With a mix of 1984, The Matrix, and Illusions this trilogy could be epic if done right.Let's start with the author, John Twelve Hawks, who is shrouded in mystery.

His die hard fans call him J12H or JXIIH.He lives "off the grid"--no bank account, and no fixed home.The editor of the books has never met him.John only talks to people using a voice scrambler.

What's even crazier is John Twelve Hawks is not his real name.Now that you understand a bit about the person who wrote it, you are probably wondering what the hell the story is about.

As I don't think i could do a good job describing it, here is a Wikipedia excerpt:The book is set in the new future and lays out a world where the real power lies not with people or governments, but in the hands of a secret organization who call themselves “the Brethren” but who their enemies refer to as “the Tabula”.

The Tabula are a centuries old secret society who believe in the importance of control and stability, making them in essence advocates of a kind of extreme Utilitarianism.

Influenced by the ideas of the philosopher Jeremy Bentham the Tabula wish to enforce a Virtual Panopticon: a society where all individuals become so accustomed to being watched and monitored that they act at all times as if they were being observed and are as such completely controllable.This Virtual Panopticon is made possible through the use of surveillance cameras, centralized databases, RFID-like tags for each citizen, and assorted spy gear (heat sensors, infrared cameras, X-rays, etc...).

The Tabula are a relatively small group, operate largely in secret, but they have great power across the planet, in part by manipulating politicians and other powerful individuals/organization, and in part because of their great wealth and advanced technology, which is in some cases far beyond the technology available to other groups and even governments.The underlying premise for the realms in which this book is set greatly resembles the cosmology of Tibetan Buddhism (and other eastern cosmologies).

Most notably, the second realm is explicitly labelled the realm of the Hungry Ghosts, but each realm in the enumerated hierarchy is associated with a given human shortcoming, much like in Hinduism and Buddhism.

The world we inhabit is the fourth realm, and different Travelers can visit one or more of the other realms.Although the basic plot is not new, the author provides a setting for discussion of larger issues, such as free will, the rapid increase in public surveillance and information gathering, the culture of fear, etc.

While the motivations of the Tabula are explored in the book, this is kept at a rather superficial and crude level.

Individual members are generally portrayed as either power hungry, psychopathic or deeply prejudiced, and the Tabula are set up as villains set to enslave humanity rather than misguided humanitarians.The author has written a post-script at the end of the book in which he talks about his reasons for writing the novel and discusses, among other things, the development in western countries regarding surveillance (such as CCTV), data-mining, RFID and GPS, the Information Awareness Office, etc.

He claims that all of the technology referred to in the book is either already being used or in the advanced stage of development.More info on what a Traveler is:The Travelers are individuals with a special gift, often but not always inherited, which allows them to detach from their bodies and journey through elemental barriers (water, fire etc) to other realms.

They do this by detaching their “l(fā)ight” (internal energy seemingly analogous to the soul but found by the Tabula to be empirically measurable) from their body.

Travelers’ experiences and gifts (they can view the world around them with greater speed and clarity than normal people) can lend them great charisma, wisdom and vision.

Many Travelers become religious prophets, or opponents of the Tabula, and the random element they add to societies makes them enemies of the Tabula who have hunted them almost to extinction.Those samples are just the world and not even the story.

A few of my concerns are that some of the concepts might be too abstract for mainstream audiences.

The Matrix did a brilliant job of making deep philosophical ideas palatable to regular flick goers.

It's going to take a brilliantly adapted script to make this flick ring true for its fans.

據(jù)悉，華納公司已經(jīng)買下美國暢銷科幻作家約翰·圖維爾·霍克斯(John Twelve Hawks)的經(jīng)典科幻小說三部曲《the Fourth Realm Trilogy》的版權，首部曲《旅行者》（The Traveler）將被率先改編成電影。一個月前，《好萊塢報道者》曾發(fā)布消息說，福克斯獲得了霍克斯三部曲的改編權，看來真正搶到這塊肥肉的是華納。

約翰·圖維爾·霍克斯本人和他的作品一樣神秘，這位天才的科幻作家是一位至今沒有露面的隱居者，他沒有信用卡，沒有駕照，沒有任何能夠讓人確定其真實身份的信息。他的作品被出版《達芬奇密碼》的編輯意外發(fā)掘，首本小說《旅行者》甫一上市即榮登紐約時報暢銷排行榜，被譽為丹·布朗之后下一位重量級暢銷作家。但是霍克斯平常和外界往來只有透過網(wǎng)路和語音信箱，就連他的圖書編輯也從未謀面。

《旅行者》是一部混合著科幻和政治陰謀斗爭元素的小說，故事講述：

26歲的瑪雅，目前在倫敦一間設計公司工作。之前才被男朋友劈腿的她，正定期接受著心理醫(yī)生的面談──這一切歸因于父親在童年時期對她的“教育”與“期待”，她與父親已經(jīng)兩年沒見面了……乍聽之下，感覺是一般家庭都會有的煩惱，但是瑪雅的問題可不一樣！

瑪雅出生于歷史悠久的“哈里昆”家庭──背負著特殊使命的“戰(zhàn)士”一族。自12歲起，她便被迫學習各種武器的使用方法與殺人技巧；以及必須保護“旅行者”一族──他們能夠跨越三維的世界，取得影響人類的重大啟發(fā)，數(shù)百年來一直暗地促成世界的改變……然而，隨著時代變遷，“旅行者”的數(shù)量逐漸減少，如今幾乎已經(jīng)不存在了。

某天瑪雅收到了父親的來信，并且告訴她已經(jīng)掌握到世上僅存的“旅行者”消息─是洛杉磯一對年輕的雙胞胎兄弟。父親告訴她必須在兩人覺醒之前找到對方，以免企圖利用他們能力的不法組織毀滅人類世界。對于讓自己不能過正常生活的‘旅行者’一族，瑪雅心中抱持著懷疑，卻又有一股使命感指引著她。面對接連發(fā)生的恐怖攻擊，她該挺身而出挑戰(zhàn)邪惡勢力、幫助“旅行者”改變世界；或是，讓“旅行者”的傳說在此終結……

從故事簡介就可以看出，這是一部混合著科幻和政治陰謀斗爭元素的小說，充滿了反烏托邦的氣息，不僅讓人聯(lián)想到剛剛上映就刷新了多項票房記錄的《饑餓游戲》，因此華納也很有信心，把霍克斯的科幻三部曲拍成一個備受年輕觀眾青睞的電影系列。而《饑餓游戲》的成功會刺激華納加快啟動《旅行者》制作的步伐。

霍克斯本人在最近的訪談中也對此事發(fā)表了自己的意見：“我很高興華納公司能獲得三部曲的改編權，因為這個公司曾經(jīng)制作過哈利波特系列等眾多經(jīng)典的奇幻電影，我也很期待看到三部曲被搬上銀幕……”