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.
Thousands of miles away, Maya is attempting to lead a normal life in London. The attractive twenty-six-year-old designer wants to ignore the fact that she comes from a long lineage of Harlequins–a band of warriors pledged to protect the Travelers at all costs. 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. Maya is reluctant to be drawn into the solitary, destructive life of her ancestors, but she has been trained to fight since she was a young girl.
Also searching for the brothers is Nathan Boone, a disciplined mercenary working for the Tabulas–ruthless men who are determined to inflict order on the world by invisibly controlling its population. Boone and the Tabulas fear the power of the Travelers, and for generations Tabulas have hunted them down. When Maya flies to California in search of Gabriel and Michael Corrigan, a colossal battle looms that will reveal a secret history of our time.
In this stunningly suspenseful first novel, reminiscent of George Orwell and Philip Pullman, John Twelve Hawks has created a vividly imagined world that runs parallel to our own. Moving at lightning speed from the back alleys of Prague to the underworld of Los Angeles to a guarded research facility in New York, THE TRAVELER goes beneath the surface to give us new insights on history and our own lives.
Maya reached out and took her father's hand as they walked from the Underground to the light. Thorn didn't push her away or tell Maya to concentrate on the position of her body. Smiling, he guided her up a narrow staircase to a long, sloping tunnel with white tile walls. The Underground authority had installed steel bars on one side of the tunnel and this barrier made the ordinary passageway look like part of an enormous prison. If she had been traveling alone, Maya might have felt trapped and uncomfortable, but there was nothing to worry about because Father was with her.
It's the perfect day, she thought. Well, maybe it was the second most perfect day. She still remembered two years ago when Father had missed her birthday and Christmas only to show up on Boxing Day with a taxi full of presents for Maya and her mother. That morning was bright and full of surprises, but this Saturday seemed to promise a more durable happiness. Instead of the usual trip to the empty warehouse near Canary Wharf, where her father taught her how to kick and punch and use weapons, they had spent the day at the London Zoo, where he had told her different stories about each of the animals. Father had traveled all over the world and could describe Paraguay or Egypt as if he were a tour guide.
People had glanced at them as they strolled past the cages. Most Harlequins tried to blend into the crowd, but her father stood out in a group of ordinary citizens. He was German, with a strong nose, shoulder-length hair, and dark blue eyes. Thorn dressed in somber colors and wore a steel kara bracelet that looked like a broken shackle.
Maya had found a battered art history book in the closet of their rented flat in East London. Near the front of the book was a picture by Albrecht Dürer called Knight, Death, and the Devil. She liked to stare at the picture even though it made her feel strange. The armored knight was like her father, calm and brave, riding through the mountains as Death held up an hourglass and the Devil followed, pretending to be a squire. Thorn also carried a sword, but his was concealed inside a metal tube with a leather shoulder strap.
Although she was proud of Thorn, he also made her feel embarrassed and self-conscious. Sometimes she just wanted to be an ordinary girl with a pudgy father who worked in an office--a happy man who bought ice-cream cones and told jokes about kangaroos. The world around her, with its bright fashions and pop music and television shows, was a constant temptation. She wanted to fall into that warm water and let the current pull her away. It was exhausting to be Thorn's daughter, always avoiding the surveillance of the Vast Machine, always watching for enemies, always aware of the angle of attack.
Maya was twelve years old, but still wasn't strong enough to use a Harlequin sword. As a substitute, Father had taken a walking stick from the closet and given it to her before they left the flat that morning. Maya had Thorn's white skin and strong features and her Sikh mother's thick black hair. Her eyes were such a pale blue that from a certain angle they looked translucent. She hated it when well-meaning women approached her mother and complimented Maya's appearance. In a few years, she'd be old enough to disguise herself and look as ordinary as possible.
They left the zoo and strolled through Regent's Park. It was late April and young men were kicking footballs across the muddy lawn while parents pushed bundled-up babies in perambulators. The whole city seemed to be out enjoying the sunshine...
Reviews
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Part I of The Fourth Realm trilogy is a fast-paced thriller that portrays cutting-edge technology along with thought-provoking ideas. Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are Travelers, part of a small group of prophets who influence history and attain pure enlightenment. Maya, who is part of the protective warrior group called Harlequins, is helping them evade the Tabula, a ruthless mercenary group focusing on world domination. Scott Brick has some difficulty maintaining Maya's British accent but, otherwise, does a commendable job augmenting the suspense and menace of this complex plot. In a nanosecond, listeners move from the ancient back alleys of Prague to the modern worlds of Los Angeles and New York. S.C.A. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
People...
"This novel's a stunner. . . . You won't want to put the book down."
Time...
"The stuff that first-rate high-tech paranoid-schizophrenic thrillers are made of."
The Times-Picayune ...
"A fearless, brilliant action heroine (think Uma Thurman in Kill Bill); a secret history of the world; a tale of brother against brother . . . and nonstop action as the forces of good and evil battle it out. . . . Readers won't regret taking this wild ride."
Daily News ...
"Gripping. . . . Fresh and fascinating. . . . Impossible to put down."
