High Stakes - George R. R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass

High Stakes is the 23rd book in the shared world series Wild Cards, and the final book in what has become known as the Mean Streets Triad. The triad started with Fort Freak (2011), which combines a police procedural with comic book heroes inspired characters. This final volume is quite a different beast though. It takes us far from the streets of Joker Town in New York and pits an unlikely bunch of heroes against a malevolent foe capable of destroying the world. It is pure Wild Cards alright, but probably not the ending of this story arc people were expecting.

Detective Franny Black manages to crack the case of the disappearing Jokers. He tracks them down to a casino in the city of Talas, Kazakhstan, where Jokers are forced to fight to the death in an arena. Franny's intrusion puts a stop to that but it soon turns out the casino hides a much greater threat. The jokers do not just serve as a sick kind of entertainment. The deaths of the Jokers slakes the thirst for blood and suffering of a creature waiting to unleash its terrible power upon the world. Franny may have solved a crime and destroyed the world in one move.

The Wild Cards series swing back and forth between short story collection and traditional novel. High Stakes is what Martin calls a full mosaic. It was written by six authors: Melinda M. Snodgrass, John Jos. Miller, David Anthony Durham, Caroline Spector, Stephen Leigh, and Ian Tregillis, all of whom have contributed to the series before. Where, in the previous two novels in the triad, the authors all had clearly defined sections, this book is edited in a different way. You can still recognize the various contributions by the point of view, but they are worked into seven long sections with contributions by all the authors instead of individual chapters. The editing is decent, some minor continuity errors but nothing that really bothered me. There must have been quite a bit of rewriting involved. The copy-editor could have done another pass though. If I spot typos there's a lot of them.

I suspect that quite a lot of people will not particularly like this novel. It breaks from the police procedural and launches into full-blown Lovecraftian horror. The horrific element of the novel is, as one would expect from a comic book inspired series, very much over the top. The authors don't shy away from describing events in gory detail. I felt the copious descriptions of the nightmarish scenes in Talas padded the novel quite a bit. I suppose with six authors you need to give them some space to do their thing but this book definitely could have been shorter. If this gory kind of monster horror is your thing, then you will want to read this book. It is such a break with the two books that have gone before, and the reader has to have read Lowball (2014) to make sense of this one, that for many readers it will be a disappointment.

Here and there, a fine bit of characterization can be found in the novel. When the horror does not rely on monsters, it is actually truly horrific. The influence of the creature the Aces are fighting makes the darkest thoughts, hidden in the deepest recesses of their mind, surface. The shift between the face they normally show the world and the murderous monsters they can turn into is often rapid and very disturbing. Especially Molly, who swings between the lonely and selfish kleptomaniac she has shown herself to be and the murderous fury she can turn into several times in the book, is a good example of this. A lifetime of therapy probably won't be enough to deal with that kind of trauma.

While the novel is well padded and over the top, the authors do manage to keep it compulsively readable. The reader will want to know how they manage to defeat the monster lurking under Talas. To do that, the authors reach back to a character that has not appeared in the Triad before. For readers who have not read the other novels in the series, it may feel like a deus ex machina ending. I guess one of the advantages of having so much material to draw on, is always being able to drag in an Ace with useful powers.

High Stakes left me with pretty much the same feeling as Suicide Kings (2009), the final novel in the Committee Triad. The triad starts out interesting but then doesn't live up to the promise. This book was very readable, fun even at some level, but it was not a good book. High Stakes manages to make the triad feel unbalanced by so completely changing the nature of the story. It makes the book feel like a story attached to the previous two books at a later time rather than a continuous narrative. I guess there is a trade off between leaving the authors space to be creative and agreeing in advance on a story arc. Martin has sold three more Wild Cards books to Tor. I hope they manage handle to this obvious limitation of their modus operandi better in those novels.

