Book Review: The Traveller

The Traveller, by John Twelve Hawks

John Twelve Hawks is an author I had never heard of, so when I saw this book at Barnes and Noble, I thought it was a book based on the RPG Traveller, so I immediately picked it up (In Listen up you Primitive Screwheads, Craig Sheeley called Traveller the most over-weaponed RPG in circulation). It wasn't but I read it anyway, because there were "critical acclaim" blurbs all over the jacket, and if an author has both blurbs, and only one published book, it has to be worth something.
It is, despite my jabs at the way I came upon it, quite a good book. Towards the beginning, it seemed that Twelve Hawks' writing style was reminiscent of Garth Nix writing Shade's Children, that is, a bit too young adult. His descriptions are very straight-forward and no-nonsense, and while this is a relief to those of us accustomed to Gibson-esque flourish that leaves the plot miles away and the reader confused, it feels like the weight of the writing is lacking.
Before I go beyond the mere technicalities, let me say that this novel is not cyberpunk. It is what could be termed science fantasy, but the conceit of the novel is one that would appeal to any fan of Gibson, Stephenson, Sterling, or any other cyberpunk author. Twelve Hawks writes the book on the principle that society is built on a network of computers, cameras, and communications lines that make it possible to monitor almost any action one would choose to make. The extent of this network is dubbed by Twelve Hawks as The Grid (apparently, the Net was taken), and the two major players in the book have very different relationships with this Grid. The Tabula, the antagonists of the story, are a group who wish to control society in a way modeled on the Panopticon (the theory behind the Panopticon is described at length in the book, and while I don't recall the name of the man who came up with it, I can give a basic overview: the Panopticon was a planned model prison where cells were arranged around a guard tower where the guards could see the prisoners, but the prisoners couldn't see the guards. The theory was that as long as the prisoners believed they were being watched, it was unnecessary to watch them every waking minute). Now, the tenets of the Panopticon are fine for a prison, but quite scary for real life. Later in the book, the head honcho of the Tabula waxes Marxist about the concept, saying that people are unaware they're trapped, and as long as they're kept distracted, they'll never find out or even care that they're being monitored (if you don't know what I mean by "waxing Marxist", go read Marx's The Communist Manifesto. The analogy will make more sense). Anyhoo...basically, the Tabula want to control society. On the other side are two groups, the Harlequins and the Travellers. The Harlequins live a life of violence and randomness (The protagonist, a Harlequin, carries a five-digit random number generator with her, and uses it to determine her actions in certain situations) and live their lives solely to protect Travellers. Travellers are born with the mythic ability to "pass their bodily energy into other realms"...and, the book goes Buddhist and doesn't return. The concept is original, but during one scene where the main characters are staying with families living "Off the Grid", the Paid-Avoidance zones from Shockwave Rider kept on flashing into my mind.
The way Twelve Hawks develops the plotis the books key element that makes it interesting. Twelve Hawks is quite a good writer, and knows how to spin up tense conflicts and subconflicts that keep you reading page after page. Once I had really gotten into the meat of the story, I read 200 pages in one night just to see what was going to happen next. Although some of the characters are not subtle at all (The greedy land developer who *gasp* is actually a Traveler), Twelve Hawks still manages to throw them into an embroiled conflict. Though, if I was to tell you whether his choice was money or family, I'd be giving some of the plot away. Up until the very end, the conflict is gripping. And that's the part that got me. I will just say now, a once-published author has a lot of nerve to end his first-ever book with To be continued. I read those words, and wanted to scream and throw the book across the room. I thought I was finally going to see the resolution of the whole thing, and this crafty little romantic subplot that was actually done really well, but all I got was a nice stopping point and a f---ing Cliffhanger. Urgh. That being said, the fact that he built up so much emotion that I reacted as such to this abrupt and frustrating ending is a testament to how well the book had built up to that point. I'd recommend this to Cyberpunk fans, but you may want to wait until they announce a release date for his next book.