'How does this work? Oh, is this on? It is, isn't it!''Okay. Hi, I'm Emily Harrison, I'm a translator, mainly specialising in archaic and extinct languages, although I can speak quite a few modern ones. I used to work in a little office in the nether regions of a university. It was quite a good job, hard on the eyes though.''Anyway, where was I? Yes, that's right, these days I spend my time, if you'll excuse the expression, flitting back and forth between the present day and prehistory, trying not to get crushed, rebuilding factories, destroying my rather fantastic clothes in unpleasant muddy forests, having affairs with super-intelligent physicists, talking about dragons and, last but not least, trying to save the world from impending obliteration out of the spacetime continuum.''What, was I meant to make more of that last bit? Um, so this time machine we travel around in, the Jump Box, is apparently being taken by a group of eco-terrorists and used to change the past, which is messing up the weather and, frankly, not doing good things to my hair. Still, with the aid of Cooke and Celia, who are pretty special, Masterson, who's a bit on the military side, the Jameses, who are an interesting couple and Moulder, who's a bit on the quiet side but good with animals, we ought to be able to figure the whole thing out and make the present a bit more pleasant again.''What's that, they're coming? How do you turn this thing off Cooke...'Transcript of recording, recovered from jump base three weeks after the events covered in the novelisation of events entitled "Jump."Jump is a fast paced adventure through space and time but grounded firmly in the real world, encompassing millions of years into the past, two weeks into the future and a good percentage of the landmasses of the planet.With nods to Michael Crichton, Isaac Asimov and Stephen Baxter but with a style all of his own, Dan Ladle draws on experiences from his life, along with new scientific developments and a vivid imagination. He is an exciting new author with a brain full of ideas. Dan is not a scientist, nor is he a historian or indeed a savant or a polymath. However, he is interested in the world and how it works and is always trying to find outlets for his fizzing neurons.Dan lives in Perth, Western Australia with his wife, his son and their cat, Snuggles.This is Dan's first book!Readers' CommentsIn JUMP, it isn't the discovery of time travel that sets the story churning, but the potential misuse of it. When a covert environmental group threatens to destabilize the past in hope of limiting man's influence on the future, the fate of the world hangs in the balance and our likeable cast of heroes must race to heal time's wounds before it's too late.Ladle's prose is intelligent and thoughtful and the story focuses on the characters as much as the premise. The time travel element is heavy on theoretical psychics and laymen not used to the genre might get confused, but the second half picks up the pace to what is an exciting resolution. For fans of the time travel genre, JUMP is the thinking man's TIMELINE, and it's good to see there's room for a potential sequel. A solid debut.
