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    The Traveler: A Novel
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    The Traveler: A Novel
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    The Traveler: A Novel
    Audiobook15 hours

    The Traveler: A Novel

    Written by John Twelve Hawks

    Narrated by Scott Brick

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A world that exists in the shadows of our own.

    A conflict we will never see.

    One woman stands between those determined to control history and those who will risk their lives for freedom.

    Maya is hiding in plain sight in London. The twenty-six-year-old has abandoned the dangerous obligations pressed upon her by her father, and chosen instead to live a normal life. But Maya comes from a long line of people who call themselves Harlequins—a fierce group of warriors willing to sacrifice their lives to protect a select few known as Travelers.

    Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are brothers living in Los Angeles. Since childhood, the young men have been shaped by stories that their late father was a Traveler, one of a small band of prophets who have vastly influenced the course of history. Travelers are able to attain pure enlightenment, and have for centuries ushered change into the world. Gabriel and Michael, who may have inherited their father’s gifts, have always protected themselves by living “off the Grid”—that is, invisible to the real-life surveillance networks that monitor people in our modern society.

    Summoned by her ailing father, Maya is told of the existence of the brothers. The Corrigans are in severe danger, stalked by powerful men known as the Tabula—ruthless mercenaries who have hunted Travelers for generations. This group is determined to inflict order on the world by controlling it, and they view Travelers as an intolerable threat. As Maya races to California to protect the brothers, she is reluctantly pulled back into the cold and solitary Harlequin existence. A colossal battle looms—one that will reveal not only the identities of Gabriel and Michael Corrigan but also a secret history of our time.

    Moving from the back alleys of Prague to the heart of Los Angeles, from the high deserts of Arizona to a guarded research facility in New York, The Traveler explores a parallel world that exists alongside our own. John Twelve Hawks’s stunningly suspenseful debut is an international publishing sensation that marks the arrival of a major new talent.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 28, 2005
    ISBN9780739320471
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Traveler

