, this does not go smoothly, and the resulting experiences change Kalin in ways he never could have imagined.
In Project Tau Austin spins out a science fiction yarn with well-developed characters and a thought-provoking plot that explores human cloning and the tendency of humanity to mistreat that which it views as lesser. He slowly unwraps the story and develops the characters with flowing and descriptive language, explaining the technology, the process involved in preparing the product for sale, and the applications for which they were developed in a way that maintains the reader's interest. The author's use of language is flowing and descriptive without being flowery or unnecessarily complex. In addition, the book was exceptionally well-edited. I did not find a single grammatical or typographical error of any significance in the entire text. I enjoyed this book immensely, and look forward to the author's next book, be it a sequel to Project Tau or an independent project.
There were a few issues I found with Project Tau that detracted somewhat from the story. Early on, there was a "jump" in the narrative that left me wondering what was going on for about 15 pages, and I had to go back and forth a bit to confirm I hadn't missed a page or two. The addition of a little more explanation, even just one more sentence, would have clarified the author's intent for the story. This becomes more important only because it was in the opening scenes of the major plotline when the author is "setting the hook" in the reader's interest. Another minor issue was that the number of fraternities on campus seemed to fluctuate between one and many, based on the needs of the story at the time. For example, at one point, a character tells a campus guard "I'm looking for the frat house.", and is then given directions with no further interaction. At other points, though, there are short paragraphs of dialogue where a character is investigating which fraternity Kalin sought to join. The final issue I found is that Austin has included certain cultural references from the '80s and '90s that almost certainly would be without meaning 1,000 years in the future. One example is the sentence "Oh great. They put me in with the <expletive deleted> Rain Main." Later in the book, a character tells another the plot of the film The Silence of the Lambs as a story. Although the author explains why these movies would even be available in the distant future on a planet far from Earth, it seems unlikely that they would remain well known enough to be relevant in everyday conversation. While these issues did stand out to me while reading, they are relatively minor and had little impact on the unfolding of the plot.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. As previously stated, the premise of the book is very interesting, and it speaks to the human condition in the way that good science fiction frequently does. The characterization and world-building were well done and created a relatable framework in which the story was told. While the book was well edited, the few points I mentioned above could likely have been avoided with a beta or test reader or two, thus eliminating these distracting inconsistencies.
Project Tau is an interesting and enjoyable read for anyone who enjoys thought-provoking science fiction. This book does make liberal use of profanity, as it emulates the speech patterns of many teen and college-age individuals. There are 55 occurrences of "the F word" in its various forms, and 61 of the word for excrement that starts with a "sh". All in a 331-page book. Such frequent profanity may be too much for some readers, and they may wish to avoid this book.
******
Project Tau
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Project Tau by Jude Austin is an excellent book, with an interesting and well-thought-out plot. It tells the story of Kalin Taylor, a young man of impressive mental ability, but little in the way of social prospects. Kalin has been accepted a year early into a prestigious university, and in a desperate bid to improve his social standing, sets out to infiltrate a highly secretive research laboratory as a fraternity initiation prank. As one may expect, this does not go smoothly, and the resulting experiences change Kalin in ways he never could have imagined.
In Project Tau Austin spins out a science fiction yarn with well-developed characters and a thought-provoking plot that explores human cloning and the tendency of humanity to mistreat that which it views as lesser. He slowly unwraps the story and develops the characters with flowing and descriptive language, explaining the technology, the process involved in preparing the product for sale, and the applications for which they were developed in a way that maintains the reader's interest. The author's use of language is flowing and descriptive without being flowery or unnecessarily complex. In addition, the book was exceptionally well-edited. I did not find a single grammatical or typographical error of any significance in the entire text. I enjoyed this book immensely, and look forward to the author's next book, be it a sequel to Project Tau or an independent project.
There were a few issues I found with Project Tau that detracted somewhat from the story. Early on, there was a "jump" in the narrative that left me wondering what was going on for about 15 pages, and I had to go back and forth a bit to confirm I hadn't missed a page or two. The addition of a little more explanation, even just one more sentence, would have clarified the author's intent for the story. This becomes more important only because it was in the opening scenes of the major plotline when the author is "setting the hook" in the reader's interest. Another minor issue was that the number of fraternities on campus seemed to fluctuate between one and many, based on the needs of the story at the time. For example, at one point, a character tells a campus guard "I'm looking for the frat house.", and is then given directions with no further interaction. At other points, though, there are short paragraphs of dialogue where a character is investigating which fraternity Kalin sought to join. The final issue I found is that Austin has included certain cultural references from the '80s and '90s that almost certainly would be without meaning 1,000 years in the future. One example is the sentence "Oh great. They put me in with the <expletive deleted> Rain Main." Later in the book, a character tells another the plot of the film The Silence of the Lambs as a story. Although the author explains why these movies would even be available in the distant future on a planet far from Earth, it seems unlikely that they would remain well known enough to be relevant in everyday conversation. While these issues did stand out to me while reading, they are relatively minor and had little impact on the unfolding of the plot.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. As previously stated, the premise of the book is very interesting, and it speaks to the human condition in the way that good science fiction frequently does. The characterization and world-building were well done and created a relatable framework in which the story was told. While the book was well edited, the few points I mentioned above could likely have been avoided with a beta or test reader or two, thus eliminating these distracting inconsistencies.
Project Tau is an interesting and enjoyable read for anyone who enjoys thought-provoking science fiction. This book does make liberal use of profanity, as it emulates the speech patterns of many teen and college-age individuals. There are 55 occurrences of "the F word" in its various forms, and 61 of the word for excrement that starts with a "sh". All in a 331-page book. Such frequent profanity may be too much for some readers, and they may wish to avoid this book.
******
Project Tau
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Project Tau by Jude Austin
