The Lives of Tao and the subsequent books in Chu’s fantastic series were some of my favorite books from the past few years, so you can image how excited I was to find out he was starting another series set in the same world. The Rise of Io takes place some years after the Tao books (and I say “some years” because I’m not exactly sure how many) and contains many of the elements we’re familiar with, if you’ve read that series. But this time the setting is Surat, India, and the main character is a tiny but fierce and plucky girl named Ella Patel. Like Roen before her, Ella is thrust into the life of the quasing against her will when she unwittingly becomes host to a Prophus named Io. But Ella and Roen couldn’t be more different. Ella might be one of my favorite fictional characters ever, I simply loved everything about her. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. If you haven’t read the first series, here’s a little background about this world. The quasing are an ancient alien race who crash-landed on Earth millions of years ago, and since then have evolved and managed to survive…
