Customer Reviews

The Dark River (Fourth Realm Trilogy, Book 2)

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having loved John Twelve Hawks' The Traveler, I couldn't wait and immediately plunged into the sequel, The Dark River. I went through the second volume of The Fourth Realm trilogy in less than three days, two of them work days. I guess you could say I enjoyed it! Nevertheless, though it's once again an entertaining read, I felt that The Dark River didn't have as much substance as its predecessor.

Indeed, this novel is a more a full fledged techno thriller. It's the sort of book Clive Cussler, Graham Hancock and Dan Brown would come up with, should they ever team up together to write something.

The pace is intense, from start to finish. So much so that I feel that several sequences were a bit rushed. I felt that certain portions should have been more fleshed out, especially the events occurring in Berlin and Ethiopia. In my opinion, John Twelve Hawks could have elaborated a bit more without losing the rhythm he established in The Traveler.

The characterization is an interesting facet of this book. Not only do we learn more about Gabriel, Maya, Michael and other characters from the first volume, but we are introduced to some new faces like Mother Blessing. The author demonstrates how ruthless he can be, and the body count among main characters is impressive.

The storylines comprising The Dark River showed a lot of promise. And yet, the fact that the author speeds through most of them in the narrative doesn't allow him to exploit their potential to the fullest. I'm acutely aware that I don't say this very often, but this book should have been longer.

Regardless of those shortcomings, the reader keeps turning those pages. Short chapters that jump from one POV character to the next create a nice balance between the "good" and the "bad" guys.

It's been pointed out in other reviews: The cliffhanger ending is a bit annoying. Especially since we now have to wait for about two years to discover how it all ends!

Still, The Dark River should satisfy fans of The Traveler and keep them begging for more!

This is the second book in the fourth realm trilogy. I stated of the first book, The Traveler, that it was "the best fiction book I had read in a decade!" This book is a very close second. John Twelve Hawks weaves an unforgettable tale of suspense and drama that will draw you in and captivate you in a way that few other authors achieve. Hawks helps us to look at our world in a whole new light, and gives an entirely new meaning to the term 'Big Brother is Watching'.

This book continues a year after The Traveler finished, and once the action starts, it does not end. The action races at breakneck speed and reads like 'a post 9/11 conspiracy theory meets 1984'. Hawks shows a world where people are collectively selling their freedoms for a perceived peace or security. With a story as unique as the Matrix, and the captivating writing unlike anybody else, Hawks serves up a masterpiece.

There are four main categories of people in these books: Civilians, who go about their daily lives, Travelers who can send their life force from their body to alternate realms, The Harlequins who are trained warriors dedicated to protecting the Travelers, and finally The Brethren, as they call themselves, who wish to create a system of control over the whole world, a virtual Panopticon. This group is called, 'The Tabula', by their enemies.

The Tabula are trying to achieve their Panopticon through computer surveillance - RFID chips in what we buy and in our ID and credit cards. Their only goal is to make the human race homogeneous and dominated by the belief that they must behave a certain way because they are always being watched. For the first time in history, a Traveler, Michael Corrigan, is working with the Brethren and trying to conquer the only other surviving travelers -his brother Gabriel, and his father Matthew, who has been missing for 15 years since the Tabula attacked the family home.

Both of the brothers are searching for their long-lost father, both are trying to figure out how to use their ability as travelers, and both believe they are on the right side. Only by reading will you find out what will happen in this battle of wills and battle between light and darkness.

This is a book masterfully written that will draw in readers from all walks of life and of all ages. Read it and see if you cannot hardly wait for your friends to read it, so that you can discuss it and debate it. It will also have you looking very differently at all the cameras that capture our images hundreds of times a day.

Hawks has written another bestseller that will surprise you, stun you and amaze you, both with the story and the way it is told.

(First published in Imprint 2007-07-17 in the book review column.)

