Jumper: Griffin's Story (2007)

Read this book as part of a series. Sci-fi action stuff. Not terribly deep but in this time of Covid spikes and Holiday and post election stress it was quite enjoyable. I liked the characters and the idea of this ability (teleportation) is fun. Recommend the series for some light exciting reading.
This entry got one less star as the author used the movie as a starting point for this book, changing the world he created to match the movie. Shameless money grubbing. ( )

This was a really good book. It takes place over a course of seven years. Griffin is lovable and you feel his pain as he losses the people he loves and those that want to protect him. It is a story of betrayal, love, and adventure. Though I was angry at E.V. for betraying him like she did and blaming him though it was indirectly his fault. ( )

Unfortunately, though Gould decides to write another Jumper story, this was pretty much a copy of the earlier Jumper books, but with more death, violence and sex.

Deals with 9 year old Griffin, who can jump. He is being targeted for elimination by a mysterious group. Needless to say, he ends up moving out by his lonesome into the middle of the desert.

And right at the end, when he's 17'sh, he starts taking the fight back to the enemy. and then bam, it just ends.

Since this was written in '07, I doubt we'll be seeing any more if a sequel hasn't come out by now. Which is too bad, cause it would have been nice to see a violent psychopathic Jumper kick some Secret Society Butt. ( )

I didn't read the first [b:Jumper|47970|Jumper (Jumper, #1)|Steven Gould|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1304981770s/47970.jpg|3050557] book, because I saw the Jumper movie with that talentless hack Hayden Christensen. A friend of mine recommended this book, and I decided it was worth a try. And it was, indeed.

This is the story of Griffin, of course. He's a Jumper. Someone who can teleport anywhere, by just thinking about it. No technological gadget required. Just some natural ability he has.

For some reason, this Jumping ability is seen as a threat to National Security. So, there's this secret organization who hunt Jumpers. They're called 'Paladins', for whatever reason. And they're nasty motherfuckers. They kill pretty much anyone who has anything to do with a jumper. They killed Griffin's parents. They killed his friends. And they're threatening to kill his girlfriend.

This all started when Griffin was only 10 years old, when they killed his parents. Like he's fucking Spider-Man, or something. So, he jumped away to Mexico, where some nice people found him, and fixed him up. He spent several years in Mexico, living a secret life. Until the Paladins showed up and killed his friends.

Griffin spends the rest of the book systematically hunting down the Paladins one by one. He shows up, grabs one of them, jumps them to a cliff, and shoves them off. Then he grabs the next one, and jumps them to fucking France, or some other far away place. Because, he can.

The problem with this story is, there's nothing the Paladins can do to capture Griffin. What's the fucking point in chasing him, if there's nothing you can do, once you find him. He's just gonna jump away. So, unless you have something to stop him from jumping, you're wasting your fucking time.

The Paladins seem to have an ability to sense when Griffin is jumping, which is how they end up finding him over and over. But still... It's pointless to even track him, if there's no way to stop him. This is what made the book kind of pointless to me. It's like trying to stop Superman.

Because, even if you capture Griffin, he's just going to jump away, immediately. There's nothing the Paladins can do, save shooting him in the fucking face. But they never get that chance, because Griffin is there one moment, and gone the next.

So the problem is, there's no real conflict. Because you know that Griffin is going to win. He's always going to get away. So I'm not sitting on the edge of my seat wondering, oh my God, they're going to catch him! What happens if they catch him? Holy shit, they might torture him and shit. Cool.

There's none of that wondering, because he's just going to jump away. There's just no suspense at all. The ending is pretty goddamn simple. In fact, the last sentence of the novel is 'I jumped'. ( )

This explains a lot and makes Davys life look like a fucking cake walk. The darker side to Jumping and it's consequences. What might happen if you don't have a mum/paladin keeping your ass covered. ( )