JUMPER...THE BOOK (AND THE MOVIE)

By Steven Gould: I believe this is the first novel published by this author(whoever he may be). the original edition was published in 1992. Republished now that's it's become "a major motion picture" it would be interesting to see what a re-written version(post 9-11) would turn out. Anyway, an interesting story of a teenager who discovers his power of teleportation(thanks to his abusive father), but only to places he's been or can visualize in detail. While the story itself(terrorists,government agents,etc)is nothing new, the psychological and especially the personal interactions are something more than you might normally expect from this sort of novel (marketed as a 'movie tie-in' right on the spine of the book).

So, all in all, a good fast read, with some food for thought - what would YOU do given the choices David has to make? Personally, I would have gone for the bank also...

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And now for something completely different...and that would be the movie. Actually read this book quite a while ago, and in the interim had a chance to watch the movie. Probably a mistake, it usually is when I read a book & watch a movie. And when I say completely different, I mean pretty much different. Other than the name of the movie, the name of the main character, and the power to jump, there's not a lot in common betwen the book & the movie.(And of course, the movie comes off the worse.) I'm not going to give away the 'plot', but I will say one of the disappointing bits was the movie had more than one jumper, which was part of what made the book work well; being the only person with an ability like teleportation is a lot different than being one of a few or many.

So if you haven't read the book or seen the movie, do one or the other - not both. And I would recomment the book over the movie.