Monday, April 8, 2013

The Traveler


Author: John Twelve Hawkes
Goodreads Rating: 3.80
Discs: 13
Format: Audiobook


In London, Maya, a young woman trained to fight by her powerful father, uses the latest technology to elude detection when walking past the thousands of surveillance cameras that watch the city. In New York, a secret shadow organization uses a victim’s own GPS to hunt him down and kill him. In Los Angeles, Gabriel, a motorcycle messenger with a haunted past, takes pains to live "off the grid" — free of credit cards and government IDs. Welcome to the world of The Traveler — a world frighteningly like our own.In this compelling novel, Maya fights to save Gabriel, the only man who can stand against the forces that attempt to monitor and control society. From the back streets of Prague to the skyscrapers of Manhattan, The Traveler portrays an epic struggle between tyranny and freedom. Not since 1984 have readers witnessed a Big Brother so terrifying in its implications and in a story that so closely reflects our lives.



This book threw me for a loop. This was another re-read because I could remember some details vividly, but the way it ended was that it was clearly set to be a series, and I wanted to finish that series. When I started this audiobook, the author made a statement about how the "Vast Machine" was constantly monitoring us, and that left a bad taste in my mouth right from the get go.

I still enjoyed most of the book once I stopped thinking of everything that he said as comments of a paranoid schizophrenic who thought that the wold was out to get him. A lot of his ideas within the book, such as an organization thoroughly tracking people all over the world by use of all cameras and the like was just horrifying. 

I liked that Maya had tried to live her own life separate from what her father wanted her to do, and yet she couldn't really escape what her life was meant to be. Maya and Hollis were my two favorite characters because they were totally kick ass in the way that they didn't want to take crap from anyone including the Gabriel, who was destined to become a Traveler.

What I didn't like was Michael and Gabriel, both of them were so naive and stupid when it came to their decisions. At one point when the brothers were separated and they meet in a different realm, Gabriel tells Michael everything about who is helping him knowing full well that he was in a place that was owned and controlled by the bad guys, and Michael, rather than protect his bother, decides to tell everything to the bad guys knowing that there is something fishy about them. Greed and stupidity drove them both.

Although it was sad that there was a lack of relationships in this book, I almost liked that the book focused more on the Travelers and how they were to find their way into these different realms (such as the Hungry Ghost Realm) and how they discovered this secret world of Harlequins and the Tabula and this century old battle between the two forces.

What scared me the most in this book was that there is all this technology out in the world, and it could be used to monitor everything that we do. The Tabula was this organization that used ATM Camera's and hacked into cars to lock the occupants inside. That was the scary part that there really could be some evil people that had all this information about us? Reading this book, does make you a little paranoid.

All in all, it was well written, I found Maya to be less feminine, although I'm not sure if thats because of her raising or the writing, but in the end, I have already requested the second book from the library and I'm in this to see it to the end. Until next time.


The Courts Decision:




Nicole

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