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``The Traveler'' by John Twelve Hawks; Doubleday ($24.95)
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You are being watched - and evaluated. John Twelve Hawks wants you to stop being cavalier about this. "Most of us have given up our privacy without even knowing it," he says.
"The Traveler," the first in the Fourth Realm trilogy, is intent on awaking us. It sandwiches thriller action between wooden, didactic "conversations" by characters about our loss of privacy, our obsessive consumerism, the good and bad of technology and our shallow lemming qualities.
This is seasoned with a mishmash of mythology and spirituality, which draws upon Japanese samurai codes, Native American vision quests, Tibetan Buddhist views of reality, the history of the Knights Templar, Harlequin folklore, the philosophy of utilitarianism and the mysticism of the Sikhs, Sufis, Kabbalists and Gnostics.
There is a plot, unfinished to move us into the next book: A killing machine of a heroine, a Harlequin named Maya, aka Judith Strand, defends a motorcycle-riding Gabriel. He lives "off the grid" - without bank accounts, credit cards, - even a last name attached to legal ID.
Maya is from a warrior class whose mission is defending Travelers. Gabriel and his gone-wrong brother Michael are sons of a Traveler dead or hiding; they may or may not be Travelers themselves. Their secretive mother tells them, from her deathbed, "Travelers can project their energy out of their bodies and cross over into other realms."
(Notice the names: Maya means "illusion" and is the name of a form of Hindu goddess Devi. Christians, Jews and Muslims will recognize the archangels Gabriel and Michael.)
In Hawks' novel, Travelers are described as hermits who detach from society or mystic-rebels who challenge authorities. Offered as examples are Joan of Arc, St. Francis of Assisi, Isaac Newton and great religious teachers of different times.
Where there are good guys in this kind of book, there are also very bad bad guys. The Tabula, who call themselves the Brethren, once were determined to eliminate Travelers and Harlequins and have largely succeeded. Now they want to use Travelers to obtain information from and cross into other realms.
"The Brethren and their allies were on the verge of establishing a perfectly controlled society, but this new system would not survive if Travelers were allowed to leave the system, then return to challenge the accepted view. Peace and prosperity were possible only if people stopped asking new questions and accepted the available answers."
This controlled society, a tweaked version of today, uses consumerism and constant monitoring - 4 million closed-circuit television cameras in Britain - to soothe, watch and repress.
A driven military man - a la Gen. Buck Turgidson in "Dr. Strangelove" or the very real Curtis LeMay - wants Gabriel and Michael as guinea pigs. Gen. Kennard Nash also wants everyone wearing ID chips inserted under the skin.
"Most Americans seemed positive about a device that would protect them from unknown dangers and help them get through the checkout line at their local grocery store."
The Protective Links, implanted in Nash's Evergreen Foundation employees, track movements and establish a "frequent destination grid." Vary routes and the office PC demands why: "Privacy had become a convenient fiction."
"The Traveler" could be described as a dystopian thriller or speculative fiction. Much has been made of the author's secrecy; Hawks refuses to meet face-to-face with agent or editor or personally promote the book.
In a publisher-provided question-and-answer, Hawks says, "For me, living off the grid means existing in a way that can't be tracked by the government or large corporations.
The Vast Machine is the very powerful - and very real -computerized information system that monitors all aspects of our lives."
Give Doubleday marketers credit for enjoying their author's elusiveness. They have produced a blog for Maya, Evergreen surveillance opportunities, Web sites for Harlequins and a character who is a martial arts expert, even opportunities to hack a Web site for dossiers on other characters.
Hawks says he wants readers to focus on the book, not its author; the power of ideas, not himself. In great works - think of Charles Dickens - social criticism is an organic, not a hectoring, part of character, story, even place.
"The Traveler" is nowhere near that level, but that doesn't invalidate Hawks' effort. Consider the Patriot Act renewal or British police searching closed-circuit TV footage for bombing suspects. Besides, you can (lemming-like) enjoy the thriller aspect as the book gets you thinking - and worrying.
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(c) 2005, The State (Columbia, S.C.). Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
