I read three fabulous books this summer:
The Dark River by John Twelve Hawks,
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, and last--but not least--
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Most people think George Orwell wrote
the terrifying book on dystopian novels and people will always nervously wonder if big brother is watching through a screen in their living room; however,
The Dark River by John Twelve Hawks brings terrifying dystopian ideas to new levels.
The Dark River, sequel to
The Traveler (the first book in the Fourth Realm Trilogy) has something that all classic dystopian novels are missing, the surveillance technology is REAL! What is not already in place is either in production or fighting its way to production. You can literally go onto his website and waste many hours reading articles about the chips to be placed on humans containing medical records so eerily similar to tracking tags in dogs, and the reality of the RFID technology in your credit cards. But it gets creepier, not only is all the technology based off of foreseeable truths, the actual book takes place here, on this planet in this current time frame with places described exactly as they appear. Being an LA native, when he writes about Los Angeles I remember the exact buildings, streets and landmarks he writes off… it is utterly unnerving!
This book is quite possibly one of the most bone chilling books one could ever read! If you love books like I do, you will be up until two a.m. with its gripping plot and captivating characters and then drudge tiredly around the next day wearing dark sunglasses and a baseball cap, dodging any surveillance cameras in sight. These books will make you so paranoid that everyday on your drive home when you pass the closed circuit television cameras hovering on a post next to the road you will shield your face for months to see if you attract any attention… (you don’t in case you were wondering). But the good that comes when the paranoia subsides (or at least temporarily dulls down), at least for me, is that I pay more attention to all the ways we are being tracked and all the places where freedom is being taken away and have created opinions and modified my behaviors to my own benefit (hopefully) within a reasonable means. I have discovered that as much as I may love all the perks of living in the digital age, all the
Gattaca-esque technology terrifies and delights me to no end.
But beyond all the paranoia of the vast machine, Twelve Hawks takes you into the reality within our own society and still makes you wonder about what it means to be human, what is love, is there a heaven and hell, and are there realities beyond our own or is this just it, earth, the fourth realm. I, personally, am constantly reevaluate my beliefs and emotions to make sure that, even though I live within the Vast Machine, I can love, breathe and dream below the radar, thanks to the elusive John Twelve Hawks. (524)
