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Better Late…: a Review of the Novel “Jumper”, by Steven Gould

Encouraged by a side-by-side comparison at the Onion A.V. Club , I picked up a copy of Jumper awhile back, adding it to … well, the “back of the queue" isn’t exactly accurate, more like “pile from which I pull books.” This debut novel finally got its turn recently, and I have to say I’m sorry that I took this long to try it. As Tasha Robinson said

I checked the book’s copyright date and found out it was more than 15 years old, which surprised me, and I read the first couple of pages out of curiosity. After that, I was hooked, and I burned through all three of Gould’s Jumper -related books in a week. And now I wish there were more of them.

(I haven’t read the other two yet, but I own the 2nd one and it probably is next on my list, alternating with Quicksilver when I need to give my brain a break…)

The story is only vaguely like the movie; David Rice has an abusive father, and he can teleport. The love interest is named Millie. Aaaaaaaannnd, yeah, that’s about it. Most of Jumper involves the author planting a seed (“intelligent, abused teen from a small town discovers that he can teleport just when he decides that his situation has become unbearable. Oh, and his mother left years ago.”), waters it, and then records a diary of the growth. As opposed to the movie, which jumps (a-ha-ha) from his early escape from his home to his life as an international man of mystery, the novel is content to show the problem-solving that this young man does, including the (many, many ) errors that he makes. The action in the middle of the book grows organically from the actions that he takes at the beginning, and the endgame is likewise on that continuum.

Gould manages to make me get over my distaste for 1st person narrative, which is saying something. His prose is impressionistic, small strokes of his pen that discreetly describe single ideas; taken as a whole, these strokes form a grander view of his characters. He’s not my favorite writer, but he’s definitely above average and he plots a mean story. If the premise of the film lured you in, but the actual flick didn’t do it for you, I highly recommend that you give Jumper , the novel, a go.

9Jul2008 | John | Comments Off | Continued