    3.5/5

    719 ratings38 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 3/5
      Enjoyed this immensely in 2005 when it came out. Now, 5 years later, I may have been pulled in by the hype? Or just changed that much??
    • 4/5
      The story is a 5, the execution of it bothered me sometimes with missing details. Overall, highly recommend reading as its like a mix of The Circle, 1984, and The Matrix made into an entertaining and thought provoking story.
    • 5/5
      This book is terrific. It makes you look at our world in a whole new way
    • 2/5
      I've played this game, it's called Assassin's Creed.Okay, I think this novel came out before Assassin's Creed, and there are some obvious differences, not to mention plenty of other examples in all sorts of media that did this story already, but it was really all I could think while reading the opening chapters. I did a little more research and decided not to continue reading this, since I wasn't that impressed with it. It's a library copy and someone else reserved it, so I'll return it ASAP so it can find a more appreciative audience.(I do appreciate the worries about our surveillance culture. If you haven't thought about that sort of thing, you might find it eye-opening... On the other hand, you might just read 1984: it's less technologically up to date, perhaps, but it's the same message on that front.)P.S. Good going with the stereotyping about Romani in the very first chapter! I've sure never heard that about "Gypsies" being thieves before.Being of Welsh and Romani descent, I sometimes think that if there's a word of truth in stereotypes, I was born to be a thief...
    • 4/5
      This is one of my favorite books. It has a Phillip Dick feel to it with regards to technology, surveillance and privacy. The premise of the story involves a group of people know as travelers who travel across boundaries into parallel universes and when the return they become catalysts to change in society. The Vast Machine or the Brethren are opposed to these changes and are attempting to control society through technology and surveillance with the idea that if people believe they are being monitored they will do the right thing. The Vast Machine's goal is to exterminate the Travelers. Harlequins are the protectors of the Travelers. I don't want to say much more to avoid giving away the plot.
    • 1/5
      Reading some of the other reviews, there was apparently a lot of hype when this book came out. I completely missed that. I picked it up on CD because looked interesting. It wasn't. Paranoid fantasy at it's worst. And, did I mention this, dull. I normally listen to book CDs on my drive home from work. I kept listening to this, waiting for something to happen. Then I just wanted it to be over, just to find out how the author was going to wind up the story. With 2-3 CDs to go I found out it was the first of a trilogy. I almost gave up on it then. I should have. The ending of the first book is totally unbelievable. The author would have you believe that the Tabula (the all-controlling bad guys) have a ventilation duct that leads outside of the 10-foot wall surrounding their super secret compound. The plans for which our heroes were able to find on the Internet. Two people, armed with a sword, a rifle and a shotgun, attack the heavily guarded compound through the duct work, rescue their companions, pretty much wreck the place and get away virtually unscathed. I won't be looking for books 2 and 3.
    • 1/5
      Oh my God. The absolute longest book I've ever listened to. Just when you think it's over...it's not.
    • 4/5
      The first book in the Fourth Realm trilogy. Firstly I have to admit that this would not usually be my cup of tea (it said it was the new Da Vinci code on the cover which IMHO was over publicized tosh). That said I must admit to have enjoyed it, it was a cyper1984 (another cover quote so cannot take credit for it) and certainly made me take stock of what is going on around us all in the name of security. Before reading this I was in the catagory that if you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear but afterwards I realised just how much personal data various organisations hold on us all. The concept for the book was interesting although I must admit that I had the feeling that I had read something familiar in the past. The plot was fast paced but also allowed you to put the book down for a day or so if needed and still be able to pick the story straight up. You felt for the good guys and hated the baddies (always a good sign) and I felt that the main characters had been reasonably well fleshed out, given that it was the first book of 3. On the whole I enjoyed the book and certainly made me read the remainder of the trilogy.
    • 5/5
      This is one of those sci-fi novels that makes you rethink of the world you're living in. Though it's practically fiction, you can't help but compare the story's setting to the reality and then you find that they're not exactly that far from each other and then you start looking at your back for hidden cameras and not long after, you become a little paranoid at people around you :). But then that's what sci-fi fans are paying for, isn't it? Yup, this novel practically gives you all the chills of temporary disorientation of reality that sci-fi fans are all looking for. It also gives awesome, original concepts about the universe and life per se. It's a really good book; highly recommended by myself :)
    • 3/5
