I have it on good authority that this book was made into the worst movie ever (hi Rachel!), but this is a quiet and strangely affecting little story. Far from being a tale about Hayden Christensen stomping around like a petulant jerk and fighting the Paladins (screenwriters, are you even trying anymore?), it's a story of a young man coming to terms with the alcoholism, abandonment and abuse that characterized his childhood.

The jumping, or instantaneous teleportation, is a nice example of a scif More...

First things first: if you're planning to see the recently-released Jumper movie, for the love of God don't read the book first.

That's not a slight against the book at all; if anything, it's a slight against the film. Because it sucks. Steven Gould's original novel however, is very very good.

Jumper is a sci-fi novel, sort of. It revolves around David Rice, a teenager who suddenly discovers his latent ability to teleport while being beaten by his abusive father. He decides to run away from home, More...

It all began when David Rice was seventeen years old and was being abused by his father. Then it was immediately followed when he was almost raped after he ran away from their house. He knew it was teleporting, but he preferred to call it jumping and he considered himself from then as … a Jumper.

Though he knows that he will be alone in the street, he is still willing to pursue running away from his alcoholic father. He is determined to find his mother. But how when the world as if turned its bac More...

This book is definitely a favorite. Jumper is a tale of David Rice, who realizes his special ability to "jump" from one place to another, and his trials of life. It begins with his first jump, after escaping a drunkard dad, and describes his journey through New York as a 17 year old with nothing but the money he came with.

As the story progresses, more conflicts arise, from a relationship to advoiding the grasp of the government, and then it all brings about changes to David, with more clarity More...

I read this as a young teen and was impressed by both the grittiness and the realism of the main character's world. A movie came out recently that was based on this book, but I was almost offended by the movie version because it did such a crap job of capturing that "everyday life of an extraordinary person" feeling that the book did so well.

The main character is a teen who discovers he has teleportation powers and starts using them to make a life for himself. What's nice is he actually does th More...

I had heard that this book is better than the movie, but after seeing the movie--which was awful!--I just couldn't bring myself to read this. Especially with its incredibly lame cover. (I've seen at least four different covers for this book and all of them suck.) However, I finally did read this book and it turns out that it's actually quite good! The main character is a seventeen-year-old who discovers he can teleport. He doesn't know why, he doesn't know how, he just knows he can. He uses this More...

One of my favorite books of all time. It's a study of a kid getting the ability to teleport, and for all he knows, he is the only person with powers on earth. This book fully explores all the potential good and bad that comes with this power. You follow a character as his life is changed and he finds his place in the world. I cannot praise this book enough, and unfortunately they are ruining it into a movie.

This is a well written, interesting book that will definitly give you lots to think about. What if you could jump(teleport) anywhere that you'd been before just by thinking about it? Where would you go? What would you do? The possibilities are endless and that was the main reason I liked this book, it got me thinking.

Published in the early 90's Jumper is now slightly dated but this doesn't deter from a good story, you just have to try and remember a time before cell phones, computers and the in More...

I went and saw this movie and was really underwhelmed. It had a good idea behind it but it seemed like it was too smooshed, like there was too much back story and explanation they hadn't been able to adequately fit into the movie. So I got the book. My dad and sister thought I was crazy since the movie was so mediocre, but I really wanted to see what the story was REALLY supposed to say. Boy was I surprised.

This book is NOTHING Like the movie! If you liked the movie, don't read this book it will More...

I saw the movie (which I otherwise hadn't been particularly interested in seeing) on an airplane last summer and although I only found the movie to be fair (at best), I was intrigued enough to find the book the movie was (very loosely) based on.

The book is much better than the movie (which fairly quickly diverges in plot from the original source material) and I was slightly surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did. Written in 1992, there are parts of it which are quite interesting to view in the More...

I love Love LOVE this book! I first read it when it FIRST came out in 1992 and I've read it at least 4-5 times since then.

