The Traveler (novel)
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The Traveler is a 2005 novel by John Twelve Hawks, which impressed some (but not all) critics and became an international bestseller. It's sequel, The Dark River (book two of four in the trilogy), is expected to be released on July 10th 2007.
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[edit] Overview
The book is about an alternative contemporary reality, laced with magic and fantasy, one in which the U.S. is part of a society overseen by a secret organization which wants a perfectly controlled population. This control is manifest through the use of surveillance cameras, centralized databases, the urge to use RFID-like tags for each citizen, and assorted spy gear (heat sensors, infrared cameras, X-rays, etc...).
The opposition to this organization comes in two forms: small pockets of people who have decided to live "off the grid" in various ways and the Harlequins.
The Harlequins, now numbering only a handful of people, are a group of fighters sworn to defend the Travellers. A Traveller is a person who is able to break the light free from his body and travel through the barriers to the other realms.
Although the basic plot is one which is not new, the author uses it to provide a setting for discussion of larger issues, such as free will, the rapid increase in public surveillance and information gathering, a so-called culture of fear, the nature of good and evil, etc.
The underlying premise for the world in which this book is set greatly resembles the cosmology of Tibetan Buddhism (and other eastern cosmologies). Most notably, the second realm is explicitly labelled the realm of the hungry ghosts. But, each realm in the enumerated hierarchy is associated with a given human shortcoming- much like in Hinduism and Buddhism. One gets the impression that the Travellers are intended to bring the boon of their multi-realm knowledge back to the inhabitants of the fourth realm to aid them in break from their own samsaric cycles.
The author has written a post-script at the end of the book in which he talks about his reasons for writing the novel and discusses, among other things, the development in western countries regarding surveillance (such as CCTV), data-mining, RFID and GPS, the Information Awareness Office, etc.
It is the first volume in a projected trilogy titled The Fourth Realm. Reputedly, the movie rights have already been sold.
[edit] The Author
The only information one can get on John Twelve Hawks, the author of The Traveler, is that he is “living off the grid”. This means that he is invisible to the network of surveillance and authority. He has no fixed home, no bank account or internet connection, and probably “John Twelve Hawks” is not his real name. This fact might be important, as it shows that he is describing a life, very real at least to himself, in The Traveler. The book is dedicated to his “Pathfinder”. A Pathfinder is a person helping a Traveler to cross over into other “realms” (various parallel dimensions of reality). By dedicating the book to his Pathfinder, the author gives the reader the possibility of believing that he himself actually is a Traveler. All these facts give the book a certain credibility.
[edit] Summary
In the shadows of modern society an epic battle is fought. One woman is standing between those, who try to control mankind and those, who will risk their lives for the freedom of us all. On one side the Brethren, using high-end surveillance technology for control, supported by officials and politicians. On the other side the Travellers, the gifted ones, who are able to leave our realm and cross over into other realities. Because of their knowledge they are a great threat to the Brethren. The Travellers are supported by the Harlequins, a group only trained to defend the Travellers and to save them from the Brethren. Harlequins are trained since birth by their parents and other Harlequins. They are able to use all kinds of weapons, but their favoured arm is a unique Harlequin sword they carry with them all the time.
Maya, a pretty young woman, is trying to live the life of a normal citizen. Her background, on the other hand, is anything but normal. She is the daughter of a famous german Harlequin, who had been badly injured in an ambush of the Brethren. On a mission she killed two men of the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia. As a consequence Maya had tried to hide and leave her Harlequin past behind until one day her handicapped father calls for her. When visiting him in Prague, she finds him slaughtered by his enemies.
Fulfilling her father's last wish, Maya takes a flight to the States supporting Shepherd, the last american Harlequin. She is determined to help him defend the last two Travellers alive. How could she know that in the mean time Shepherd has run over to the Brethren? Working for the other side now, he tries to kill Maya. With the help of a young woman named Vikki she is lucky to get away. Vikki is a member of the I. T. Jones Church, a church of followers of the Traveller Isaac T. Jones, who was killed by the Brethren in 1889. Together they are able to find an ally, Hollis, a Capoeira trainer from Los Angeles and a former member of the Isaac T. Jones Community. The three of them are able to find the last living Travellers, Michael and Gabriel Corrigan. Before they are able to give them protection, Michael is captured by the Brethren. Instead of killing him immediately they try to convince him to help them. The Brethren recently started a new Program. They were in contact with a “higher developed civilisation” dwelling in an other realm. Aiming to travel through the realities, they need the help of a guide, someone, who is able to travel without technology - like a Traveller.