Book Details
Title: High Stakes
Editor: George R.R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 555
Year: 2016
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3562-3
First published: 2016

Lowball - George R.R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass

Lowball is the twenty-second installment in the series of Wild Cards mosaic novels. It was announced quite a while ago but for some reason there are more than three years between the release of Fort Freak, to which Lowball is a sequel, and this novel. I wonder what caused the delay. Might have something to do with Martin's availability as editor of the series though. For the first time Melinda M. Snodgrass is on the cover as editor. She has been assisting Martin in that job for quite a while next to her writing contributions. Maybe  Martin decided to spend a little less time on this project in the face of the overwhelming success of A Song of Ice and Fire. I also wonder if there is going to be a third novel about the officers of the 5th precinct, because this one does leave a few storylines dangling. There is a title floating around, High Stakes, but I haven't come across a publication date yet. Only thing I can find about it is an announcement from 2012 on Martin's blog.

New York's 5th precinct, better known as Fort Freak, lies in the heart of Jokertown. It is by any means the most unusual post a police officer could get assigned to. A mixture of people unaffected by the Wild Cards virus and those whom the virus did transform try to keep order in a place that is the home of a great many colourful characters, misfits, criminals and strangely deformed people. New talents show up frequently, making police work extremely challenging. Unorthodox methods to keep everybody in line are common in this precinct. Lately, a great many Jokers, generally people who won't be missed have started disappearing. Nobody is greatly concerned, but Father Squid, the local priest, keeps digging into the matter and, reluctantly, so do the officers at Fort Freak. The case turns out to be much more complicated than the captain expected when he assigned it to his newly promoted detective Francis Black.

As always, the novel is written by a number of different authors, all writing from the point of view of one character. This volume contains contributions by Michael Cassutt, David Anthony Durham, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Mary Anne Mohanraj, David D. Levine, Walter Jon Williams, Carrie Vaughn and Ian Tregillis. All of them have previous experience in this shared universe. There doesn't seem to be an obvious frame story this time, several of the sections are split into at least half a dozen pieces. I guess it must have been a pain to edit this one and make everything fit. Then again, that probably goes for all of these novels.

The story can be read independently of everything that has gone before but obviously you get more out of it if you have read more Wild Cards novels, Fort Freak in particular. There are a bunch of references to Fort Freak but nothing that is absolutely necessary to understand the plot. Links to the story of the Committee Triad and a few characters introduced in those books show up as well but again nothing essential. I haven't really found that many links with the older Wild Cards novels I've been reading recently. The authors are really writing for a new generation here.

Martin and Snodgrass have done a fairly good job on the editing. While the point of view changes frequently, the flow of the story feels mostly natural and it builds up to a good climax. Oddly enough it is the contributions that aren't split in many pieces that feel a bit out of place. In particular Ian Tregillis' story No Parking and Carrie Vaughn's piece Once More, for Old Times' Sake feel like they don't fit in with the rest. That is a real shame, I quite liked Tregillis' piece in particular. Both of them are well written but their parts in moving the plot forward don't really feel like they need a separate point of view, or as many pages as the novel dedicates to these storylines. I'm also still not very fond of Mary Anne Mohanraj's Detective Michael Stevens. His character, despite being unaffected by the virus, has to be the most unbelievable in the whole series.

I have a feeling more than a few readers will think the actual plot of the novel feels a bit like a bad movie plot. Something with Jean Claude van Damme in it maybe. It is certainly a bit over the top and not the height of originality. Normally I would probably dislike it but in this case I have to admit it does fit with the comic book background that is the inspiration for this series. The books are all a bit over the top, featuring many characters with superpowers. The perverse purpose to which they are turned in this novel is something that fits the overall setting. David Anthony Durham even turns his story line (Those About to Die) featuring the Infamous Black Tongue into a surprisingly relevant piece as his character, a young black man, struggles to find his place in Jokertown society and stay away from the violence that ruins so many lives in his community.