So, when they announced there'd be a movie, I was exstatic! Then they started publicizing changes. Changes? Why!? It's PERFECT just the way it is. Regardless, I went to see it the premier weekend, on Feb 16, 2008. Grrrr I left steamed! I saw a very few movies in theatres in 2008 -- Jumper made me mad, The Mist had me frothing at the mouth and I predicted the end to The Happen More...

This is a young adult book classified as sci-fi. The protaganist has the ability to teleport. The movie coming out will dwell on the high action sequences from the book. What makes this book unique, however, is that the character's teleportation is used to resolve a lot of his anger and rage. He has an abusive alcoholic father and an mother who deserted him. He is a deeply troubled teen who learns to resolve his problems. This book was on the top banned books when it was first published. There i More...

I love the idea of this book, but I do not love the book itself. There seemed to be so much potential, but so much of this book was crap. I loved how Davey jumped places and other nifty things that happened, but man there was so many emo issues. I can't tell you how many times this kid friggen cried during this book. It was overwhelming. He would cry at the tiniest thing, it was annoying. I think I'm a crybaby sometimes but I am NOTHING compared to this character. Also, the plot went in some wei More...

Do not mistake this for a young-adult mystical adventure. This book has bite, it follows the tenants of classic 50's science fiction, and it is about ideas that are explored through people.

First off, the GOOD...

Jumper is grounded in the real world. The teleporting ability the character discovers is certainly without explanation or plausible reason, but the method David explores his newfound ability is rooted in the scientific method and we find ourselves paying rapt attention step-by-step. The s More...

This review was originally posted at http://francesandlynne.wordpress.com/...

“Anywhere, anytime.”
Davy, Jumper by Steven Gould

I’d just like to note, before I review Jumper by Steven Gould, that I have read the 2008 version, not the original 1992 version. According to Amazon, this version of the book was rewritten to coincide with the film. Which is strange to me because I did not think the book followed the movie that closely. Elements were in both the book and the movie of course, but the whole More...

This is a really good book. I can see why it was adapted into a movie. The movie bungled the job, but don't blame the book.

I have to start by saying that this book has aged weirdly. It was written in 1992, so the characters in it don't have cell phones...or email...and write letters. And he's got a massive 24" television that he bought with his ill-gotten gains. Huge. And the twin towers are there. It's just sort of a surreal look into how the world worked twenty years ago. I suppose that this i More...

This book didn't go where I thought it would, but maybe that's appropriate given the theme!

What would life be like for a modern-day teleporting young adult? In this book, we follow Davy through adventures with criminals, banks, travel, terrorists, and a girlfriend. We never really figure out how or why he has this mysterious power, nor how it fits into the otherwise mundane physics of his world, but neither does he. Perhaps the hints that are mentioned are more fully explored in the later books More...

This book starts with a battered young boy, Davy, living with his abusive father. Until one day, while being beaten, he teleports to his town's library. He returns home and continues to cope with his father for a little while, before running away. After running away, he gets assaulted, which makes him teleport again, but this time, he figures out how to teleport when he wants to. This opens up endless possibilities for Davy to do whatever he wants whenever he wants to. Davy is faced with the wor More...

Obviously, based on the stars, I didn't like this. Why? Well, part of it was that I saw the movie first. And I LIKED the movie. The movie was a decent action flick, with an okay (not great) love story - albeit one where the hero and the heroine jumped each others' bones mostly based on nothing more than each other's good looks - and some fun characters.

The book... it was about a kid who, up to the midpoint, mostly just discusses (ad nauseum) his messed up father, his messed up childhood, his mes More...

Written In The 1990S By American Author Steven Gould, Jumper Is The Inspiration For The Film Of The Same Name To Be Released In Feb 08 And Starring Samuel L Jackson. It Tells The Story Of Davy Rice, Played By Hayden Christensen, As He Escapes His Tortured Childhood To Explore The World Via Teleportation And Find His Long Lost Mother. At Seventeen The World Is At Your Feet& Especially If You Can Teleport. David Rice Barely Remembers His Mother. She Left His Alcoholic Father When Davy Was Very

More...

