Steven Gould is an American science fiction writer, born on February 7, 1955 in Fort Huachuca, Arizona and raised in a variety of places adjacent to American military bases, domestic and overseas. In college in Texas in the late 1970s, he became active in science fiction fandom, and shortly afterward began writing short fiction and selling it to major science fiction magazines, beginning with “The Touch of Her Eyes” (Analog, September 1980).

 

His debut novel Jumper (1992) was widely praised for its readability, appealing protagonist, and intricate working-out of the consequences of a single science-fictional idea: a single young boy in today’s world who discovers that, evidently uniquely, he can teleport. Jumper was followed by several more novels: Wildside (1996), Greenwar (1997, with his wife, SF writer Laura J. Mixon), Helm (1998), Blind Waves (2000), and Reflex (2004, a sequel to Jumper). 

 

In 2008 Jumper was brought to the screen as a big-budget SF adventure of the same name, directed by Doug Liman and starring Hayden Christiansen and Samuel L. Jackson. The movie rearranged the story line and gave the protagonist a teleporting sidekick. When the movie’s producers expressed a desire to see a novel published about the sidekick’s backstory, Gould chose to write the book himself; it was published as Jumper: Griffin’s Story (2007), and is not canonical with the other two “Jumper” novels. “Shade,” Gould’s story on Tor.com, takes place in the world of the novels, not the alternate continuity of the movie. Meanwhile, Jumper-the-movie was a financial success, and a sequel is rumored.

Steven Gould