The conclusion to a BRILLIANT trilogy, The Golden City was my least favourite of the series.

The first two were breathtakingly brilliant and this one was just okay.

There are two and a half reason why this one did not match up to the first two:

1) The story was not told from Maya's perspective nearly as much. The first two were told almost 90% from Maya's perspective and this one takes Maya almost out of the narrative and it is told from the perspective of the two brothers. Why this was done makes logical sense, but it was still jarring to the reader who has become accustomed to Maya's voice. And I missed her...Michael and Gabriel were not nearly as interesting...or as developed.

2) all the travelling to the other realms. The first two books don't really focus on the actual travelling, and they are more political thrillers than anything else. Than Golden City is alot of travelling and its a fantasy element that almost doesn't fit in. I found myself wanting to skip certain travel sequences....but I didn't.


3) the ending was rather anti-climactic and he needs to write a fourth book.

Twelve Hawks , John (2005). The Traveller. London: Corgi Books. 2006. ISBN 9781407071886. Pagine 498. 12,86 $

Twelve Hawks , John (2007). The Dark River. London: Corgi Books. 2008. ISBN 9781407038032. Pagine 515. 11,55 $

Twelve Hawks , John (2009). The Golden City. London: Transworld. 2010. ISBN 9781407056746. Pagine 370. 17,69 $

The Fourth Realm Trilogy

Un’altra recensione tardiva. Sono 3 libri che ho letto nell’estate del 2010, dopo essermi imbattuto nel primo della serie perché incuriosito da una citazione di Albert-László Barabási nel suo Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do (un altro libro letto e non recensito).

L’intera saga – che naturalmente t’acchiappa, ma non vale realmente la pena di leggere – è dominata dalla paranoia del Grande Fratello attraverso i secoli, e soprattutto nella nostra era di sorveglianza totale (dal Big Brother al Big Data). I membri di una società segreta vivono off-the-grid. Come l’autore dei tre romanzi, di cui in realtà non si sa nulla.

E persino io, di cui non si può certo affermare che non sia compulsivamente curioso, posso vivere benissimo senza.

* * *

Qualche citazione (riferimento come sempre alle posizioni sul Kindle).

Cominciamo da The Traveller.

At that moment, she was trying to control her anger and find the calm place within her heart. Think of a stone, her father used to tell her. A smooth black stone. Pull it out of a cold mountain stream and hold it in your hand. [2289]

Privacy had become a convenient fiction. [2856]

«Love is just another means of manipulation […]» [2923]

«Freedom is the biggest myth ever created. It’s a destructive, unachievable goal that has caused a great deal of pain. Very few people can handle freedom. A society is healthy and productive when it’s under control.» [3731]

«[…] History is a puppet show for childish minds.» [3927]

He wanted a road map, not philosophy. [4742]

«Every new experience is unusual. The rest of life is just sleep and committee meetings. […]» [5376]

«[…] The realms are dominated by a particular quality. In the Sixth Realm of the gods, the sin is pride. In the Fifth Realm of the half gods, the sin is jealousy. You need to understand that we’re not talking about God, the power that created the universe. According to the Tibetans, the gods and half gods are like human beings from another reality.»
«And we’re living in the Fourth Realm ….»
«Where the sin is desire.» Sophia turned and watched a king snake moving slowly down a conduit pipe. «The animals of the Third Realm are ignorant of all others. The Second Realm is inhabited by the hungry ghosts who can never be satisfied. The First Realm is a city of hate and anger, ruled by people without compassion. There are other names for this place: Sheol, Hades, Hell.» [5430]

[…] the appearance of freedom with the reality of control. [5910]

Passiamo a The Dark River.

Maya had watched the growing attraction between Hollis and Vicki. It was the first time she had ever noticed the evolution of two people who were falling in love. At first, their eyes followed each other when one of them got up from the table. Then they leaned forward slightly when the other person was talking. When they were apart, they spoke about the other person in a bubbly, foolish manner. [833]

Infine The Golden City.

