Tempest Review

After reading through Tempest, I think I can say I’m really satisfied with my choice. It’s a great sci-fi, action-romance story, and I kept being surprised by the character, who were very well written. The only thing I didn’t like was how long the story hung onto Jackson’s relationship with Holly, especially when most of it happened for nothing. Also in some parts the consistency of Julie Cross’ version of time travel lacked a bit, but to give her the benefit of the doubt, we’ll put it down to things the writer hasn’t revealed quit yet (there are 2 other books)

The plot of Tempest is a bit of a temporal roller coaster. Some people have trouble following a story because they see the events from a linear perspective. To make this kind of thing easier to follow, you have to get away from the idea of time as a strict progression of cause to effect and think of it more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff that is constantly in flux. Along with the ability to transport themselves to another time, the characters also have the added element of half-jumps; these work like other time jumps, but in this case when the travelling character returns, nothing they change or prevent has any effect on their present. During a half-jump body goes into a sort of vegetative state in the present while the traveller gallivants about in the past. That having been said, maybe the plot summary makes better sense.

So in the beginning, Jackson and his buddy, Adam has been experimenting with Jackson’s ability. Up to this point, he’d only been able to do the half-jump, but that’s all he knew. Adam provides the theories, logic, and tests, and Jackson provides the super power. It’s all harmless, since the half- jumps don’t change anything, Jackson always returns to his present, ‘home base’, and everything’s the same.

One night, Jackson is at his dear girlfriend Holly’s dorm room when suddenly two men (who we later learn are two of the Enemies of Time) come in and try to take Jackson away. The couple resist, and Holly is shot. In his panic, Jackson accidentally does a full jump to 2007, two years in the past.

While trapped in 2007, he makes several attempts to jump back to October 30, 2009, with no success. He decides to settle in, as his past self seems to have vanished and he has to take his place. He gets a job at the gym ‘007’ Holly works at to worm his way into her life, and falls in love with her all over again before he’s even met her the first time. He also meets Adam and uses 2009 Adam’s latin notes in the journal to get him to believe him.

During his half- jumps from 2007, he ends up at certain points around his childhood and learns disturbing things about the man he thought was his flesh and blood father, mainly that he’s a CIA agent that hunts down the Enemies of Time, people born with this time-travel ‘Tempus’ gene and have some vaguely malicious intent (that part wasn’t the best writing). They have a similar role to Samuel L. Jackson in Jumper, if that helps.

He also learns he and his (deceased(braincancer)) sister Courtney are test tube babies, half breeds of a woman with the Tempus gene.  Jackson decides that his best chance of getting his answers and saving Holly in 2009       is joining his father’s organization, Tempest. After getting Holly and Adam involved in a scrape with EOTs, Jackson unlocks something within himself that lets him be able to make a full jump back to 2009, a few months before the incident occurs. Jackson’s father sends a memory card to update his 2009 version with these events, since for some reason (poor writing) the events of Jackson’s full jump to 2007 don’t change his present 2009.

            He reunites with Holly and Adam around March of his present year, giving himself about 6 months to avert Holly’s death. He runs off with Holly on a vacation to a resort to just escape from all of the current stress, but his dad and a gaggle of agents, Freeman, Chief Marshall, and Dr. Melvin, follow them with Adam in tow. Jackson sort of gets on Marshall’s good side by joining Tempest gets his dad to continue his training, but the EOTs crop up again and do a number on the group.

Jackson is shown parallel futures but a mysterious girl named Emily and the EOTs ring leader, Thomas. Emily’s future is a dusty, dystopian world, and she has to be vague about what caused it because she can’t give too much away. Thomas’ future, however, looks pretty ideal. Clean earth, happy people. Jackson and Thomas have a little chase and end up back at the resort, where in their absence, EOTs and Tempest agents have been going at it. They manage to withdraw, and Jackson sees how much danger Holly is in as long as they’re connected.

            Jackson does a full jump back to the day he first met Holly, taking the place of his past self that was about to bump into her, causing her to spill smoothie all over his shoes and cross his path for the first time. Instead he stands off to the side, and watches her walk away, never to meet him. Now she’s safe. And Jackson can begin his training.

            So, the book ends on kind of a sad note. I didn’t really see his sacrifice coming, especially when he spent most of the book fueling his relationship with her, twice. I was pretty upset by it, and I guess Jackson is too, but I think if you really love someone, you’re willing to burn the bridge to keep them safe. The relationship with his dad is well written, sometimes you do want to love and trust someone but you can’t be sure. The dialogue and dynamic between them later on in the book is really good, and hopefully there’ll be less tension in the next chapter. The book is left wide open for a sequel, which is nice, unless he’s gonna spend a ton of time whining about Holly. I’d give this book 9 out of 10, a good read for those with passionate open minds.