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Jumpers
Badly injured in a sledding accident, nine-year-old Anna Wheaton has entered the shadowland between life and death. She and the others in this beautiful, terrifying place--the Jumpers--are able to leap instantly into an alternate reality where the dead mingle with the living. And where armies of restless souls prepare to wage the ultimate battle with a monstrous force.
388 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 7, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 27, 2020
Jumpers
By R. Patrick Gates.
Dell.
1997.
🎃🎃🎃🎃
Let the record show, that since I began collecting older paperbacks, that R. Patrick Gates is far-and-away my favorite finding. This is the fifth book of his I have read and while it's marginally weaker than those that proceed it, it is still a fun, worthwhile read.
Gates, at least prior to this, writes in two worlds of horror: the decidedly outlandish, nightmareish horror of Fear and Grimm Memorials; and the horror that is more grounded in reality with serial killers and such, with an aura of dread and disgust as seen in Tunnelvision and Deathwalker.
I have enjoyed all, and recommend him often. That being said, if you're squeamish or have reservations of any kind in your horror, this isn't your guy. He writes a sort of grimy, hypertrip of a book, with loads of nastiness and gore, with no victims safe. Of course, I believe that's where Jumpers comes in.
The palatable-for-a-wider-audience title: Jumpers.
Here, Gates marries all of his repertoire up to this point, meshing together the crazy, Elm Street-esque nature of his fantasy horror and the unflinching grime of his serial killer novels into one place. The gore and nastiness quotient is turned down quite a bit too. I suppose, if you're unsure about Gates, this is an okay place to start. However, if you've read the works of Clive Barker or Jack Ketchum and handled it fine, I'd start with Grimm Memorials first, one of my all-time favorite books.
Jumpers tell the story of a young girl, Anna, in a sledding accident that puts her near death. She finds an ability to exist in a sort of purgatory world, where people hang in a spiritual limbo, until either granted access to eternal rest or, a more unfortunate and deserving demise of being consumed by a beast known as the Shadow Monster.
In this world, she meets two other "Jumpers", people who can jump in an out of this purgatory world and interact with spirits. There's also a crew of criminals and serial killers, who tie into the story, but I don't want to give anything away. Anyway, these four storylines come together quite nicely and we get all sorts of crazy, fun moments, which are notably less abrasive than Gates earlier work.
I love Gates writing, which is unlike anything else I have read. It has this certain unpredictable, almost fantastical flair to it, that reads like the work of an unhinged storyteller. PS. I have had a handful of interactions with Gates and he is not unhinged. He is a very nice, intelligent dude!
This isn't my favorite of his, but it's still damn good reading and I highly suggest it, particularly if you like your horror unusual and off-kilter. I'm a jaded horror fan, who is a bit desensitized, so I prefer his earlier work, but still will tell ya without hesitation, this beats the pants off John Saul 😂😂😂
By R. Patrick Gates.
Dell.
1997.
🎃🎃🎃🎃
Let the record show, that since I began collecting older paperbacks, that R. Patrick Gates is far-and-away my favorite finding. This is the fifth book of his I have read and while it's marginally weaker than those that proceed it, it is still a fun, worthwhile read.
Gates, at least prior to this, writes in two worlds of horror: the decidedly outlandish, nightmareish horror of Fear and Grimm Memorials; and the horror that is more grounded in reality with serial killers and such, with an aura of dread and disgust as seen in Tunnelvision and Deathwalker.
I have enjoyed all, and recommend him often. That being said, if you're squeamish or have reservations of any kind in your horror, this isn't your guy. He writes a sort of grimy, hypertrip of a book, with loads of nastiness and gore, with no victims safe. Of course, I believe that's where Jumpers comes in.
The palatable-for-a-wider-audience title: Jumpers.
Here, Gates marries all of his repertoire up to this point, meshing together the crazy, Elm Street-esque nature of his fantasy horror and the unflinching grime of his serial killer novels into one place. The gore and nastiness quotient is turned down quite a bit too. I suppose, if you're unsure about Gates, this is an okay place to start. However, if you've read the works of Clive Barker or Jack Ketchum and handled it fine, I'd start with Grimm Memorials first, one of my all-time favorite books.
