How did I not know about this book? When Impulse (book 3 in the series) came out I was (virtually) lining up for it, but this one passed me by until earlier this week.
The Jumper series is about a family with the ability to teleport anywhere they've been and can visualize clearly. It started with Jumper, where Davy Rice jumping for the first time to avoid an unpleasant situation, then added his wife Milly in the second book, Reflex, and their daughter Cent in Impulse. There's a good short story between books 2 and 3 called Shade.
The first book read like an instruction manual on what to do if you suddenly found yourself with the ability to teleport. Everything is thought out and well explored, with a bad guy thrown in more to give the novel shape than anything else (IMO). It was turned into a lackluster movie that you should all ignore.
Each book after that has introduced a logical follow-up question and extrapolation of that simple teleport power. Book 2 gave us twinning, the act of jumping between two places so quickly that you create a tunnel between the two. Twin from a snowy mountaintop to a tropical beach and you leach cold from one and heat from the other until the two sides equalize (actually I suspect the beach air, being at higher air pressure, would blast out on the mountain end). Book 3 was my favorite extrapolation: When a jumper teleports from one place on the earth to another they appear standing in their former position. But that means they somehow have to account for the fact that different parts of the world are spinning at different speeds. Jump from a plane in the air to the ground and you're cancelling out a few hundred miles an hour and aligning yourself with the surface of the earth.
Other books might have left this as magic and dropped it. While the series doesn't ever explain how jumping is done, Cent (the daughter) figures that if she can unconsciously add and subtract momentum she should be able to do it consciously.
While their powers are never explained (because their powers basically are magic), the exploration of what that all means, and what it would allow a person to do, are delightful to read.
In Exo Cent takes her ability to (basically) fly, and starts her own space program. The book reads like an instruction manual for what to do if you can move at any speed in any direction without needing to care about conservation of energy.
It's all hard science from there though, tackling orbital mechanics and cutting edge space suit design, inflatable space stations and space junk. This is a hard SF book hiding behind a YA fantasy and it's great.
Cons:
The series bad guys are almost an afterthought and are dealt with accordingly, in a way that makes me think he's wrapping up the series (which would be unfortunate).
The world at large learns that jumpers exist and just shrugs, which seems unlikely.
The Rice family are all perfect. While this allows us to experience all that cool extrapolation and adventure better than we would if they were annoyingly normal, it should probably be in the cons section.
And.... That's it.
I have a feeling that the series is wrapping up (or has with Exo), but I hope not. I'd love to see what happens next and if the jumpers have any more cool things to show us.
Go buy it, and hopefully Tor will force him (at gunpoint) to write more of these.
PS: There is one other Jumper book, Griffin's Story, about a character in the Jumper movie. It isn't part of the series but it's a fun read anyway (and better than the movie).
The Jumper series is about a family with the ability to teleport anywhere they've been and can visualize clearly. It started with Jumper, where Davy Rice jumping for the first time to avoid an unpleasant situation, then added his wife Milly in the second book, Reflex, and their daughter Cent in Impulse. There's a good short story between books 2 and 3 called Shade.
The first book read like an instruction manual on what to do if you suddenly found yourself with the ability to teleport. Everything is thought out and well explored, with a bad guy thrown in more to give the novel shape than anything else (IMO). It was turned into a lackluster movie that you should all ignore.
Each book after that has introduced a logical follow-up question and extrapolation of that simple teleport power. Book 2 gave us twinning, the act of jumping between two places so quickly that you create a tunnel between the two. Twin from a snowy mountaintop to a tropical beach and you leach cold from one and heat from the other until the two sides equalize (actually I suspect the beach air, being at higher air pressure, would blast out on the mountain end). Book 3 was my favorite extrapolation: When a jumper teleports from one place on the earth to another they appear standing in their former position. But that means they somehow have to account for the fact that different parts of the world are spinning at different speeds. Jump from a plane in the air to the ground and you're cancelling out a few hundred miles an hour and aligning yourself with the surface of the earth.
Other books might have left this as magic and dropped it. While the series doesn't ever explain how jumping is done, Cent (the daughter) figures that if she can unconsciously add and subtract momentum she should be able to do it consciously.
While their powers are never explained (because their powers basically are magic), the exploration of what that all means, and what it would allow a person to do, are delightful to read.
In Exo Cent takes her ability to (basically) fly, and starts her own space program. The book reads like an instruction manual for what to do if you can move at any speed in any direction without needing to care about conservation of energy.
It's all hard science from there though, tackling orbital mechanics and cutting edge space suit design, inflatable space stations and space junk. This is a hard SF book hiding behind a YA fantasy and it's great.
Cons:
The series bad guys are almost an afterthought and are dealt with accordingly, in a way that makes me think he's wrapping up the series (which would be unfortunate).
The world at large learns that jumpers exist and just shrugs, which seems unlikely.
The Rice family are all perfect. While this allows us to experience all that cool extrapolation and adventure better than we would if they were annoyingly normal, it should probably be in the cons section.
And.... That's it.
I have a feeling that the series is wrapping up (or has with Exo), but I hope not. I'd love to see what happens next and if the jumpers have any more cool things to show us.
Go buy it, and hopefully Tor will force him (at gunpoint) to write more of these.
PS: There is one other Jumper book, Griffin's Story, about a character in the Jumper movie. It isn't part of the series but it's a fun read anyway (and better than the movie).
RSS Feed
