Steven Gould
Book 2 of Jumper
Language: English
Amazon Goodreads Google Books ISBN
Adventure Fiction Science Fiction
Publisher: Tom Doherty
Published: Nov 18, 2004
Description:
Davy thinks he's alone...what if he isn't? When Davy was a young teen, he discovered that he was capable of teleportation. At first, it was only when he was terrified and in horrible danger. Later, he learned to control his ability, and went to work for a secret government agency. Now, a mysterious group of people has taken Davy captive. They don't want to hire him, and they don't have any hope of appealing to him to help them. What they want is to own him. They want to use his abilities for their own purposes, whether Davy agrees to it or not. And so they set about brainwashing him and conditioning him, and they have found a way to keep a teleport captive. But there's one thing that they don't know. No one knows it, not even Davy. The secret is that experiencing teleportation, over and over again, can teach a person how to do it. Davy's wife Millie is the only person on Earth who has teleported nearly as often as he has. She discovered her new talent the same way Davy did -- in mortal danger, facing imminent death, she suddenly found herself in her own apartment. Now, if she can learn to control this ability, and fast, she may be able to rescue Davy. ### From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. In this delightful SF thriller, the long-anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed *Jumper* (1992), Gould puts a fresh spin on the classic plot device of human teleportation. Once a teen struggling to escape an abusive father, Davy Rice is now a covert operative for the National Security Agency and happily married to Oklahoma psychologist Millie Harrison-Rice. Enter sudden marital discord over starting a family, and Davy, eager to avoid the issue, jumps from their remote West Texas hideaway to a meeting in Washington, D.C., only to be snatched by an evil organization intent upon forcing "the asset" to work for them. The baffled Millie keeps waiting for her husband to return, until she discovers that she, too, can teleport through space. While Davy spends much of the book a defiant prisoner, Millie learns the joy of jumping. In her effort to rescue her husband, she goes to ground and hides her dangerous new ability from the NSA and Davy's captors. The author's savvy decision to have the couple share this unique ability gives the sequel a rush of new energy, creating dazzling future possibilities for the duo. Though Gould continues to exuberantly press the boundaries of scientific credibility, his gift for placing ordinary people in extraordinary situations against a backdrop of international concerns makes this fast-paced adventure sizzle. At the end, the inevitable question arises: will the next jumper do it in diapers? Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ### From Booklist Gould takes up Davy, the teenage hero of *Jumper* (1992), about as many years later in his life as this readable sequel follows its predecessor. Davy is in trouble because of leaks from the secret governmental organization that employs him. Someone has figured out how to abduct, imprison, and brainwash a teleporter, and that teleporter, as *Jumper* readers might expect, is Davy. Davy's wife has learned to jump (i.e., teleport), too, though, and in the same way that he learned it, when her life was threatened. She is searching for him, of course, but isn't sure whom she can trust, either inside or outside the agency. In fact, she isn't even really sure where to start looking for him. Gould's style is rather pedestrian, though no more so than one would allow from a second-book author. Despite stylistic lapses, this is a near-future thriller with quite-respectable page-turning impetus. *Frieda Murray* *Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved*