The Traveler
All the hype surrounding John Twelve Hawks’ THE TRAVELER is centered on the pseudonymous author living “off the grid,” so anonymous that even his agent and publisher have never met him, nor know who he is. Unfortunately, this also lends the novel an air of absolute pretension (it is, after all, dedicated “to my pathfinders”).
I’m torn on this strange, MATRIX-like mix of suspense and sci-fi because it’s all over the map. Not to mention more than a bit confusing. In the near future, a group called Harlequins protect a group called Travelers (who can project their soul into other dimensions) from a group called the Tabula. The book’s tough female protagonist, Maya, is one of those Harlequins, here reluctantly protecting twin Travelers from that supposedly evil organization, for reasons which aren’t quite clear to me.
It starts off slow, then gets really good, then wavers between boring and exciting for long stretches, ultimately finishing with a final 100 pages that’s a real chore to get through. And they’re going to make a trilogy of this? We shall see.
[...] 8. THE TRAVELER by John Twelve Hawks Let’s look at this book in Joseph Campbell/George Lucas terms: Reluctant hero? Check. Mysterious “force” that empowers some? Check. Hokey religion? Check. The list could go on forever. The enigmatic Hawks mines archetypes and stereotypes for a week of Sundays (and adds a generous helping of Big Brother paranoia), but THE TRAVELER is surprisingly fun to read. It moves at the right pace – quick – and the twists and turns are unexpected enough to provide some drama, even if the large shape of the novel is given away in the first couple of chapters. [...]
[...] NOT BAD, BUT CERTAINLY DISAPPOINTING A tie between THE TRAVELER by John Twelve Hawkes and ANANSI BOYS by Neil Gaiman – The former disappoints because it’s cool upfront and then meanders wildly; the latter because it’s so light and fluffy compared to its predecessor. Even standing on its own, I’d have to consider it a lesser work for Gaiman, to whose work I always look forward. [...]
[...] read John Twelve Hawks first book, THE TRAVELER, with optimism. Where others saw tedium, I saw setup. Where my elders spied rehashedness, I saw [...]