Jumpers tell the story of a young girl, Anna, in a sledding accident that puts her near death. She finds an ability to exist in a sort of purgatory world, where people hang in a spiritual limbo, until either granted access to eternal rest or, a more unfortunate and deserving demise of being consumed by a beast known as the Shadow Monster.
In this world, she meets two other "Jumpers", people who can jump in an out of this purgatory world and interact with spirits. There's also a crew of criminals and serial killers, who tie into the story, but I don't want to give anything away. Anyway, these four storylines come together quite nicely and we get all sorts of crazy, fun moments, which are notably less abrasive than Gates earlier work.
I love Gates writing, which is unlike anything else I have read. It has this certain unpredictable, almost fantastical flair to it, that reads like the work of an unhinged storyteller. PS. I have had a handful of interactions with Gates and he is not unhinged. He is a very nice, intelligent dude!
This isn't my favorite of his, but it's still damn good reading and I highly suggest it, particularly if you like your horror unusual and off-kilter. I'm a jaded horror fan, who is a bit desensitized, so I prefer his earlier work, but still will tell ya without hesitation, this beats the pants off John Saul 😂😂😂
March 30, 2016
Not as shocking or as in your face violence like his Grimm books. This one seems to be a mix of crime, sci-fi, some horror elements, and what happens to our souls between heaven and hell. 3 stars from me. I would have given it 4 stars if it did not have some irritating scenes of humor thrown in which totally ruined the mood of the story for me. Overall it did have a good suspenseful feeling as it got near the end with some disturbing scenes which take place in a abandoned school. This book does have explicit sex and violence so if you are bothered easily by this, stay away.
January 30, 2022
This is not Gates best work. This book, published in 1997, cribs heavily from the 1990 movie Flatliners. Out of all of Gates novels that I've read so far, I'd have to say that this one has been my least favorite. That being said, it's still better than a lot of the older horror published around that same time, so take what you get, but don't really expect this one to wow you.
November 8, 2025
Some promising aspects but at the same time, some really stupid and hard to get through sections. The writing was pretty good.
July 8, 2020
First of all, I should have read the print edition of this book, and not the second e-book edition. I noticed there were some modern-era businesses that wouldn't have been as prominent in 1995 when this book was originally published, and when I checked, I saw that what was now a Starbucks used to be a Dunkin Donuts. It's a minor change, but it makes me wonder what else he changed, and later when I found a misplaced modifier, I thought, "Surely this would have been caught by a Dell editor," and surely enough, I was right. This was a self-published release, and really, Gates should have employed an editor for it.
Beyond that (and beyond the myriad typos and grammatical errors throughout), the book was just boring. There was just enough of a plot there to keep me reading without falling asleep, but there's not much here that gels. The dialogue feels unreal, and the characters feel insincere. We have people who can do astral projection under a variety of circumstances (one woman can only achieve it during orgasm, and only when a partner is involved), and they're on a mission to kill a man who killed the parents of one of the jumpers.
I'm guessing this was originally scheduled to be an Abyss book (Gates had two other books published by that imprint, and there were a handful of Dell Horror novels that appear to have been used to fulfill contracts with those authors), and it's a good thing it wasn't, since it was hardly up to the standard that imprint tried to set. Granted, Gates' other two books weren't exactly top-of-the-line horror, but they were several steps above what the worst of the line had to offer. If you do feel the need to read this book, though, track down a used copy and read an edition that actually used an editor.
Beyond that (and beyond the myriad typos and grammatical errors throughout), the book was just boring. There was just enough of a plot there to keep me reading without falling asleep, but there's not much here that gels. The dialogue feels unreal, and the characters feel insincere. We have people who can do astral projection under a variety of circumstances (one woman can only achieve it during orgasm, and only when a partner is involved), and they're on a mission to kill a man who killed the parents of one of the jumpers.
I'm guessing this was originally scheduled to be an Abyss book (Gates had two other books published by that imprint, and there were a handful of Dell Horror novels that appear to have been used to fulfill contracts with those authors), and it's a good thing it wasn't, since it was hardly up to the standard that imprint tried to set. Granted, Gates' other two books weren't exactly top-of-the-line horror, but they were several steps above what the worst of the line had to offer. If you do feel the need to read this book, though, track down a used copy and read an edition that actually used an editor.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews