Review by Amber_lb -- Homecoming by Jude Austin
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Amber_lb
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- Latest Review: Homecoming by Jude Austin
Review by Amber_lb -- Homecoming by Jude Austin
[Following is a volunteer review of "Homecoming" by Jude Austin.]
After reading Project Tau by Jude Austin, I was very excited to read its sequel, Homecoming. If you haven’t read Project Tau yet, I would recommend reading it before you read this review, as there will be some spoilers for the first book. If you’ve already read Project Tau, I highly recommend Homecoming. It’s an engaging, fast-paced sequel that delves deeper into world and character building while further exploring the philosophical and moral questions that were raised in the first book.
Homecoming picks up where Project Tau left off. Kata and Tau have just escaped GenTech but are not out of the woods yet. Multiple groups of people are after them, but the worst possible fate that Kata and Tau could imagine would be going back to GenTech. This threat keeps the reader on their toes. I was unable to put the book down because I was so invested in making sure that the two main characters didn’t suffer more than they already had. Luckily, Kata and Tau find some unexpected allies who help them hide from GenTech and eventually try to find justice for the human rights violations that GenTech committed against them.
What I loved about Homecoming the most was the way it explored recovery from trauma and the difficulty of learning to trust people again after going through extreme abuse and torture. Both Kata and Tau deal with recovery in different ways. I liked that we got to read more from Tau’s perspective in this book. We see him learning that he doesn’t have to expect pain and punishment from every human that he meets. We also see him learning to trust and talk to other humans besides Kata, which was helpful for his character development. It was also interesting to see how Kata gradually learned to trust people again and to see him interacting with other humans that cared for him. The book showed that the path to healing is hard but also that humans have remarkable resilience and the ability to move on from traumatic experiences.
In this second installment, Jude Austin solved most of the issues that I found with the writing and worldbuilding in Project Tau. Austin’s writing and quality of prose improved a lot in this one. I think the story benefited greatly from the characters leaving GenTech and exploring other areas and planets in this world. The reader got to learn more about the history and politics of these different planets, which answered many of the questions I had when reading the first book.
I almost gave this book a perfect score since I had minimal suggestions for improvement. However, there were more typos and errors in this book than the other one, so I didn’t feel I could give it a perfect rating. Therefore, I give Homecoming 3 out of 4 stars. If you liked Project Tau, you’ll definitely like this one. And if you haven’t read Project Tau yet, I would suggest reading it and then reading Homecoming. They are both excellent, dark sci-fi stories that explore issues of morality in a distant future.
******
Homecoming
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
After reading Project Tau by Jude Austin, I was very excited to read its sequel, Homecoming. If you haven’t read Project Tau yet, I would recommend reading it before you read this review, as there will be some spoilers for the first book. If you’ve already read Project Tau, I highly recommend Homecoming. It’s an engaging, fast-paced sequel that delves deeper into world and character building while further exploring the philosophical and moral questions that were raised in the first book.
Homecoming picks up where Project Tau left off. Kata and Tau have just escaped GenTech but are not out of the woods yet. Multiple groups of people are after them, but the worst possible fate that Kata and Tau could imagine would be going back to GenTech. This threat keeps the reader on their toes. I was unable to put the book down because I was so invested in making sure that the two main characters didn’t suffer more than they already had. Luckily, Kata and Tau find some unexpected allies who help them hide from GenTech and eventually try to find justice for the human rights violations that GenTech committed against them.
What I loved about Homecoming the most was the way it explored recovery from trauma and the difficulty of learning to trust people again after going through extreme abuse and torture. Both Kata and Tau deal with recovery in different ways. I liked that we got to read more from Tau’s perspective in this book. We see him learning that he doesn’t have to expect pain and punishment from every human that he meets. We also see him learning to trust and talk to other humans besides Kata, which was helpful for his character development. It was also interesting to see how Kata gradually learned to trust people again and to see him interacting with other humans that cared for him. The book showed that the path to healing is hard but also that humans have remarkable resilience and the ability to move on from traumatic experiences.
In this second installment, Jude Austin solved most of the issues that I found with the writing and worldbuilding in Project Tau. Austin’s writing and quality of prose improved a lot in this one. I think the story benefited greatly from the characters leaving GenTech and exploring other areas and planets in this world. The reader got to learn more about the history and politics of these different planets, which answered many of the questions I had when reading the first book.
I almost gave this book a perfect score since I had minimal suggestions for improvement. However, there were more typos and errors in this book than the other one, so I didn’t feel I could give it a perfect rating. Therefore, I give Homecoming 3 out of 4 stars. If you liked Project Tau, you’ll definitely like this one. And if you haven’t read Project Tau yet, I would suggest reading it and then reading Homecoming. They are both excellent, dark sci-fi stories that explore issues of morality in a distant future.
******
Homecoming
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Homecoming by Jude Austin