Jumper is an amazing book and I recommend it to all sci-fi fans. If you watched the movie, yes, I comment on that at the end.

This book really acts as two.

In the first half is about him escaping his abusive father and running away from home. It explains how he survives and the troubles he encountered after running away. This includes why jumping made him better at surviving as a runaway than your average kid. He takes a while to get over this and you see inside the mind of a 17 year old rationali More...

Let's see. It was really interesting and the concept of being able to jump anywhere you want as long as you can picture it in your mind's eye was terrific. I would love to have that power. There will be no need for airplane fees and I can go to concerts, book signings, and events without a problem! I can also go to malls all around the world. In fact, I can even put up a job that involves no stealing; I'll be the middle man (or woman in my case) for products. For example, you want this bag from More...

This is much better than the movie of course, as expected. The first half of Jumper reads like a coming of age tale of a young man dealing with abuse from an alcoholic father, abandonment by his mother, the issues and trials associated with being a runaway, and learning to trust and love someone all over again. The science fiction aspect comes through him discovering how to use his ability to teleport, called "jumping". There are some ambiguous moral choices made, as well as some altruistic view More...

This was originally posted on my blog (http://readinghammock.blogspot.com)

After watching the movie “Jumper”, based on Steven Gould’s novel, I decided to read it so that I could explore which medium better conveys the unusual plotline. “Jumper” is a story about a seventeen year old boy named David Rice, who discovers he can “jump” away from his drunken, abusive father to seek sanctuary at the local library. Since David can move from one place to another, to wherever he desires, he runs away from More...

My wife recommended this to me as one of her sf favorites when we were dating and it really captured my fancy. (She's nearly batting 1000 in her recommendations.) It's been marketed in both adult and young adult editions--I read a mass market paperback and except that the protagonist being 17 at the start, it never felt like a YA book. If you enjoy the superpower debate over flight vs invisibility, the book gives you an alternative to mull over and fill your daydreams.

There have been sequels an More...

Jumper by Stephen Gould isn’t the kind of book I’d normally recommend. It’s unabashedly a “boy” book, with stark prose stylings that are crisp in their efficiency but not particularly artful and a focus, in its long second half, on militaristic events that would normally leave me cold.

But Jumper is also much more than that—at its deepest, it’s a story of grief, of overcoming and processing abuse. And it addresses its young audience respectfully, never demurring from difficult emotional realities More...

I had heard about this one through some daytime show of all places. Since it had Hayden Christensen and Samuel L. Jackson of Star Wars fame, I figured I would check it out. As always (or at least most of the time), I started with the book upon which it is based.
David Rice is not your typical teenager. Besides being the victim of a drunken, abusive father, David learns he can teleport--which comes in handy as he avoids the seedy side of life. David uses this skill to leave his father for good, es More...

Davey finds that he can instantly transport himself from one place to another. He calls it “jumping” and uses it to escape his abusive home and begin again in New York. The book follows Davey’s adventures as he deals with his past, gets a girlfriend, and jumps from place to place. He looks for other “jumpers” too, but that’s more of a minor plotline.

The characters were all very believable and while there was never a real explanation of why Davey could jump, the plot was fascinating enough that i More...

The classic science-fiction novel, Jumper, by Steven Gould, depicts the life of one man, David Rice. From his birth, David had been blessed with special powers. These powers, however, aren't just special they are extraordinary, giving him the power to jump dimensions and travel from one end of the globe to the other in less than one millisecond. As we are first introduced to the protagonist, David Rice, he comes of as an extraordinary child. He was extraordinary in a negative sense. He grew up More...

3.5/5; 4 stars; B+

I really debated how to rate this book. I was tempted to go to 3 stars because I didn't like it as much as I hoped, but on the other hand, I suspect it was because the author did such a good job of developing this wounded, sympathetic protagonist who I wanted to just SHAKE, repeatedly so I went with 4 stars.

I enjoyed Jumper as a fast moving, complex (kind of confusing) urban fantasy. The book is not really a classical urban fantasy in the sense of supernatural beings. Its not More...