Mr. Hawks is, to be charitable, a mediocre writer. His sentences would be a credit to a good Junior High School English student - I should know as I have taught grade 8 students who have a better sense of sentence structure than J12H. I guess he wants to be a Hemingway. The plot is absurd and the characters weakly and ill-drawn. I didn't mind the book, however, as it was fast-paced and not taxing on my intellect (such as it is). I did enjoy The Traveller and thought is a better book in every regard. Now I will have to read the third to see if ...

This review originally appeared on my website, duskbeforethedawn.net, and it was based on an Advanced Reader Copy.

I enjoyed The Traveler, John Twelve Hawks first novel, because it possessed many elements that I enjoyed; these are not new ideas, but combining them together is somewhat unique. I had very high expectations for The Dark River by John Twelve Hawks (or someone like him since apparently no one knows who he really is) as it had many of these same pieces:

* The concept is very "V for Vendetta" and 1984ish, pitting individuals vs. the "Vast Machine", control vs. individualism, a culture of fear vs. a culture of liberty;
* it depicts a age old conflict between two opposite belief systems;
* it features a group of cold calculating martial arts-trained individuals called Harlequins (also the name of a Dallas Rugby club!);
* it includes the idea of "realms", of parallel universes that certain individuals (Travellers and others) can get to (there are Six Realms; our reality is the Fourth Realm, and it appears that Hell or something like it is the First Realm);
* I liked the different off the grid groups, like New Harmony in the first novel and the Free Runners in this 2nd novel (no spoilers, read the book to see what I mean);
* it is well-paced, something that as an author I know is difficult to do.

This second of a described "Trilogy" (see my list of peeves below) picks up where the first
novel "The Traveler" left of. Gabriel and Michael Corrigan, brothers, have chosen two
opposing sides in the conflict; Michael has chosen the side of the Brethren, who want to
place controls and monitoring on the world, and who heretofor have been dedicated to wiping out Travellers; Gabriel is being hunted by the Brethren and is protected by Maya, one of the Harlequins. They both learn that their long lost father is alive and is also a
Traveler. The majority of the novel is their search for their father, Michael's desire and
efforts to be accepted and ultimately control the Brethren, and the budding romance between Maya (who is a Harlequin but not sure if she wants to be one) and Gabriel.

I read The Traveler, and considered it a good summer read. The surprise at the end that it was the first of a series of books planned (the cover page of this second one denotes it as a trilogy) was a....well...a surprise. I wasn't thrilled with the way a quantum computer was depicted in the first book, but that's okay, it's scifi, right?

The second book (or any sequel) is always difficult to write: you've already enthralled the reader with new concepts and great characters in the first book, so the second book has to not only progress the story towards it's natural conclusion, but it has to be able to stand on its own.

And this is my main issue with The Dark River. If it were tacked onto the end of The Traveler (or onto the beginning of the next book) it would be a great intro or ending. But it has too many events that were not big picture (unless they relate to the next book), too many events that were hard to believe, and doesn't move along some of the main key elements in the book (readers beware: some slight spoilers):

* Not enough of the plot is in or about the Six Realms; isn't this what makes Travelers different, the ability to move through the Realms?
* Michael is kidnapped by the Brethren, and proceeds to worm his way into their leadership; the Brethren have for hundreds of years been dead set on finding and killing all Travelers. I wasn't convinced that Michael did anything special to make them change this philosophy, but they do;
* The second book leaves a large cliff hanger, so it sets up the next book, but it's a predictable cliff hanger;
* There is so much story left (IMHO) that third book is going to need to be 2,000 pages long;
* There are some accuracy issues (p. 171, Statue of Liberty is not on Ellis Island) but I assume this will get cleaned up before the release date (mine was an ARC).

I continue to enjoy the individuals vs. the Vast Machine concept in this 2nd book, and I do enjoy the writing style. This is a good continuation of a great first story, but did not live up to the high bar that was set with The Traveler.

Awaiting the third book for the Fourth Realm (kinda goes along with waiting for the third movie of the Fantastic Four?) and also wondering if Twelve Hawks is American Indian (or Native American depending on which side of the PC line you're on) and what tribe (Choctaw for me!).