«Even crazy people have enemies …» [1573]

«If the gods have left the stage, then it’s just the two of us.» Matthew stepped toward his son. «So who are you, Gabriel? And what kind of world do you want to live in? I’m not going to tell you what to believe. All I can do is guide you forward, and make sure you don’t turn away from your own vision.» [4588]

They were Styrofoam words — light and unsubstantial, packing materials to blunt the sharp edges. [4667]

«As ideas lose their power, stories and visual images become more and more important. Leaders offer competing stories, and this is what passes for political debate. […]» [5497]

«We can regret the past, but we can’t change what happened. We can anticipate the future, but we can’t control it. All we have is this moment—here in this room.» [5888]

«Privacy is the ability to control access to information about one’s Self. It’s easy to see that this invisible, all-pervasive system will destroy any sort of privacy. We’ll lose the power to protect our Self from the scrutiny of unknown groups or individuals. […]» [6700]

The first book in this series was amazing. The second book less so but still good. I’m afraid the third book ranks about the same as the second for my taste. It isn’t that I didn’t like the last book it is simply that neither of the later books measured up to the first. Do I regret committing so much time listening to them? Probably not. Would I do it again? No. That doesn’t mean I won’t check out other titles by this author, I have the feeling that I will find his non-fiction work fascinating.

This book picks up where the last one left off and I managed to listen to the second half of it in a marathon session this morning as I found myself with 7 hours left in my loan time to listen to 7 hours of book…. Nothing like procrastinating. Anyway, I discovered a brilliant feature in the Overdrive app, changing the speed in which a book is played. I ended up listening to those last 7 hours at 1.6 speed and finished three hours before the book was due. Have to say I might be listening to more audiobooks this way as it gave my mind less time to wander while the story was read. Because of said mind wandering I feel like I might have missed a lot of the first half of this book as I do not remember much of what happen…

The message that the author is trying to portray about our society is one that many of us need to hear. I fear there is probably a fine line in this story as to what is real and what is fiction. There was plenty of action as this book took place over a longer timeline than its two predecessors. The end felt like the story was left hanging with a few unresolved plot threads. There were some parts near the end that felt a bit forced in this book. In the end, though, I was simply glad it was over and am not interested in pursuing this world further. I’m glad I listened to it but I’m ready to move on.

Like another reviewer suggested definitely go and read the first book as it was brilliant, but as to the last two book…. If you have nothing better to do or listen to then sure why not.

Really - that's how you are going to end the story? Just leave things hanging like that? Not cool.

3.75 Not a bad book but not as good as the others. Wraps up nicely but it does leave the series open for more books.

A big let down for me. I loved the Traveler and was really looking forward to this but it really didn't read like the climax of a trilogy -especially one that ha taken so long to be published. I have been reading a lot of epic fantasy recently and perhaps I was expecting too much for a contemporary thriller like this but there was no real progression of plot or characters from previous novels.

I have been patiently waiting for for a big climax and loads of travelling between the various realms but we barely spend any time there (again perhaps I am looking for the extensive world building from the fantasy epics I have become used to).

This really should have been the climax to book one and have moved forward from the point the true battle with the Bretheren begins.

This installment also seemed to be missing the trademark matrix style hand to hand combat scenes that were another reasons I loved the Traveler. You could argue he series has moved on emotionally from that to explore the deeper themes of the vast machine and the compromise of personal freedoms but that is not really explored any more deeply. There was also the opportunity to reinforce the osmosis of the cultures of the other realms into our own and whilst some references are made to the origins of some legendary creatures these could have been done much more subtly and pervasively - again to accentuate the depth and breadth of the influence of the other realms.

For a modern thriller about surveillance culture and the "vast machine" Dean Koontz's Dark River does a better job and for that matter so does the Will Smith Film Enemy of the State.

For the theme of travelling between different versions of out world/alternative reality/different "realms" etc see Stephen King's Dark Tower series, The Talisman - also King with Peter Straub and ultimately Clive Barker's mind blowing Imajica.

In short this read like the "trailer to the golden city but was unfortunately all we have been given.Disappointing.

Disappointing end to an overall quite fun series. Those last 75 pages, though. Ugh.

Ehh, an alright end to an alright series. Not the worst, the ending is a little ambiguous for my taste, but whatever.