Lowball is a solid entry into the Wild Cards series. I think it more or less delivers what established readers have come to expect from the series. Like pretty much all of the previous books in this series I've read, it doesn't entirely escape the problems that arise when so many writers work on a single project. The fact that it isn't the work of one author keeps showing and that doesn't always do the novel good. That being said, I thought Lowball was quite an entertaining read, with occasional flashes of very good writing. If you can forgive it the B-movie plot I think you could do worse than pick this one up. It left me hoping Martin and Tor aren't going to make us wait another three years for the next volume.

Book Details
Title: Lowball
Editor: George R.R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 361
Year: 2014
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3195-3
First published: 2014

Jokers Wild - George R.R. Martin

Jokers Wild is the third volume in the long-running Wild Cards series. The twenty-second volume titled Lowball will be released by Tor sometime this summer. To coincide with the release of new Wild Cards books, Tor is reissuing the first three novels in the series as well. These novels are written by a writer's collective in a style that they refer to as mosaic. Most of the novels are written by a group of writers, and Martin (increasingly assisted by Melinda M. Snodgrass) edits them into one story. The series has gone though several changes in publisher but, partially carried by the success of Martin himself in recent years, seems to be going strong at the moment. I have only read the first two volumes, The Committee triad and the most recently published novel Fort Freak but I do intend to read them all eventually. This third volume was first published in 1987 and features contributions by Leanne C. Harper, Lewis Shiner, John J. Miller, Edward Bryant, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Walton Simons and George R.R. Martin himself.

Jokers Wild takes place on Wild Cards day 1986, the 40th anniversary of the release of the virus. The day has become something of an odd combination of remembrance and celebrating in recent years, and New York is flooded by tourists coming to witness the celebrations. Not everybody is in a mood to party however. Jack Robicheaux is looking for his teenage niece who ran away from home. Elsewhere Jennifer Maloy, accomplished burglar, unwittingly steals a very valuable little book, greatly upsetting the mobster it belongs to. To make an already chaotic day even more troubling, the Astronomer is out for revenge after his recent defeat at the hands of a group of Aces. Wild Cards day is never a quiet day in New York but this year it will be one to remember.

The entire story is set in one 24 hour period, a way of storytelling that is almost always all or nothing with me. The pace with which events unfold is so rapid that it can easily go at the expense of character development or coherency of the plot. Of course Wild Cards is inspired by comic books, larger than life archetypes, overdrawn emotions and clear good and evil contrast is to be expected to an extend. Jokers Wild manages to pull it off in my opinion but not without leaning heavily on the previous volume Aces High. It is most definitely not a good entry point into the series. The first three volumes, all published in 1987, were most likely planned in one go. It will be interesting to see how much the next couple of books rely on what has gone before.

Each of the authors has a central character with Martin, who writes the point of view of the owner of the the Aces High restaurant Hiram Worchester, tying them all together. Although the missing girl and the stolen book subplots intersect with the Astronomer story line in several places, it is the Astronomer who is central to the novel. Despite his defeat in the previous book, he is still very powerful and out for revenge. It's in this character that the comic book nature of the Wild Cards series shows most clearly. Where most of the characters have at least some redeeming characteristics, the Astronomer is all evil. His aim is to take out the group of Aces that defeated him before Wild Cards day is over and it doesn't take long for the message to get across.

All of the other Wild Cards novels I've read up to this point, deal with discrimination at some level. There is an interesting parallel with the treatment of AIDS patients in the 1980s, when fear of what was back then still a death sentence, resulted in many patients ending up completely isolated. In Jack's storyline it is even briefly touched upon. In this novel the victims of the Wild Cards virus let off some steam. They take over the city. Most of the action takes place among the victims of the virus so the discrimination is not quite as obvious in this novel. There is an undertone of Wild Cards days slowly turning into a freak show however. As with everything to do with the virus the celebration has a distinct dark side to it.

