Just finished reading the Traveler today and I do recommend it. I don’t normally read thrillers, but my book club is reading this. It is less formulaic than many thrillers. Also, the author weaves together a complex set of ideas from history, science, religion, politics and current events. Throw in some Alias-like action scenes with gun fights, martial arts and sword fights and you’ve got an entertaining read.

We live in a society where we willingly give up our privacy in exchange for a sense of connectedness, where we voluntarily restrict our own actions in exchange for a sense of safety, where we trade convenience and lifestyle for the health of the planet and where we sacrifice the lives of millions of people to assuage our fears. We assume that some other people will pay the consequences, that we will be safe so long as we do nothing “wrong”. John Twelve Hawks reminds us that wrongness is a slippery, transitory concept defined by the people in power. They need us to feel afraid. They need us to consider ourselves better than and separate from those we perceive as different. What do I gain from this system? And what am I willing to lose?