Like a film written to be a summer blockbuster, supposed first-time novelist John Twelve Hawks' The Traveler has something for everyone: a strikingly beautiful, strikingly violent woman; a young black martial arts teacher, estranged from his odd church; mismatched but loving brothers with a tumultuous past; car chases; and a hint of romance. The characters aren't ciphers so much as they are roles, but this is less a novel than a thinly-disguised screenplay; nothing occurs that cannot be translated to film.
Last season's blockbuster, the one that Twelve Hawks aims to match, is Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. And as with that book, The Traveler's plot revolves around a secret society - the same secret society, as Maya the strikingly beautiful warrior explains:
Last season's blockbuster, the one that Twelve Hawks aims to match, is Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. And as with that book, The Traveler's plot revolves around a secret society - the same secret society, as Maya the strikingly beautiful warrior explains:
"The Templars became a rich, powerful order that controlled churches and castles throughout Europe. They owned ships and would lend money to European kings. Eventually the Templars stopped occupying the Holy Land and started to defend people who made spiritual journeys. They developed connections with heretical groups, the Bogomils in Bulgaria and the Cathars in France. These people were Gnostics who believed that the soul is trapped within the body. Only individuals given a secret knowledge are able to escape this prison and enter into different realms." (p. 186)
Those who took spiritual journeys, who escaped the prison of their bodies and voyaged to other dimensions, are the Travelers. Maya and the Templars are Harlequins, an international and multicultural order of sword-wielding bodyguards sworn to protect the Travelers from the Tabula, an equally mysterious conspiracy associated with everyone from King Philip, scourge of the Templars, to Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham. They have driven the Travelers nearly to extinction, though people with the talent may appear spontaneously.
Those who took spiritual journeys, who escaped the prison of their bodies and voyaged to other dimensions, are the Travelers. Maya and the Templars are Harlequins, an international and multicultural order of sword-wielding bodyguards sworn to protect the Travelers from the Tabula, an equally mysterious conspiracy associated with everyone from King Philip, scourge of the Templars, to Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham. They have driven the Travelers nearly to extinction, though people with the talent may appear spontaneously.
Two brothers, Gabriel and Michael, are the sons of a known Traveler, though they do not know this. What they do know is that their family lived "off the grid," paying cash, using fake names and fake identification, moving from place to place whenever their dad felt they were being watched. Even after their father dies in a house fire, the two brothers stay on the move, out of databases, disconnected from the virtual Panopticon constructed by the Tabula. But now Michael has been discovered, and the Tabula are after him and Gabriel; only Maya can protect them.
If this sounds hackneyed, it is. The Traveler pilfers a wide array of pop-culture sources: the Highlander series of films; The Matrix; Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged; and Shea and Wilson's Illuminatus! Trilogy, to name just a few. Unfortunately, Twelve Hawks does not add anything new to the mix; the book is a melange of sixties-style mysticism, action, paranoia, and bad science fiction. The Traveler seeks to draw the reader into that comfortably paranoid world, where everyone is being watched and nothing is an accident, but it contains no new ideas, no twist that can make new this action/fantasy retread.
If this sounds hackneyed, it is. The Traveler pilfers a wide array of pop-culture sources: the Highlander series of films; The Matrix; Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged; and Shea and Wilson's Illuminatus! Trilogy, to name just a few. Unfortunately, Twelve Hawks does not add anything new to the mix; the book is a melange of sixties-style mysticism, action, paranoia, and bad science fiction. The Traveler seeks to draw the reader into that comfortably paranoid world, where everyone is being watched and nothing is an accident, but it contains no new ideas, no twist that can make new this action/fantasy retread.
