“And if it comes from someplace, where is that, and what’s happening there?” “I’m curious about where the energy comes from for jumping, for tearing holes open between various areas,” says Gould. The answer is yes, which only leads to more questions, and presumably more books. The fourth Jumper book, Exo, explores the question of whether jumping can be used to travel into outer space. Why do Davy’s clothes come with him when he jumps? What happens if he jumps while chained to a wall? What happens to his orbital velocity when he jumps from one latitude to another? The rules laid down in Jumper form the basis for much of what happens in subsequent novels. “Or, ‘This book let me get away, in a way that wasn’t physical, but it let me know there are other people who are having things happen that are comparable to mine, and that they got through them, and they survived, and they had a life afterward.'”Īnother thing that sets Jumper apart is the rigor and consistency with which it explores the idea of teleportation. (Aug.“I’ve had kids with abusive home lives email me and say, ‘This book saved my life,'” Gould says in Episode 116 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. His warm, delightful and compulsively readable novel displays assured storytelling skill. Short fiction has earned this author a reputation in ``hard'' science fiction, and he applies similar logic to teleportation (though he glosses over some points to make the story work).

David searches for his long-lost mother, meets and woos a girl, enjoys the pleasures of a leisurely life in New York and (despite his best efforts) eventually runs afoul of the authorities, who of course want to understand his powers and then put him to work for them. Gould does not focus on moral implications so much as keep the plot moving quickly. Having run away, he learns to control his strange talent, using it first to survive on the street and then to set himself up comfortably via bank robbery.

David Rice, age 17, first ``jumps'' spontaneously in order to escape his abusive father.

Gould gives us no teleportation chambers, no shimmery beaming a la Star Trek, no worries about mingling one's own molecules with a fly's-here only one person can teleport, and he has no idea how he does it. Gould makes an auspicious debut with this playful and moving look at a hallowed science fiction concept: teleportation.

Jumper by Steven Gould