      I will say up-front that I really liked the concepts in this metaphysical science-fiction thriller; it was the execution that got to me. The plot, in a nutshell, is this: certain people, called Travelers, have the ability to move across dimensions and bring back messages about how we can free ourselves from the various bonds that imprison us. These are the prophets and spiritual leaders and revolutionaries that have appeared throughout human history — the Jesuses and Buddhas, Gandhis and MLKs and Joans of Arc. But because they subvert the dominant paradigm, those who are in power or want to be in power systematically try to destroy them. These people are very well funded, organized and connected. Then there are the lone warriors who have vowed to protect the Travelers, the Harlequins. They are underfunded, constantly hunted and have been nearly wiped out, as have the Travelers. So the plot revolves around one of the last of the Harlequins protecting one of the last remaining Travelers from the people who this time want to capture him and harness his abilities for their own gain. Got it? I haven’t even mentioned the quantum computer yet, or the Great Machine.The problem is that the author needs to hone his craft. The pace of the story is hampered by awkward writing, to the point where I was mentally editing as I went along. Also, I was disappointed to get to the end and find out I was reading Book 1 of a trilogy — I hate when that’s not confessed straight up, on the front cover. I rarely invest my reading time in series, and only then if they are incredibly well written. So it looks like I won’t be doing any more traveling with John Twelve Hawks.
    • 4/5
      This story really made me think. I happened to be traveling while reading this book and every time I saw a "surveillence camera in use" sign I had a mini panic attack. ha! Not really. We learn about how the government uses cameras to protect us and keep track of us - and they want you to believe it is for your own good when really they want to control us. This big brother environment is a bit scary to me, especially when the author talks about how the government uses celebrities and scandals and terrorist attacks to distract us from the truth. Made me think, that's for sure. I thought this book provided a fantastic point of view about living off the grid in addition to a great storyline too.
    • 3/5
      I took a few days after I read this to let it digest and to keep myself from a knee-jerk reaction. This is a pretty solid read...but it has a lot of cliched aspects that were too plentiful to give it more than 3 stars. The story was captivating and a bit scary since we are in a "big brother" environment. This takes that big brother aspect to a heightened degree and while the surveillance aspect is fairly realistic the "heroine" (for lack of a better description) seems to be a little too good (at what she does) for the realism to stick. The ending (and I use that term loosely since this is the first part of a trilogy) was on the far fetched side.All that said and done- it was a decent read and I will probably read the entire trilogy (borrowed from the library).Recommended read for those into conspiracy theories and while this is toted as a dystopian I would not classify it as such.
    • 4/5
      Harrowing despite its predictability, this first in a trilogy is a good adventure tale, with martial arts, religion, social engineering and science fiction stirred together with just a soupcon of didacticism.The Harlequin Maya is one of a dwindling band of people fated to risk their lives protecting Travelers, who can mentally leap into other worlds while leaving their corporal selves back in the regular reality. Exactly what Travelers' purpose is, aside from this superpower, is not made clear, other than that they may be all that keeps Citizens from being sucked into the Vast Machine. The VM, run by a crew called the Brethren and sounding a lot like the old military-industrial complex, monitors every move and dime spent by the Citizens, all in the name of Control. Again, to what purpose, other than the personal power of a few Men With Big Guns, who knows. They do have a cool quantum computer and some wicked gene-splicing technology.Anyway, Maya is sent by the remaining Harlequin bigwigs to protect possible Travelers Gabriel and Michael Corrigan. The bad guys get to Michael but Maya and a duo of brave African Americans manage to hang on to Gabriel, who becomes not only a bona fide Traveler but also Maya's love interest.He goes off on some Travels to really nasty places, again raising the question of what exactly the purpose of Traveling to Other Realms is. Is there a better world out there? If not, why not just try to make the one we've got a better world?The privacy issues at the heart of "The Traveler" certainly are frightening and the politics of this post-Patriot Act novel are clear. But in this book, the sword definitely beats pacifism.
    • 4/5
      I like the premise of this book - the idea of the light (spirit), the grid and the implications of the boundaries of freedom & technology, and the idea of realms and the connection between religions. I read this years ago but revisited it with the thought of reading the sequels...
    • 4/5
      A great statement about the control of a surveillance society, which, of course, we become more of daily. Also a great statement about our perceived reality being shallow compared to what the true, or spiritual, reality is behind it. I enjoyed the "conspiracy theory" tone of the book (the history we know is only a production). The theological content seemed uncertain, a bit of mishmash. The spiritual reality is the true reality, and yet there's no substance to what he depicts this reality as being. The plot is well paced, and balances thought, dialogue, and action nicely. One line at the end is horribly cliche, but I'll let you discover that on your own. This is the first book in the series. I'm interested in reading the rest.
