The Traveler

A review copy of The Traveler arrived yestereday, written by the unconventially named John Twelve Hawks. His breif author bio simply states: "John Twelve Hawks lives off the grid." Intriguing. This book sounds pretty cool, too. The premise, from the publisher:

Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are two young men living just beneath the glittering surface of life in Los Angeles. Since childhood, the brothers have been shaped by stories that their father was a Traveler–one of an elite group of prophets able to attain pure enlightenment. The Corrigans, who may have inherited their father’s gifts, have always lived “off the grid”—that is, invisible to the intricate surveillance networks that monitor people in our modern world.

...When Maya is summoned to Prague by her ailing father, she learns that Gabriel and Michael have just been located in California. The brothers may represent the last surviving Travelers, and are in desperate need of protection....a colossal battle looms that will reveal a secret history of our time.

This sounds almost Matrix-like, and Science Fictional with the "hidden world," but it is not being published by Random House's SF imprints (Bantam or Del Rey). Rather, Random House is publishing it under their general fiction Doubleday imprint. I'm sure there is a whole rant about that, regardless, the story of a behind the scenes faction controlling our world seems pretty cool. I'm looking forward to reading this one, the on sale date is June 28th, but as I said, I've got an advance reading copy, so I don't have to wait.

With the publisher stating "this stunningly suspenseful first novel, reminiscent of George Orwell and Philip Pullman," I've got some pretty high hopes, as 1984 is a book I consider one of the best 5 or 10 ever written (that I've read), and I absolutely loved Pullman's His Dark Materials. Doubleday is expecting some really good things, too, with a dedicated Web site www.traveler-book.com and supplemental Web sites of the characters or places in the novel:

http://www.hollismartialarts.com/
http://www.geocities.com/judithstrand/
http://judithstrand.blogspot.com
http://www.evergreen-foundation.com/
http://www.resurrectionautoparts.com/


SciFi.com now has a page of trailers for forthcoming movies. It's probably been there a while, I just realized it today, and linked there is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which looks to be very good.