John Twelve Hawks

(2005)Sci-Fi. Travelers can go over to another realm (dimension) and are protected by Harlequins. However the world is controlled by the Vast Machine and Travelers are dangerous. Gabriel & Michael Corrigan are among the last of the Travelers and Harlequin Maya tries to find them so that she can protect them from harm. Very good paranoid novel by an anonymous author which reflects his fear of being monitored and his privacy being destroyed by the various methods of surveillance and security in place. First of a trilogy The Fourth Realm.(PW)Twelve Hawks's much anticipated novel is powerful, mainstream fiction built on a foundation of cutting-edge technology laced with fantasy and the chilling specter of an all-too-possible social and political reality. The time is roughly the present, and the U.S. is part of the Vast Machine, a society overseen by the Tabula, a secret organization bent on establishing a perfectly controlled populace. Allied against the Tabula are the Travelers and their sword-carrying protectors, the Harlequins. The Travelers, now almost extinct, can project their spirit into other worlds where they receive wisdom to bring back to earth¥wisdom that threatens the Tabula's power. Maya, a reluctant Harlequin, finds herself compelled to protect two na?ve Travelers, Michael and Gabriel Corrigan. Michael dabbles in shady real estate deals, while Gabriel prefers to live "off the Grid," eschewing any documentationÂ¥credit cards, bank accountsÂ¥that the Vast Machine could use to track him. Because the Tabula has engineered a way to use the Travelers for its own purposes, Maya must not only keep the brothers alive, but out of the hands of these evil puppet-masters. She succeeds, but she also fails, and therein lies the tale. By the end of this exciting volume, the first in a trilogy, the stage is set for a world-rending clash between good and evil.… (més)

Somewhat unsatisfying conclusion to the trilogy. 80% of the plotlines are unfinished and I really wonder what happened there. Also, the potential of the mythology hasn't really been used, instead the book just focuses on it's vast array of present-realm plotlines and places. The characters hop around the world so much that it's really hard to keep track of.

Though it's disappointing as a final volume, it's probably still an interesting trilogy for fans of human rights, privacy and 1984/Big Brother paranoiacs.… (més)