I must admit I'm quite impressed with the way in which the authors have managed to create a credible alternative history of New York, created a number of new landmarks in the city and give the city an impression of the colourful and tragic part of town where the Jokers band together. It's vibrant in a way but also a place where criminal activity comes to the surface and desperation is always present. In terms of setting I think they've done a wonderful job. The Wild Cards world holds infinite possibilities for more stories and the authors don't seem to be shy about using it for a bit of social commentary.

That being said, the novel does show some of the shortcomings of a work with so many authors. In depth characterization is mostly absent and here and there, fault lines in the style of writing are noticeable. Martin has done a wonderful job in editing it so the very compressed time line of the novel makes sense however. It must have been particularly challenging to get everything to fit in just a twenty-four hour time span. It's not the most challenging reading material but it is fast and fun and hard to put down once you've started. I don't think it is quite as good as either Aces High or Fort Freak but a decent entry in the series nonetheless. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing Tor reissue some more of the older Wild Cards books.

Book Details
Title: Jokers Wild
Author: George R.R. Martin
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 384
Year: 2014
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2617-1
First published: 1987

Aces High - George R.R. Martin

Aces High is the second mosaic novel in the long running Wild Cards series. It is one of four volumes published in 1987, this series certainly got off to a flying start. Contributing authors to this volume are Lewis Shiner, Roger Zelazny, Walter Jon Williams, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Victor Milán, Pat Cadigan, John J. Miller, Walton Simons and George R.R. Martin himself. The edition I read is a recent reissue by Tor. Unlike the 2010 reissue of the first volume, Wild Cards I, it does not contain any new material. Wild Cards I is in essence a collection of short stories set in a shared world, making it relatively easy to include new material. Aces High is a more ambitious work in a way. It features a strong overarching story. Although the individual contributions of the authors are still clearly recognizable, Aces High blends them to a greater extend. It reads much more like a regular novel than the first book in the series.

The appearance of the Wild Card virus in the wake of world war II has proven beyond a doubt that extraterrestrial life exists. One member of a sentient alien race, Dr. Tachyon, has become a well known figure in New York society but his species is far from the only ones to inhabit the galaxy. In the 1980s, one of the most feared races in the universe makes an appearance. The semi-sentient swarm has been known to strip planets bare on sentient life and it intends to do so with Earth. In the mean time, a group of Aces with phenomenal powers is hatching a plot to gain control over the planet. And here too, alien technology appears to be part of the plan.

It's quite a shift in focus from the exploration of Wild Card powers and the integration of Wild Cards victims in American society seen in the first volume to threatening the alien invasion in the second. All of it is very much in the style of the comics that inspired the series in the first place, but does take some getting used to. The malicious nature of the swarm is ever present in this novel, in true comic style, these aliens are a nightmare come true. The authors play on the fear of insects many people harbour and enlarge it to create, among other things, a number classic comic style fighting scenes. That is not to say the authors stick to the comic clichés entirely. They can't resist twisting it a bit here and there.

Martin himself has a big influence on the final shape of the novel. He edited the whole, wrote a piece on the Great and Powerful Turtle, who is suffering from a mid-life crisis and a serious case of a broken heart, and wrote the connecting interludes on Jube, the newspaper selling alien passing as a Joker. It's quite obvious that a lot more editing has going into this volume than if the first one. The stories in Wild Cards I can, with a little background on the premise of the world, be read independently, in this novel too much of the context would be lost. It gives the authors in the first volume much more room to have their own voice and style shine though. This novel is edited to a smooth whole. Depending on your preferences, that can be either a good or a bad thing. Personally, I don't think the series would have survived as long as it has without introducing this kind of structure to the mosaic.

Some of the Aces and Jokers appearing in the first volume show up again. Besides the aforementioned Great and Powerful Turtle, one of the more notable Jokers is the Sleeper, originally a character created by Roger Zelazny. The Sleeper is one of the characters I enjoyed most in the first volume but despite Zelazny returning to him, he feels a bit more bland this time around. His contribution is a fun read but it doesn't include the tragedy of his condition in the way that the first story on this character does. I guess he is one characters who did not benefit for the new approach.