For achieving help, they offer the Brethren high technology and weapons. The Brethren want to use a real Traveller that can find this other civilisation and guide it to the Earth. By offering Michael power, money and everything else he wants, the Brethren convince him to work for them. With a new established drug Michael is able to leave his realm without the usual way a Pathfinder would offer. A Pathfinder is a person that helps a Traveller to cross over. He or she is a teacher, but never a Traveller himself. While Michael gains his first experiences with other realms, Maya tries to find a Pathfinder for Gabriel. She herself knows little of other realms and the process of crossing over. At all time they must be careful and hide away from the “grid”, because the Brethren use all their power to get hold of them.
Hollis stays in Los Angeles to place a false track. Within little time the Brethren show up at his house and try to kill him with a new weapon called “Splicer”, some kind of genetically created animal. In the meantime Maya and Gabriel find a Pathfinder in the desert around Las Vegas: an old woman researching on king snakes. While teaching Gabriel how to cross over, she tells him every thing she knows about the Travellers and the six realms. There is the first realm of a town like hell, the second realm of a city full of "hungry ghosts", the third is inhabited by animals ignorant of all others, the fourth realm is our own reality, where the sin is desire, the fifth realm is the reality of the "half gods", where the sin is jealousy, and the sixth realm of the "gods" themselves, where the sin is pride. The "gods" and "half-gods" of the fifth and sixth realm are not meant like God as the creator of all life, but like the Tibetans describe them: human beings from parallel worlds.
The realms are separated each by four barriers: one barrier of fire, one of water, one of earth and one of air. A Traveller that is capable to pass these four barriers, is then able to enter one of the five other realms. If his body on earth dies, his soul, called the light, is condemned to stay forever in the realm it visits at that time. Crossing over into other realities, a Traveller can only carry special objects, called artefacts, with him. Such an object is the sword Gabriel’s father gave him. Equipped with this sword, he meets his brother in the realm of the hungry ghosts. His brother tries to convince him to run over to the Brethren. Gabriel resists the temptation, but he tells his brother where he left his body. As a consequence Gabriel is imprisoned by the Brethren within hours and brought to the research centre where Michael is kept.
Maya realizes that an immediate counterstrike is necessary. After an exciting battle in the Brethren's research facility, they free Gabriel but have to realize that they can not convince Michael to leave the Brethren.
Maya and her allies are able to flee the States and hide in Mexico - but only to recover. At this point the first book of the fourth realm ends.
[edit] Characterization of Maya
Maya is the child of Thorn, a known German Harlequin. Since birth she was trained by her father and other Harlequins from all over the world. The meaning of her life was to protect Travellers. As time passed and the Brethren got more powerful, nearly all Travellers were killed by Brethren mercenaries. Maya is somewhat different from the other Harlequins. She wants to be like any normal young woman, without responsibilities for others. Therefore, she tries to lead the life of a normal citizen. As she has already killed, she stepped over a certain line.
Maya is the most interesting character in the book. Her character transforms from chapter to chapter into a totally different personality. At the beginning of the book she is harsh. She loathes the other Harlequins and even the Travellers, because they are responsible for her threat in life and therefore making her different from other citizens. But as time passes by, she becomes more and more torn apart by her feelings. On one hand, there is her training that she can not abandon. Being a Harlequin, she has to feel responsible for Gabriel, but being human, she starts to get overwhelmed by her feelings - although she does not want to allow them. First, the others were only mercenaries for her Harlequin-self. As time passes, she develops friendship like feelings. To Gabriel her feelings go even deeper. The reader witnesses Maya's feelings conflict with all her trained Harlequin reflexes. At the end of the book she manages to leave her Harlequin training behind, but even then she is not ready to tell Gabriel about her feelings. It seems as if she needs to experience her emotions like a teenager. As her father took her childhood in change for the Harlequin training, she needs her emotions to catch up with her age, because she had not had the chance to sense and expose her feelings when she was young.
