The Traveller

This is one of those books that I hated by the first sentence. Maybe it would have helped if there were no foreword by the author, explaining the book.

He is a surveillance paranoid, which is a disease I don't share. It ranks close to flat earthers and conspiracy theorists for me. It is fine to worry about being monitored all the times, but there is a clear distinction of when that becomes irrational.

That flaw in logic shapes the persons view of the world. And it is a very distorted perspective. In every paragraph it is made clear how much of himself the characters reflect. It is too much. There is no nuance, everyone is out to get you, all the people who don't see that are sheeps.

But that is not the reason I stopped reading. In the 25 minutes I listened, besides the paranoia, there were only talk about weapons, and how important it is for the main character to be armed and ready to kill all the time. This gives a strong hint of a action heavy book, which is never a good thing for me.

Read 0:25/15:32 3%

Is this a work of fiction - or does it expose the truth of our Surveillance Society?

But seriously, while this novel is entertaining, some of the details presented are all too real - and scary. How is society changed as we transition to an era where every action is logged, recorded, tracked, and correlated? Is there a chilling effect, stifling dissent and discussion, just because nothing is truly private and the inmates/citizens never know if the Vast Machine is watching?

By reading this book, did i just get put on a list of subversives that need to be watched?

This is the closest thing I've found to razor-sharp vision of the present/future that Neal Stephenson and William Gibson have envisioned for decades. Imagine if Y.T. from [b:Snow Crash 830 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157396730s/830.jpg 493634] was a sword-wielding protector of a man who could cross the barriers between our world and parallel worlds? Now throw in heavy dose of Big Brother and super-surveillance or our hyper-connected “homeland security” post-9/11 workd and you have a vision of the dystopian reality of today through the eyes and imagination of John Twelve Hawks. Genius.Currently re-reading this as an audiobook. Fantastic!!!