Melinda M. Snodgrass has no problems taking us back to the Dr. Tachyon of the first volume. A character even more tragic than the Sleeper but also very flamboyant in his way. Dr. Tachyon is pivotal in the eventual resolution of the plot and I think he is one of the more interesting characters in the novel. Another character that worked very well for me is Fortunado. Lewis Shiner's introduction to the story is a very dark and foreboding piece of writing, introducing us to the mysterious masonic lodge and the red pennies motive that will play an important part in the rest of the novel. A wonderful bit of writing.

I guess this volume signals change for the reader. It exchanges some variety and distinctness found in the first volume for a more solid story arc in the second. I don't think the series would have lasted twenty-five years and produced twenty-one volumes (I understand there is a twenty-second in the works continuing the Fort Freak story line). It also shifts the focus a bit from the Aces and Jokers to the various alien races that inhabit the Wild cards universe. Maybe doing both at once is a bit too much of a good thing but who can resits a dose of horrific extraterrestrials, superheroes who are both tragic and heroic (and never end up with the girl) and some fine over the top fighting scenes to keep the adrenaline going? Aces High is both massively entertaining and a solid foundation for the rest of the series. I can't wait for the reissue of the third volume: Jokers Wild.

Book Details
Title: Aces High
Author: George R.R. Martin (editor)
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 399
Year: 2011
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2616-4
First published: 1987

Fort Freak - George R.R. Martin

Fort Freak is the twenty-first entry in the Wild Cards universe, a long running series of mosaic novels edited by George R.R. Martin. It is not necessary to have read the previous twenty volumes to read this one, Fort Freak works fine as a standalone. There are numerous references to earlier books and cameos by characters that starred in them, but nothing that makes it absolutely necessary to have read earlier volumes. That is probably a good thing. The Wild Cards series is currently published by Tor, the fourth publisher to take on this series. Some of the older volumes are pretty hard to find these days. The original Wild Cards novel (1987) has been reprinted by Tor recently, with a number of new stories added, so if you want to read abut the origins of the Wild Cards universe, it should not be a problem to find a copy of that one at least. I read an announcement a while ago that there would be more reprints of older Wild Cards novels, but so far no publication dates have shown up.

As with the previous three Wild Cards novels published by Tor, Inside Straight, Busted Flush and Suicide Kings, collectively knows ans the Committee Triad, Martin has gathered a mix of Wild Cards veterans and writers new to the series. Fort Freak was written by Paul Cornell, David Anthony Durham, Ty Franck, Stephen Leigh, Victor Milán, John Jos. Miller, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Cherie Priest and Melinda M. Snodgrass. After the events in the Committee Triad, which took us to various places in Africa and the Middle East, Fort Freak returns again to the epicentre of the Wild Card universe, New York City. The book follows the adventures of the officers of New York's fifth precinct, an area also known as Joker Town, New York's ghetto for those deformed by the Wild Card virus.

As with previous Wild Cards novels, each of the authors tells the story from one character, resulting in a novel with a lot of different points of view. Priest has the dubious honour of providing the frame story. Her part of the tale is cut up in no less than 18 episodes. It features detective Leo Storgman, better known by his Joker name Ramshead (now you know who graces the cover of this volume). Detective Storgman is on the verge of retirement, something he looks forward to with a mix of desperation and dread, and is determined to solve one last murder case before his time at the fifth precinct is done. A murder that has haunted him since walking onto the crime scene in 1978. While Leo dives deeper into this old mystery, around him the day to day work continues in what is surely New York's most peculiar police station.

