I read John Twelve Hawks first book, THE TRAVELER, with optimism. Where others saw tedium, I saw setup. Where my elders spied rehashedness, I saw variations on a theme. “It’s all going to pay off in the next book,” I said to the critical masses. “You’ll see.”

Now we finally have the next book in the ultra-reclusive Hawks’ “Fourth Realm Trilogy,” THE DARK RIVER, and as rare as such a thing is, I have to admit I was wrong.

For the uninitiated, this series is set in a dystopian world not unlike our own, except an evil organization called the Brethren seeks to enslave humanity in a “virtual panopticon” – an invisible prison from which the powers that be can observe everything, all the time, and thus ensure perfect order.

Opposing them throughout history are the Travelers – hippie preachers who tell people about peace and freedom and such, and can travel to other spiritual dimensions for some reason, but are total wimps when it comes to sword fighting and kung fu and stuff.

Since the Travelers are such pussies, they need some muscle, and thus arose the Harlequins, an ancient order of warriors bound to protect travelers as they walk around blowing people’s minds. THE TRAVELER began the story of Gabriel and Michael Corrigan, brothers whose father was a Traveler of great renown. They begin to realize that they’re Travelin’ men, too, but here’s the rub: Michael ends up on the side of the bad guys!

THE DARK RIVER is set several months after the conclusion of THE TRAVELER, with the heroes building their strength and the villains plotting vaguely evil Illuminati-type schemes that, in the the light of day, are pretty stupid. More on this later.

The opening contains Hawks’ strongest writing to date, and this might be because something really happens that isn’t foreshadowed to death or described with ridiculous high-school-creative-writing-festival attention to detail. The series’ strongest character also emerges from this set piece, and it’s a shame that the main players have nowhere near the depth of this minor, supporting player.

So the plot progresses. On the good guys’ side, several angsty romances brew, and our heroes go on a quest. This leads them through various by-the-numbers set pieces. One is a chase through “forgotten” New York subway tunnels with close calls, etc., and another takes place in England as Gabriel Corrigan takes up with a crew of dudes who do the whole parkour/free running thing (racing across rooftops and cityscapes with no regard for heights, walls or fences).

That had the potential to be awesomely cool, like when Warren Ellis used it in GLOBAL FREQUENCY. But Hawks chickens out from giving us real thrills again by keeping the race away from any recognizable landmarks and sticking to some obscure building that I’m sure he thought was fascinating while he was doing his research in London. Was he too afraid of surveillance to take a look at Big Ben? The Tower of London? Harrod’s? Throw us a bone here, JT.

The bad guys’ efforts are pretty tepid, too. While Michael Corrigan uses the all-seeing eyes of the Brethren to look inside Parisian dressing rooms, the Brethren hatches a plan to make a computer system that collects all the personal data throughout the world and uses that data to simulate the lives of everybody on the planet. Is that even necessary? Why are the bad guys interested in seeing a computer simulation of what people do every day? All the information and security camera feeds are there already, right? Can’t the Brethren read?

There’s also a whole lot of New Age pseudo-spirituality in THE DARK RIVER, and it’s half of a baking away from being half-baked. The underlying idea seems to be “go with the flow,” but is this really such a revolutionary, dangerous idea that it takes a race of super shamans to distribute it? For a series of books that hinges on this underlying philosophy, it seems like the author made it up as he went along.

There’s a “big” climax at the end, but the characters aren’t compelling enough to make it interesting, and the setting is once again as boring as possible. I’ve lost my faith in John Twelve Hawks – THE DARK RIVER is a muddle of unispired settings, bland-as-oatmeal characters, and uninteresting action.

Even the explosions are boring. And I’ve never been bored by an explosion before! –Ryun Patterson

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE TRAVELER by John Twelve Hawks