Exo (novel)
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| Author | Steven Gould |
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| Cover artist | Getty Images |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Jumper |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Tor Books |
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Publication date
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September 9, 2014 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) e-Book (Kindle) Audio Book (CD) |
| Pages | 464 pp (Hardcover) |
| ISBN | |
| Preceded by | Impulse |
Exo is the fourth novel in the "Jumper" series by Steven Gould and the fifth in the "Jumper" universe. The first two novels—Jumper and Reflex—tell a connecting story of David and Millie, which is continued with their daughter, Cent, in Impulse and now Exo; while the fifth novel, Jumper: Griffin's Story, is the back-story for a character from the 2008 movie Jumper and is not associated with the story or characters in the novels.
The main protagonist is Millicent (Cent) Rice, teenaged daughter of David (Davy) Rice and his wife Millicent (Millie) Harrison-Rice. Having learned in the previous novel that she can use jumping to modify her velocity, Cent experiments with heading toward space. She contacts Cory Matoska, a researcher who has made a lightweight space suit that is much more practical than existing models, with the one problem that because it is a single piece of fabric up to the neck gasket, no human can actually try it out — except Cent and her family, because of their ability to jump in and out of it.
After arguing with her parents, Cent sets Cory up with a lab of his own on the condition that she gets access to the suit. At first he thinks that she is planning for years in the future, but then she reveals the fact that she can get into the suit easily, and wants to test it out within weeks.
Millie's mother is very ill, and in a nursing home. When she takes a turn for the worse, Davy, Millie and Cent go to great lengths to set her up at their lodge home in the north of Canada.
Cent makes it to low earth orbit without incident. She finds that she can navigate in space easily, either by jumping simply based on coordinates, or by visualizing changes to the Earth's position or relative motion. She makes friends with a research team whose experimental satellite has failed to deploy properly by retrieving it for them. When the satellite is confiscated, she deploys the back-up in its place. Cent starts advertising her services, offering to deliver anything less than about 50 kilograms to any orbit, LEO to GEO, equatorial to polar, for a thousand dollars per kilogram, and promises to remove a kilogram of space junk for every kilogram she takes up.
Cent's activities are discovered by the government through her use of satellite phones. After some wrangling she ends up unofficially sanctioned, and works with the government to properly document her deliveries. Later, the government calls her because one of the cosmonauts at the International Space Station is having a medical emergency. She delivers him safely to an earth-bound hospital, to great acclaim.
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