Book: The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks
Genre: SF
Rating: A-
For: The 2009 TBR Challenge
It seems like this book made a big buzz a few years ago. Does anybody remember, or am I dreaming? It was way before blogging days (mine anyway,) but I must have heard about it somewhere somehow, because I spent gift cards on it a Christmas or two ago, and thus, it ended up on my TBR Challenge list.
I had no idea what to expect, but it turns out this is very much a science fiction book, with quite a bit of high-tech type talk scattered throughout. It totally reminded me of a the Jason Bourne novels, with a 1984 feel mixed in. I liked it. For me, it was quite the page turner.
It's about a girl who's father is a Harlequin, those who are sworn to protect, at the point of fighting to the death, those who are Travelers. Her dad taught her much about this "profession" but she decided to forgo the responsibility.
That is, until two brothers arrive on the scene who just might be the last Travelers alive. Suddenly, she's back in the game. The bad guys want them for their own scientific experiments, so it's a race to see who gains control of whom.
And what's a Traveler anyway? They are people who have the ability to move between the realms, with our Earth being the Fourth Realm.
Thus, this book is, you guessed it, the first of a trilogy called The Fourth Realm.
I really enjoyed the story, but I did notice that it was written in a very unemotional detached style. Maybe that was to give us a feel for the machine-like emotions some of characters have. But even with that, I ended up caring for and worrying about those very characters, and I think that the relationship aspect of the story was just getting going when it ended. Ah, well. Good thing there's book two! (And three which just recently came out.)
Other Reviews:
Femmes Fatals (this one has some fun info and speculation about the mysteriousness of the author)
Sounds interesting. Will have to add it to my list!
ReplyDeleteYeah. I remember there being a buzz about this book years ago when I still worked at a bookstore. One colleague in particular kept swooning over this book and recommending it to everyone. Something about it always put me off though, and I never did read it.
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