Book Reviews
5 - 8.) Jumper, Reflex, Impulse, Exo by Steven Gould (science fiction)
I reviewed Jumper last month. It's a Young Adult series. A teen-ager discovers he can teleport or 'jump'. When his mother is killed in an airplane hi-jacking, he hunts down the terrorist which brings him to the attention of the NSA. He works out a deal to do occasional missions. I said the sequels would probably be about his missions. He's happily married at the end of the first book.
Reflex confirms that he does work for the NSA, however he's kidnapped and conditioned to work for his new masters. In the meantime, his wife discovers that because he's jumped her all over the world so many times that she can jump too. She tracks down and rescues her husband. New ability: When someone jumps, they pass thru an opening to their destination. By picking two spots and jumping back and forth continuously, you can keep the gate open. They call it 'twinning'. The wife hides herself in the attic of the house where he husband is being held and then twins to beach on the Pacific Ocean, knee-deep in water. Multiple tons of water pour thru the hole demolishing the house. The torture scenes may be a little heavy for YA.
In Impulse, they have a daughter. Naturally, she can also jump when she's a teen-ager. This is the most YA novel of the series. She attends high-school and uses her powers to deal with school bullies and a drug gang.
In Exo, Cent, the daughter, short for Millicent, figures out another aspect of her jumping abilities. When they jump, they're instinctively getting rid of the speed and momentum difference between the two locations, otherwise jumping to the other side of the world would mean a difference of 400 mph. She figures how to allow some of that difference to jump with her. By jumping in the same place and adding velocity, she can accelerate out of a snowboarding launch at top speed. By putting together her own spacesuit (the novel goes into quite a bit of detail about all the problems to solve) and jumping straight up and then jumping up at the peak of her jump, she can enter orbit. She starts a business putting packages in orbit at $1,000 a kilo. The bad guys from book two come back to give her trouble, but the family overcomes them. The book has the perfect ending and I hope he ends it here without another sequel.
I reviewed Jumper last month. It's a Young Adult series. A teen-ager discovers he can teleport or 'jump'. When his mother is killed in an airplane hi-jacking, he hunts down the terrorist which brings him to the attention of the NSA. He works out a deal to do occasional missions. I said the sequels would probably be about his missions. He's happily married at the end of the first book.
Reflex confirms that he does work for the NSA, however he's kidnapped and conditioned to work for his new masters. In the meantime, his wife discovers that because he's jumped her all over the world so many times that she can jump too. She tracks down and rescues her husband. New ability: When someone jumps, they pass thru an opening to their destination. By picking two spots and jumping back and forth continuously, you can keep the gate open. They call it 'twinning'. The wife hides herself in the attic of the house where he husband is being held and then twins to beach on the Pacific Ocean, knee-deep in water. Multiple tons of water pour thru the hole demolishing the house. The torture scenes may be a little heavy for YA.
In Impulse, they have a daughter. Naturally, she can also jump when she's a teen-ager. This is the most YA novel of the series. She attends high-school and uses her powers to deal with school bullies and a drug gang.
In Exo, Cent, the daughter, short for Millicent, figures out another aspect of her jumping abilities. When they jump, they're instinctively getting rid of the speed and momentum difference between the two locations, otherwise jumping to the other side of the world would mean a difference of 400 mph. She figures how to allow some of that difference to jump with her. By jumping in the same place and adding velocity, she can accelerate out of a snowboarding launch at top speed. By putting together her own spacesuit (the novel goes into quite a bit of detail about all the problems to solve) and jumping straight up and then jumping up at the peak of her jump, she can enter orbit. She starts a business putting packages in orbit at $1,000 a kilo. The bad guys from book two come back to give her trouble, but the family overcomes them. The book has the perfect ending and I hope he ends it here without another sequel.