Alex Tse is set to write a new science fiction series called the Fourth Realm Trilogy, a trilogy of books written by the reclusive and unknown author John Twelve Hawks ( / ). The first book, called The Traveller, and has some interesting concepts and was a huge success.

That success is also down to the highly reclusive author who is unknown to the editors and hides from the monitoring of everyday life. He even communicates using phone scramblers and satellite phones, and using stand-ins at book tours.

The story is set in an America that behind everything we know an organisation is in control of all the information and surveillance and small groups of people are rebelling against this organisation. These groups are led by people called Travellers, people who can project themselves into other dimensions, leaving their body in this world.

These Travellers are sought out, trained and protected by people called Harlequins. The secret organisation wants to destroy both the Harlequins and the Travellers in order to continue to restrict and control humanity, as well as to use the Travellers to connect to other dimensions for their own means.

The Traveller follows the daughter of a Harlequin who has shunned her true calling to live a “normal” life, but when her father is murdered she reluctantly takes up the role she was destined to play and seeks out two Traveller brothers who are just beginning to find out who they are, and one is being courted by a darker force.

It’s an interesting book, and at the end it sets itself up for the start of a great trilogy that could really be something epic. I remember ending it and wanting to get hold of the sequel immediately, unfortunately it hadn’t yet been released.

I’d recommend reading The Traveller, and I think it’s a great sign that Alex Tse is set to adapt the story into a film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. For a taste of Tse, think Watchmen (Filmstalker review).

For me that comparison is a strong one, for there was a sense of not making Watchmen something fantastical but trying to keep it grounded and feeling real, even though it does turn fantastical at times, and that’s a sense I feel should be very strong in the film series, as it is in the story.