Lately, it seems that it is nearly impossible to pick-up a
book or go to the movies without having some sense of déjà vu. For instance,
when I saw the film Dream House (2011, Daniel Craig, Rachel Weiss) all I
could think of was “Something about this sure reminds me of The Others.”
It’s like watching the The Lion King and realizing that it’s Hamlet,
except instead of clever re-workings of classic texts we see blatant robbery of
ideas. Now, it has been said that there are only a certain number of plot lines
within literature (I’m including film in this genre, as I find it to be a form
of visual literature), I personally like the listing from Ronald Tobias[i],
which is the following twenty plots:
- Quest
- Adventure
- Pursuit
- Rescue
- Escape
- Revenge
- The Riddle
- Rivalry
- Underdog
- Temptation
- Metamorphosis
- Transformation
- Maturation
- Love
- Forbidden Love
- Sacrifice
- Discovery
- Wretched Excess
- Ascension
- Descension.
Of course the number
varies according to which scholar is speaking, but all are in agreement that
there are only so many ways a story can go. The thing is, I don’t care if I see
the same plot, as long as it’s well put together with interesting new twists to
old concepts. After all, we as viewers and readers are typically drawn to the
same type of stories over and over again, if we weren’t we certainly would not
have as many paranormal books aimed at teens (thanks Twilight), Nordic
mysteries (Stieg Larsson), or graphic horror films (Saw). We as consumers
love more of the same—we just want it to be bigger and better the next time
around.
This roundabout thought process leads me to a new young
adult book, Tempest by Julie Cross. A brief synopsis of the plot is
that a 19-year-old time traveler must travel through time in order to save his
girlfriend. This is a simplified premise, but suffice it to say that it was
enough to get me to get me to pick up the book. Basically, this teenager,
Jackson Meyer, finds out he can jump through time (never to the future, and
only a few hours back), when his girlfriend Holly is killed by mysterious men
in 2009, Jackson inadvertently leaps back to 2007, he is unable to get back to
his own time and Holly. Jackson spends the rest of the book leaping through
time trying to change events, all the while discovering the origins of his
abilities, the truth of his birth, and trying to escape from shady CIA agents
other time-travelers with a serious agenda. Interesting story, neat plot idea,
and actually as a hole it worked. I liked the book, emphasis on liked—not
loved.
It’s hard to love a book when images from a couple of
mediocre movies keep popping into your head. You see, the storyline starts to
bear a markable resemblance to The Butterfly Effect and Jumper.
One movie I hated, the other was okay entertainment even though it starred that
brooder Hayden Christensen. If you’ve seen Butterfly Effect then you
know the direction this book will take—think about what happens when you mess
with time in order to save one person—if not, well congrats the ending of this
first book (it’s a trilogy) will be a surprise. As for the Jumper
similarities, think elite groups hunting people who “jump” through time (in the
movie, it’s location, not time) and weird familial ties to the enemy hunters—you
get the idea. It’s hard for me to imagine that the concept for this story
wasn’t subconsciously, if not consciously, derived from bits and pieces of
these other stories. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing blatant here, the
story absolutely stands on it’s own legs, and has snippets of originality at
it’s core, but these similarities are hard to disregard as an avid reader, and
in this case movie watcher. They kept me from really getting absorbed in the
book as an original and interesting story. It’s hard to love a book that does
that.
As this is the first book in a trilogy, you might ask,
“will you read the next book?” the answer to that is a resounding yes. I liked
the book. I want to know what happens next. It’s not a bad tale if the author
has managed to capture my attention this much. Let’s just say that the next in
the series will not move directly to the top of my pile, as say the next book
in the Matched series by Ally Condie. My recommendation would be to read
it if you’ve seen the movies mentioned, but try and move beyond the
similarities. If you’ve never seen either movie, enjoy the book as an creative
and entertaining love story. Either way, Tempest is a decent read,
definitely one to pull out of the pile and onto your bedside table.
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