    • 3/5
      Ok, the book has flaws. I liked the theme (dystopia - big brother is really watching you, post 2000 style) and to some extent it's treatment (with amoral killers trying to do something moral).All the other reviews are right, but it reminded me of how John Norman (the GOR books) could write an engaging story while being a below average writer. The opposite is an exquisitely gifted writer penning yet another murder mystery. Both are frustrating, but the former is less common and hence, less unbearable. Alas, we'll always have a shortage of gifted writers who also have something compelling to write about.
    • 1/5
      Clichéd and predictable beyond belief. The Twilight series seems mature and intricate compared to this contrived dud.This shows what marketing and a mysterious penname can do. Rumors are Dan Brown wrote this. Think of Da Vinci code without all that history and comic book characters. Well it isn't even that good. This is niche marketing at its worst. They created a false Internet buzz that turned out to be the publishers about the mystery of this book.You can hear the focus groups planning the story. "Hey let's make the bad brother a corporate wannabe and the good one should be cool and surf or ride a motorcycle or skydive on a motorcycle!"If you are over 14 avoid this.
    • 4/5
      Super good, super thoughtful. There are, of course, many travelers, whose visions, because they challenge the powers of corporatization and globalization, are rejected, ridiculed, vilified, deemed "unpatriotic" (as shopping is patriotic, remember?), or, more ominously, repressed through persecution. An interesting read.
    • 4/5
      I wasn't sure about this one at first, since it seemed initially like it was going to be a lone warrior, heavily violent sort of story, but it soon smoothed into something that felt like cyberpunk without really being cyberpunk, if that makes sense. Violent at times, but still very human. One interesting part of the story is the glimpse it gives of the loss of personal privacy that all of us accept. I doubt this will convince anyone who's convinced that giving up this data is harmless, but for those who are already concerned by the implications, this book draws the obvious conclusions of what things would be like if an organization had access to all this data and the necessary tools to mine it. Of course, it does the usual "well, normal people are unaffected by this" cop-out to focus on those being tracked by a powerful organization, but hey, it's meant to be entertainment, not education as to the flaws in data mining. Overall, I enjoyed the book and its characters, and I'll probably pick up the next in the series to see where they go from here.
    • 4/5
      I'm not much of a sci-fi/action/thriller reader. I picked this one up at a thrift store because the cover made it look like a self-published book - no cover copy, no reviews, no author bio. But, as they say, don't judge a book by its cover...I was quite surprised to find out that this has been the subject of so much advance hype. All that aside, I found this book to be very entertaining. Definitely great summer reading. The premise seems influenced by a combination of the paranoia and new age spirituality in The Matrix, while the sword-wielding, karate chopping female heroine is straight out of Tombraider and Kill Bill and the training of the titular Traveler borrows heavily from Star War's Yoda and Luke, but altogether it equals more than the sum of its rather derivative parts. Combined they make for a thoroughly diverting tale. The characters weren't quite as fleshed out as I might have preferred (Twelve Hawks commits the cardinal sin of frequently telling more than showing) and there was a bit too much exposition, but nonetheless the prose is economical and it can be unusually suspenseful in parts. Plus It's very up-to-date, very topical. The Patriot Act even merits a brief mention. I suggest that if you share my deep-seated distrust of the current scope of the government's power and the omnipresence of technological invasions of privacy, you should read this book.
    • 4/5
      Take one part The Matrix, another part 1984, and a few dashes of anti-government militias and cults, and you have the world of The Traveler. As with any good dystopia, the fear the reader feels when reading this book comes from the fact that everything is just so plausible. We already have RFID tags, GPS, face recognition software, and computers that are powerful enough to handle the data. The question is, do we have any organization strong enough to do something about it? In Twelve Hawk's world, there is one, the Tabula (and for readers not sharp enough to realize right away that it's from the idea of the tabula rosa, there's some nice dialogue explaining it), or the Brethren (yeah, we get it-Big Brother, two brothers on other sides, all that stuff). There’s nice dialogue explaining it all. When the characters aren’t on the run from this shadow organization intent on monitoring everyone, they explain their histories, theologies, the history of their theology…you get lots of back story. This is nice because the character development doesn’t feel quite as stunted as it does in many pop novels, but it does feel forced.This book has the same made-for-film feel to it as Dan Brown's books-a flashback here, a car chase there, explosions, sword fights, mixed martial arts, a little romance- though the writing isn’t quite as hackneyed. It is, however, just as paranoid and blends just enough fact with conjecture (or fiction) to keep the reader thinking the entire time it might all be true. It also does not shy away from the spiritual in the way that many pop-lit books do. Indeed, the spiritual realm drives the plot of the book, the motivations of everyone involved, and even the reader.I read this on a recommendation (and when you suggest books to so many people, there is a requirement to read all recommendations) and I learned more about the person who recommended it than I did about the importance of living “off the grid” (we get it, the author is clever because he lives off the grid-he’s not a sheep like the rest of us). I will read the rest of the trilogy and I’ll probably find a number of people to recommend it to. It’s not great literature, but it is a fun read.
    • 4/5
      What an interesting story and author. I am not sure which I was intrigued with more. I can't wait for the second installment that is being released this year. I envy the "Off the Grid" life of Twelve Hawks, but I could never do it.
    • 5/5
      This book is a cyber/sci-fi twist on the governmental totalitarianism perfected in 1984. Oddly I think that the book actually downplays the true amount of control and tracking that can be done with modern day technology but Hawks still manages to make the world feel like a clear coffin with evil figures always watching your every move. The supernatural aspects of the book were not greatly elaborated but seeing how this is the first of a trilogy I guess that can be overlooked.The Characters tend to be a little one dimensional but do avoid being cookie cutter jokes. All in all the book offers a unique look at where the world might be going buts gives the hope that people banding together always have a shot at overcoming the odds. 87/100
    • 3/5
      I feel like I should've enjoyed this book much more than I did. The concepts in the plot are the kinds of things I normally love in a suspenseful thriller with a touch of sci-fi and/or fantasy. There was plenty of action in the book, plenty of intrigue to keep my brain guessing. It's taken me a while to pinpoint where it fell flat for me, but I think it's that the characters were boring. They all have the potential to be interesting, but they weren't. I knew what they planned to do long before any of them seemed to. We never got to see too deep into anyone's thoughts or emotions. At times I felt like I was reading a summary of a story rather than the story itself. Still, the author gets points for creativity for the plot. The closer I got to the end of the book, the more franticly I began to wonder how he could possibly wrap it all up, and wouldn't you know it, I discover this is just the first book in a series. Argh! The plot is interesting enough that I will likely pick up the next book, and I do have hope that the characters will develop a little more yet. When I described this book to my husband however, he added it to his read pile without hesitation. He said it sounds interesting, and "I don't need character development."
    • 5/5
      I highly suggest everyone to read this book. Not only is it a great novel full of intrigue and suspense, but it has a ton of true facts about the technological "Big Brother" life that we have all become accustomed to. I have always been very aware of the government and other agencies using GPS, the Internet, the millions of cameras that are placed everywhere, etc. as a means of "keeping tabs" on every person in the world, but this book blew me away with details that I had no clue about. It makes you really think about the society we live in today and what we take for granted. It really makes "1984" parallels come to light. Anyway - I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist - but it is a really great read and think anybody could find it very interesting.
    • 4/5
      This is a story very close to the bone with modern survelience techniques and the feeling that your freedom is being traded for same-ness. That we're all being encouraged to live and act like sheep instead of finding something that moves us and being true to ourselves. I'm not as paranoid as the author but I do find myself finding some questions about the path this world is takingThis is a story about some of the powers in the struggle for freedom or virtual slavery. The Tabula or Brethren are on one side. They want order, they want predictable, they dislike randomness. They have managed to get through to another realm via a computer but they need a Traveller to get all the data through so they can improve the order in the world. One of their problems is that they have been systematically killing off the Travellers, so now the pool of candidates is very shallow. In fact it's two brothers with potential, Gabriel and Michael.Gabriel and Michael come from a long line of Travellers. They've been trying to live in the shadows and "off the grid" for years. Michael yearns for normality, stability; Gabriel lives his live for those fleeting moments where he feels at one with the world. Neither of them have any idea what being a Traveller is all about.Maya is a Harlequin. The Harlequins oppose the Brethren and try to keep the Travellers safe, while keeping the world of imagination and choice open. She's been trying to live a normal life over the past few years but she is one of the few Harlequin left who can keep choice open for the two brothers.It's a bit over the top sometimes and the characters occasionally blurred for me. I didn't get a strong feeling of place in any of the cities and the story lagged occasionally. That being said I did find it an interesting read, it reminded me somewhat of White Wolf's Mage Role-Playing Game but without the magic. Instead of Magic it had Astral Travelling. It didn't make me want to rush out and get the sequel but it also didn't make me want to throw it across the room. However he did belabour the point a few times too often and I often felt like I was being talked down to. The post-script did nothing to make me anything but convinced that this guy is a conspiracy nut. Possibly correct, but still a bit of a nut with some pet ideas that he really wants to belabour.
