The Traveler - Anonymous Author

[Chicken of the Sea]

Is anyone reading this book? I picked it up a couple of weeks ago and just started reading it. It's really interesting so far and seems like a fast read (well has been for me so far). The author is anonymous though - which is what drew me to this book. Apparently, he "lives off the grid" like the group of people he mentions in the book. Now, i'm dying to know who he/she is.. Any ideas??

[pandora]

The authors name is John Twelve Hawks. He has also wrote a short story called How We Live Now that you are suppose to only be able to find on Amazon.

[Chicken of the Sea]

Have you read any of these books?

[pandora]

I've started The Traveler; but I haven't had alot of time lately to read much. I am looking forward to getting into it though.

[Chicken of the Sea]

Once you get into it, you won't be able to put it down. That's how I am right now.The story is just so interesting. So back to the author - John Twelve Hawks is a made up name though right? Could the book be written by an author that is already known?

[pandora]

I'm not sure. I'll look into it for you and see what I can come up with.

[pandora]

Ok I did a little research and this is what I found on USA Today:

"He calls himself John Twelve Hawks. But that's not his real name.

Reflection of the times? The Traveler, by the mysterious John Twelve Hawks, posits a world in which technology controls every aspect of life.


And he claims to "live off the grid." Which is to say, he has no credit cards, no driver's license, no anything that would enable anyone — particularly the government or major corporations — to track his comings and goings or invade his privacy.

And now this man (or is it a woman?) has written what could be one of the summer's most talked-about books, The Traveler, a hybrid fantasy-science fiction thriller about (you guessed it) living off the grid.

"Twelve Hawks is a very mysterious fellow," says Jason Kaufman, his editor at Doubleday who also edited Dan Brown's mega-best seller The Da Vinci Code a few years ago.

"I'll tell you what I can," Kaufman adds. "We talk quite frequently, and I believe he always speaks with a satellite phone ... and a satellite phone is virtually untraceable."

No book tour. No interviews. Mum's the word from an author whose novel, his publisher hopes, will make a lot of noise on best-seller lists.

Though there's no hard evidence to confirm Twelve Hawks is real, Doubleday insists it's not all just a publicity stunt.

The author is a mystery

Here's what we know (or what we're told) about Twelve Hawks:

"He" is probably a man, although his agent, Joe Regal, says Twelve Hawks uses a synthesizer to disguise or filter his voice. "When he calls, I know it's him," Regal says, "because nothing comes up, not 'out of area' - nothing."

He's older than 30 and could be in his 40s or 50s. Clues: In a brief question-and-answer piece e-mailed to USA TODAY by Doubleday, his publisher, Twelve Hawks precedes the answer to a question about religion with: "When I was in my twenties " And when an editor asked him whether his book's "realm of hell" could be compared to current conditions in Iraq, Twelve Hawks said it's more like Beirut in the '70s, a remark that could mean he was then old enough to read newspaper accounts of war-torn Lebanon. But then again, he could have gotten the information from old news clippings or a library.

He lives in New York, Los Angeles and London, according to Regal, though the literary agent has never met him face-to-face.

He is a first-time author, not an established author who is writing under a pseudonym, his agent says.

He doesn't own a TV, he likes wine, and he drives a 15-year-old car, says Jason Kaufman, his editor at Doubleday, who says he has picked up those details in their numerous conversations.

"This is not something that Twelve Hawks dreamed up because it would make headlines," Kaufman says. "Twelve Hawks is someone who lives his life and values his privacy in the exact same way as the characters he writes about. ... It's not a game to him."

Though Twelve Hawks won't talk to the media, his publisher supplied USA TODAY with an e-mailed quote from him about why he lives the way he does: "The Vast Machine is the very powerful — and very real — computerized information system that monitors all aspects of our lives. I live off the Grid by choice."

But is it really possible to live that way in 2005?

"It is possible," says Lisa Pankau, a white-collar-crime investigator in Chandler, Okla. She adds quickly, however, that it would be "very difficult" and would take "a very devoted person."

Pankau guesses Twelve Hawks could have credit cards with an offshore bank — if he even uses credit cards. She says he could have a passport from one of the Third World countries that sells citizenship, and he could have his agent send his money to a dummy corporation or an offshore account that is listed under an assumed name.

She guesses he could have registered a car under a pseudonym. As for a driver's license, you can buy a book from Amazon.com on how to create that and other forms of identification on your home computer.

Most important, she says, Twelve Hawks, in all probability, would have needed his secret life in place before the 9/11 attacks tightened worldwide ID requirements.

His agent, Joe Regal, won't discuss financial arrangements. "But I'm not sending wire transfers to a bank in Dubai."

Regal, however, had no trouble selling the book to Doubleday.

"It came at a time when I was absolutely craving something that felt different and unique," Kaufman says. "I had been reading so many submissions and hadn't found anything I really loved. And obviously, in the wake of The Da Vinci Code, I was just looking for something that would be genuinely exciting to work on."

The story centers on two brothers, Michael and Gabriel Corrigan, who are Travelers. Like their father, they have the ability to travel between realms — although what these realms are, and where the Corrigan brothers go, is part of a growing mystery that Twelve Hawks and Doubleday plan to spread over a three-book series.

The Travelers, whose origins go back to ancient times, are protected from the marauding Tabula by another group of fighters known as the Harlequins. The Corrigan brothers have spent most of their lives "off the grid" in an attempt to outsmart the Tabula.

The novel's underlying theme is that we all are under the control of the "Vast Machine" — privately controlled and government-owned surveillance networks that can track our every move and action.

It feels a bit like the Big Brother of George Orwell's 1984, the government controls of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and the authoritarianism of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange.

"Those are good comparisons," Kaufman says. "But I tend to think of those books as classic science fiction, and I think of The Traveler as being a large-canvas thriller."

And what about comparisons with The Da Vinci Code? "The books are so different," Kaufman says. "But if the measuring stick is whether or not a novel is groundbreaking and exciting in a way that you haven't seen for a long time, then I would say absolutely."

Movie rights have been optioned to Universal, and Twelve Hawks has had e-mail and satellite phone conversations with scriptwriters. Doubleday is undertaking a major Internet presence for the book, including character blogs, games, interconnected Web sites (start with traveler-book.com) and a Q&A with the author.

Quite the marketing campaign for an author who, Regal says, told him: "The culture of celebrity destroys the value of ideas. ... The point is to make me invisible."

[SFjohnny]

wow, hella research. I'm not sure that I buy it thought. I think Twelve Hawks is the editor guy, just my thought.

[Chicken of the Sea]

Interesting article. Thanks for posting that. Is it really possible for people to live off the grid? For some reason i'm so fascinated with that whole concept. Do you think there's any connection to Dan Brown?

[bootsie]

Looks like Shakefire's got a contest going to win the book:
http://www.shakefire.com/contests/thetraveler.html

I think it's over today...I am gonna make sure I enter for it...Seems like a good read!

[Chicken of the Sea]

Darn! I missed the contest! I found this news article the other day which I thought was pretty interesting given all the issues that are raised in the book.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/10/25/national/w165817D09.DTL

[bootsie]

Wow. Sounds like they bring a lot of real life stuff into the book. Ok...time to go to the bookstore this weekend and pick it up.

[Chicken of the Sea]

Let me know what you think of it!