Author: Steven Gould
Publisher: Tor
Rating: WORTHY!
Errata:
P267 "...Though I'm stronger that I look..." should be "...Though I'm stronger than I look..."
P335 "...in plain site of everyone…" should be "...in plain sight of everyone…"
I reviewed Jumper, the first in this trilogy, here.
I reviewed Reflex the first sequel to Jumper here.
The only books by a Gould I'd read up to this point were by Stephen Gould (not Steven) and were all tied to biology, so this is a new experience! However, Gould is the author of the novel that gave, er, impulse to the movie Jumpers, so I'm not completely in alien territory. I love the movie, but have never read the novel behind it. I intend to rectify that after reading this one. There is also an interim novel between Jumpers and Impulse, titled Reflex. I plan on reading that, too. At first I thought this novel was in the same universe but with different characters, but once I began reading, it rapidly became clear that this is actually the third in a trilogy, with David (the jumper from Jumpers and his wife being the parents of Cent, who is the main character in this novel.
Cent is a young woman living in hiding in the deep snows of a Canadian winter. Her parents have jumped (teleported) more times than anyone else in this world. They like to buy food in one part of the world and jump it to the needy elsewhere. One day, snow-boarding when and where she shouldn't, Cent falls victim to an avalanche, and out of fear she jumps to her bedroom. This is the first time she has ever done this, and her mother quickly divines that Cent is now a jumper (although a late developer by the rules of Jumpers), and now that Cent has a bargaining chip to work with, she brow-beats her parents into letting her attend a regular public school so she can actually, for the first time in her life, meet people of her own age.
Millicent (her mom) and David buy a house in a little backwoods town prophetically named New Prospect where they can live in moderate isolation and where Cent can attend school. It was on Cent's first day at school that I fell in love with her. I know, it's shocking. She's way too young for me, but this is a purely literary love, so it's like, you know, all right, really? It was at that point at which I became addicted to this novel, and consequently a wreck, living in daily fear that Gould was going to screw me over with some bad plotting or something equally depression-era worthy. My fears were misplaced!
As if my deep, abiding love for Cent isn't appalling enough, I also fell in love with her two "uncool" friends at school, which is scandalous, but I can't help myself! My name is Ian Wood and I'm a 'cool supporting character' addict. It's been like, thirty seconds since my last fix...! Please note that this other love was doomed to serious failure, but not through any agency of Gould's. Or actually, I guess, in one regard, entirely through the agency of Gould!
Cent's adventures really - and I mean really - take off when she's in high school. She has run-in after run-in with the school bully Carmelia - who insists upon being known as Caffeine. This antagonism starts very mildly, but deteriorates into some serious and dangerous hatred on Caffeine's part. Cent sides with the uncool and unloved in school. She joins the snowboarding team and does well even without her jumping abilities being brought into play. Much more interesting from my PoV, is that she takes the art of jumping to levels even her father never explored, and she often employs her newly-won talents to humiliate and avoid Caffeine. My only problem with this is that I simply didn't get how she was supposed to be doing what she was doing. Vertical velocity was no problem, but I guess I missed the part where she picked up how to do horizontal velocity! Either that or it really wasn't covered very well. But what a cool talent - almost more cool than her jumping from one location to another.
Cent's two friends seemed to fade into the background somewhat as the story continued, which I did not appreciate, but Cent certainly does not, and the "war" between her and the school bully explodes. It was, oddly, tied in with something her father was investigating and arose from Cent's rescuing of two dorky guys upon which Caffeine was preying.
The novel alternates between Cent's first person PoV and a third person description of what her parents, Millie and Davy, are up to - which starts out innocently enough, but then escalates, too! Their portion of the novel is rather small, and was not that interesting to me until later in the story. Cent's was much more dynamic and captivating, especially the killer climax when she excelled herself. This novel actually would have been a terrific novel had there been no sci-fi element and no school bully, and it had been written solely about Cent and her friendship with the "uncool" Jade and Tara! I highly recommend this volume of the trilogy. I'll get back to you on the other two when I've read them!
