Reflex

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


Book 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.



About the Author
Steven Gould is the highly acclaimed author of JUMPER. He lives in Albuquerque, NM, with his wife, writer Laura Mixon.



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Belated sequel to Gould's fine debut (Jumper, 1992) involving teleportation, spooks, and paranoia. Davy Rice is the only person in the world who can "jump," meaning teleport himself instantly from place to place. Previously, he became involved with the NSA-doing only those jobs that didn't conflict with his own ethical sense. But this time, when he jumps to Washington, DC, to meet Brian Cox of the NSA, bad hats drug him and murder poor Brian. Days later, Davy wakes-chained (he can't jump out of them) and implanted with a device that causes uncontrollable vomiting and convulsions if he attempts to jump away or misbehave. Meanwhile, Davy's therapist wife, Millie, abandoned in their west Texas mountain hideaway, waits in vain for him to return. Eventually, she's forced to attempt to climb down the cliff, falls-and finds that from sheer terror she's jumped to their condo in Stillwater, Oklahoma! Swiftly Millie teaches herself to jump voluntarily, and contacts NSA agent Thomas P. Anders. The latter doesn't know who snatched Davy, but suspects another agency-or even higher-ups in the NSA itself. As Davy's forced to accept his captors' conditioning, and work for them moving people and things around the globe, he begins to discover other dimensions to his talent. Millie teams up with Becca Martingale of the FBI (Anders has been sidelined) to uncover Davy's trail. It leads to Martha's Vineyard and a huge old house belonging to one Lawrence Simons, a shadowy figure who rubs shoulders with government bigwigs. Compelling, chilling, and completely satisfying, with lots of knowing jokes for the fans and plenty of scope for more sequels.


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