Description:
In Hopscotch, evolution has provided humankind with the ability to swap bodies. All this hopscotching creates a corrupt, decadent society where just about anything goes and immortality is just one more body swap away. Bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson follows four twentysomethings: Garth, a driven artist; Eduard, an unfocused roustabout; Teresa, a self-destructive seeker of spiritual solace; and Daragon, a driven G-man who alone is not blessed (or cursed) with the ability to hopscotch. The four make their way through a dizzying reality where only their close friendship can be taken at face value. Daragon's inability to hopscotch results in his knack for revealing the true person behind the face, no matter what the body, a skill that propels him to the top of the Bureau of Tracing and Locations--a many-tentacled organization dedicated to finding people in a world where looks are always deceiving. Daragon's meteoric rise brings his three friends under the omnipresent gaze of his mentor, the novel's antagonist Bureau chief Mordecai Orb--a looming nemesis whose influence eventually corrupts them all. Anderson, the bestselling author of novels set in the Star Wars and X-File realms, as well as coauthor of Dune: House Corrino, ventures into new territory with this clever premise, which provides a multifaceted backdrop to his foursome's travails, though at times he wanders a little far afield, leaving behind two-dimensional characters whose simple motivations offer little for the reader to care about. --Jeremy Pugh
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