Big Brother is watching, that's basically what the whole book is about. Having read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, i was somewhat familiar with the we're-slaves-of-technology subgenre. They're similar in many ways, with the main characters as hero & heroines acting against the people in power, though The Traveler contains a much deeper and mystical history of the surreal yet probable scenarios. In many ways, the technology is already present in our everyday lives: data mining, RFID chips, CCTV, GPS etc.

The book enlightened me about things such as Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon. Like The Da Vinci Code, facts and altered realities intertwine to weave an intricate plot that i'm looking forward to continue to read in the sequels to the book.