    • 4/5
      This book is written in libertarian objective present tense. Short sentences. Many villains. Some heroes. Much running. Much fighting. Death. Information used for evil deeds.It plays to the paranoia that grips some people about the coming Constantly Observed Society. When the government knows everything about everybody, is any one safe? Not in this reality. The only people who are immune to constant surveillance are The Travelers, who can leave their bodies through a form of Astral Projection. Though as far as I can see so far, the worlds they enter are worse than the one they left. Still when the Travelers return to base reality they can bring back powerful ideas that help people fight the pull of conformity and materialism.The evil Powers That Be are seduced by the prospect of advanced technology from an alien life form who only requests access to our world. A greedy and compliant Traveler is just what they have been looking for. Will the aliens come to this reality? Will The Brethren kill all non-compliant Travelers, dooming the world to stasis?Yes, the writing is juvenile, but it did keep me reading straight though. Even cardboard characters can have an allure.
    • 4/5
      Travellers are people with the special ability to leave their Earthly bodies and cross over into different dimensions. Due to persecution from the shadowy Tabula, Travellers and the Harlequin mercenaries sworn to protect them are nearly extinct. In the present day surveillance society, two brothers, potential Travellers, nervously live "off the grid" to protect themselves. One brother, captured by the Tabula, begins to help their hidden agenda, while the other is assisted by a ragtag group including a mysterious Harlequin to harness his latent power. This was a very interesting modern fantasy novel raising thoughtful points about loyalty, free will and determinism. The story is multi-layered and the characters are well drawn and presented. Fans of dark fantasy will and science fiction will find quite a bit to enjoy here.
    • 3/5
      A very fast read, a competent thriller, but not much else. Very shallow in terms of plausibility, and characters and even the story.Tries to do a more SF/F flavored Da Vinci Code (he uses the Templar's like a tea bag, and quickly dunks them in).Like watching the bottom of an octopus - with no real thought given to the top - where the brains are. Why is there a millennial old organization who are in pursuit of order (which is really a symptom and not a goal in itself) ? What is it that travelers do that make them so contrary to order. It implies that every good or thoughtful or caring deed comes about because of a traveler. That regular humanity has no ability to think outside the box, or stand up for what is right.Story is silly, and the characters are underdeveloped. I didn't really care about what happened and it was like reading a video game - all motion and no real story.
    • 5/5
      Yes, there has been a lot of marketing hype regarding the hyper-anonymity of Mr. John Twelve Hawks who, like his countercultural characters in "The Traveler," has supposedly decided to live off "the Grid" and avoid exposing his precious identity in a post-9/11 world where the government has increased its surveillance of citizens under the guise of anti-terrorism paternalism. And yes, one could engage in an endless debate over whether this book is best labeled as speculative fiction, techno-thriller, urban fantasy, or science fiction. But these issues, while perhaps interesting topics of discussion, are ultimately much less relevant than the fact that this is a highly entertaining thriller, with a premise that will appeal to fans of "The Matrix" franchise and an anti-control theme that will resonate with conspiracy lovers and Robert Heinlein readers. Heinlein once wrote that "political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." Mr. Hawks's work fully embraces this same theme as well as the Aldous Huxley-ish viewpoint that science without mysticism is ultimately meaningless. In the tradition of the best thriller writers, the author manages to avoid the pitfalls common to many first-novelists, juggle multiple points of view, and keep the pages turning with cliffhanger chapters. He also writes with a direct, unpretentious style that aids in the suspension of disbelief and fits well with the technology-laden world he has created. And his characters, particularly Maya and Gabriel, have more depth than the cookie-cutter heroes common to books of this sort. At times, this book teeters on the edge of becoming an over-the-top amalgamation of too many proven Hollywood elements (martial arts, quantum physics, Buddhist meditation, "Highlander"-esque chases, a "Terminator"-like bodyguard, travel to other dimensions a la "The Matrix," etc.), but the author's palpable passion for the philosophical threads running through the book somehow links everything together in a way that is both entertaining and mentally stimulating. -Kevin Joseph, author of "The Champion Maker"