December 2008 - The Traveler

Yesterday, while I was out Christmas shopping, I stopped at a Barnes and Noble to look for a book for December. I hate shopping, and a visit to B&N seemed like a nice reward.

All the recent economic and global turmoil had put me in the mood to read something apocalyptic, paranoid, conspiratorial. However, the touchscreen kiosk was occupied, so I couldn’t even attempt a search. Instead, I just wandered the fiction aisles, looking for something to hit me.

I finally found it at the end of the science fiction area: The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks (who is appropriately mysterious himself).

So far, the book is exactly what I want. Here’s a snippet from p 8, a conversation between the protagonist and a psychiatrist:

Maya still remembered his confusion when she called him a citizen.
“Well, of course I’m a citizen,” he said. “I was born and raised in Britain.”
“It’s just a label that my father uses. Ninety-nine percent of the population are either citizens or drones.”
Dr. Bennett took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and polished the lenses with a green flannel cloth. “Would you mind explaining this?”
“Citizens are people who think they understand what’s going on in the world.”
“I don’t understand everything, Judith. I never said that. But I’m well informed about current events. I watch the news every morning while I’m on my treadmill.”
Maya hesitated, and then decided to tell him the truth. “The facts you know are mostly an illusion. The real struggle of history is going on beneath the surface.”

I am currently cackling with glee at my luck in having struck such gold! Hopefully, the book will not disappoint.

See more progress on: Read one book a month