Jumper

By: Steven Gould

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews

What if you could go anywhere in the world, in the blink of an eye? Where would you go? What would you do

Davy can teleport. To survive, Davy must learn to use and control his power in a world that is more violent and complex than he ever imagined. But mere survival is not enough for him. Davy wants to find others like himself, others who can Jump.

©1992 Steven Gould (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"An exceptionally well-organize debut, with thoughtful ideas, a controlled plot, and characters-particularly the young protagonist-portrayed with insight and compassion." ( Kirkus)

"Gould's warm, delightful, and compulsively readable novel dispalys assured storytelling skill." ( Publishers Weekly)

I READ A LOT

I SHRUGGED
The concept of the story is unique. The writing never falls into the boring range. The main character reads a lot and though very young, has a complex vocabulary and seems more mature then his age.
I gave it only three stars, as I did not like the direction the story went or some of the inconsistencies to the characters. Two Thirds of the way into the book, it became a super hero story. I am not a fan of Super Heroes. There was no consequence for jumping. Usually in a book like this, there is a price to pay for the power and the price paid usually adds to the story and how often the character wields his power. The main character jumps willy nilly all the time. In America we do not show people being blown up. The main character's mom leaves her twelve year old boy with an abusive husband. The kid steals a million dollars from the bank with no plans for paying them back. His girlfriend has a problem with him stealing from a bank, but not from Disney World.

I also believe Gould had problems figuring out if he was writing an adult book or a teen book. It read different ways at different times.

All in all it is not a bad book, but I will spend my money on better.

Great Story

What did you like best about this story?

I enjoyed the story line... Kept me interested for the whole book! read it 3 times. Listened to it once.

Entertaining Coming of Age Story

Reminded me of Spiderman. Instead of “Spidy” powers, the hero teleports to fight badies and other do-gooder activities. Also similar to Spiderman, David Rice (aka, the main character) has a bit of a temper which leads to rash actions and sometimes mean spirited pranks on those who provoke him. He is also viewed with suspicion by the authorities who are determined to catch him. And yes, like Spidy, he has girlfriend troubles.

Highly entertaining with action and angst

My teenage son listened to Jumper first and kept telling me "This is so good, this is so good!" I enjoyed every minute of Jumper, from the beginning where Davey discovers and explores his ability to teleport to the end where he uses his talent in attempts to exact revenge on those who have wronged him.

The author does a wonderful job of portraying Davy as a teenager, with the fears, anger and moodiness of a teen. The character makes impulsive, emotional decisions based on his mood, which he later regrets. There's a love story, some political intrigue and lots of action packed twists and turns throughout the book. It was fascinating to listen to Davy experimenting with the limits of his talent.

MacLeod Andrews did an excellent job at portraying the moods of Davy, speeding up the cadence of his narration during the action scenes and putting genuine emotion into Davy's voice when he is upset. I rarely "noticed" his narration- it was never distracting- as I would instantly become absorbed in the story, which is, in my opinion, the sign of a good narrator. MacLeod excels at voicing realistic fear and anger in Davy's voice.

I definitely recommend this book to young adults and adults, and I will definitely listen the Steven Gould's other books in the series.

Ah, to be young and jumping again ...

Seeing the movie first, which diverges from this storyline quite a bit, made me interested to see how the original author treated this subject. The result is an interesting, if sometimes tedious fantasy that resolves around one teen's ability to teleport. I say "fantasy" because there's never any real explanation behind the protagonist's ability to jump, and "teen" because this story seems best suited to adolescent males. While I enjoyed the story, I can only hope that Gould's oddly juvenile characterization of the young jumper was in some way cathartic. Between crying at every relational encounter, lashing-out at obvious bully archetypes, and depicting young love as a series of clingy-stalky-jealous interactions, I couldn't help but wonder whether these we're the author's repressed childhood memories or if he was only 15 when this book was written.

Way, way better than the movie

If you could sum up Jumper in three words, what would they be?

intriguing, dark, adventurous

Who was your favorite character and why?

Davey- he's the main character, the entire book is based around him. plus....err.... he kind of has the ability to teleport. How cool is that?

Which scene was your favorite?

Davey teleporting NSA agents to different parts of the world because essentially the gov. wants to control him, and the stated hypocrisy of the United States government.
It's nice to hear about someone having the power to make an agency responsible for its actions & responsible for its hypocrisy , even if that character is fictional.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No extreme reactions like that. Just the overall thought of... wow the movie got censored a lot. And i think mainly by the US government. I would guess they didn't want one of their own agencies coming across that badly.
I now wonder how much involvement the US government has in publication & editing of movies.

Any additional comments?

I originally though to myself, hey i've seen the movie, i can move forward from book 2 onwards. However this book is just so much better than the movie. (As is often the case actually) The movie has the concept, yet they've changed so many things making it available 'for a general audience'
The book has some much darker sections in it, made for young adults that are not sheltered from society. It's definitely not the impression that the gov. wants to have you believe.
The book is full of emotion, intrigue and adventure, the concept is great, and sets a good premise for the other books in the series.

Love this story!

This story was infinitely better than that pathetic attempt at a movie. The plot was rich and full, even though plane hijackings don’t happen like they used to, this plot made sense. I love all Steven Gould’s books about his jumpers!

Enjoyable, different from the movie

The movie is what eventually directed my attention here. I was intrigued by the premise of a boy discovering he could teleport, but the execution of the movie left me underwhelmed. I was interested in the source material, since it was highly likely it would be better. Which is definitely true, but I found out the movie hardly follows the book at all. The book is much more character driven, with a lot more development of David's character, following him as he discovers his ability and how his life progresses. It is not a high action thriller, especially the first half, but in the second half we do see an escalation. A lot of the book, David's power isn't really the main focus - instead we are following the story of a teenage runaway in NYC who happens to have the ability to teleport, though I have to admit "jumping" definitely skews the end result in his favor.

Overall, I was suitably impressed with this book. While I find David a bit whiny at times, he seems very realistic for his situation, and his life is interesting to follow, even if it's not the danger-around-every-corner type of gripping tale. The narrator did a great job, and I'm glad I took the chance to read this.

Excellent story

This is a great story. I enjoyed very much. Narrator did a wonderful job. Looking forward to hearing more. I recommend this to everyone.

Loved it!

read the book 3 times over the years, and finally listen to the Audiobook version. Was not disappointed!