http://lampbane.livejournal.com/542806.html

"For a book written in 1992, it's oddly relevant today. Oh, and it's nothing like the movie. The beginning of the movie is similar to the novel, but once Davy moves to New York, the two go in entirely different directions. It's very odd, considering that the book is still pretty exciting and has its own fair share of action sequences where Davy is battling terrorists—honest-to-god terrorists that hijack planes and kill innocent people. Considering the current political climate now, you think that would have been a perfect plot for an action film. Instead the movie decided to have a selfish protagonist facing off against a fictional organization targeting him for death just because he exists. An odd choice, but perhaps they wanted to avoid the heavier issues the book addresses, namely domestic abuse. This novel is a perfect example of how science fiction can be used to address social concerns, and it didn't have to resort to allegory to do it."

What a great book! I couldn't put it down, went through the night and read it in one session. ( )

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 talent for the first time accidentally to get away from his abusive alcoholic father. He figures out he can teleport to anywhere he's been (and can remember accurately) or anywhere he can see. Now what? He's certainly not going home to his father and his mother left home years ago never to be heard from again. This is the story of love, loss and revenge, an exploration of right and wrong. It's not a difficult read but it's definitely a page-turner. If you saw the movie, forget it, this is nothing like that. This is a good, fun read with a hint of depth. ( )

(Amy) Why had I never encountered this book before? Apparently it came out in 1992, so one would think I would have come across it in a bookstore sometime, or heard someone mention it, or something. But no, I never heard of it until it was made into a (remarkably unfaithful, unsurprisingly, or so I'm told) movie.

But for an 18-plus-year-old book, it manages to be remarkably relevant in many ways, despite having a rather irritating and somewhat unconvincing protagonist. Mostly, I really liked the jumping itself - I thought it was very well executed and nicely thought out. The interpersonal stuff seemed wooden and a little shallow, but not bothersome enough to put me off reading the thing.

Recommended, though I can't as yet speak to the quality of the movie adaptation.
(http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/ze...) ( )

Jumper, was an interesting book, it had some brilliant ideas, some great locations…but in plot terms it was lacking.

That’s not to say it wasn’t a good story, but it was more a character driven story than anything defined by plot.
The plot, such as it was seemed to kick in about 3/4 of the way through the novel.
Several of the plot/action sequences seemed to be write once, then repeat with some differences.

I bought this novel, because I saw the movie, and the movie was terrible.
But reading what they started with, I can now see why they chose the decisions they did. I’m not sure, if you were to produce a movie based on the book it would have been any good, as a straight adaptation.

Oddly, considering when this was published it’s quite relevant, the last quarter of the novel (when things start happening) is all about terrorism and even goes into some of the political and social ideas around it, rather relevant today, interesting for a novel published in 1992. This could have been set now, if not for a few mentions of the World Trade Centre and one or two other tells. Perhaps it terrorism was a good thing to chuck into a novel, coming out after the first Gulf War, but nevertheless it’s a good element to the book. (Though the explanations sometimes go on at length)

As I said there’s a lot of character building stuff, more over it’s there’s a lot of moments of getting inside David’s head, the story is told completely from his point of view, which I initially thought would get irritating, but was actually really allowed exploration of the character.

This novel is more about exploration of the ‘teleport’ idea and building of character than it is about actual plot events, which is quite a different tact to take in a novel like this. It’s oddly left me wanting more, as this really felt like a big introduction, leading up to something big where the characters take that next step up and do something with everything they’ve learnt so far. ( )