The challenge to the editor is making alls these separate stories come together in a convincing novel of course. Martin has had quite a lot of practice at editing such a volume and he does a very good job of it. Although I pity Cherie Priest, who no doubt had to do a lot of tweaking to make her part into the frame the story needs to succeed, Fort Freak as a whole works pretty well. That is not to say all readers will enjoy that many changes in point of view of course, or that I personally enjoyed each of the contributions in equal measure. Besides Priest's part, I particularly liked David Anthony Durham's creation Marcus (also known as the Infamous Black Tongue) and John Jos. Miller's chapters dealing with Wild Cards veteran Father Squid (a notable character in Aces Abroad). I was less impressed with the unlikely love triangle detective Michael Stevens finds himself in, a section written by Mary Anne Mohanraj.

I can't remember if Martin did this in the previous novels but one thing that struck me about the writing was that first person perspectives, in particular Melinda M. Snodgrass' and Paul Cornell's contributions, were mixed with third person perspectives. The first person perspective fit the story those authors were trying to tell well enough, but they don't really help making Fort Freak into one novel. If you approach this book as a conventional novel instead of a mosaic, it disrupts the flow of the narrative a bit.

The aspect of Fort Freak enjoyed most is the way it shows how much the mutations caused by the virus impact life in Joker Town and the police work that needs to be done there. With both officers and criminals in the possession of odd but sometimes extremely useful powers, it is never safe to rule out the possibility of a Wild Cards talent being involved in a crime. It's a strange combination of solid, old fashioned police work and Wild Card abilities that is instantly recognizable to anyone who's ever read a police procedural and at the same time totally alien. It's a nice twist on the genre really.

Fort Freak is written as a standalone and given the limited availability of the older books in the series, that makes sense. It can be read without having read any of the other volumes but I'm not sure it is a good point to enter the series. There are a lot of nods to other books in the series, and some characters have quite a history. Besides the aforementioned Father Squid, The Sleeper, originally a creation of Roger Zelazny, make an appearance for instance. This novel is a treat for those familiar with the Wild Cards universe, a decent entry in the overall series. For first time readers I would recommend starting with Wild Cards I or Inside Straight though. Martin has mentioned on his blog that a second novel on the fifth precinct cops is in the works. It is tentatively titled Oddball and  expected to be released in late 2012. I for one, will keep an eye out for it.

Book Details
Title: Fort Freak
Author: George R.R. Martin (ed.)
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 464
Year: 2011
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2570-9
First published: 2011

Wild Cards I - George R.R. Martin

Recently, Tor released three new books in the long running shared universe Wild Card series, Inside Straight, Busted Flush and Suicide Kings, collectively known as the Committee Trilogy. A fourth standalone volume, Fort Freak, number twenty-one in the overall series, is expected sometime next year. Tor is the fourth publisher to take on this series and pretty much everything from the previous three publishers is out of print. That means that a lot of the back story of this series is only available second hand, sometimes at very steep prices. Fortunately Tor has now reissued the first Wild Cards novel, originally published in 1987 by Bantam Books, in a trade paperback format.

The original edition was edited by George R.R. Martin and written by a collective of New Mexico writers. Howard Waldrop, Roger Zelazny, Walter Jon Williams, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Lewis Shiner, Victor Milán, Edward Bryant, Leanne C. Harper, Stephen Leigh, John J. Miller and Martin himself contributed to the writing. In the Tor editions tree new sections were added, written by David D. Levine, Michael Cassutt and Carrie Vaughn. I understand Tor also has plans to reissue the second and third books in the series, Aces High and Jokers Wild, but so far I haven't seen any information on them except the original announcement.

Wild Cards I is all about setting up the shared universe. The story opens in 1946, when a human like alien lands in the US claiming he's come to save the earth form a mortal treat, the Wild Card virus. By the time people start to believe him, it is already to late. Despite the best efforts of WWII flying ace Jetboy, the virus is released with devastating consequences. It kills 90 percent of those it infects, leaves 9 percent permanently disfigured and grants 1 percent a wide ranges of unusual powers. The disfigured survivors are referred to as Jokers, while those with useful, sometimes even incredible talents become aces. This volume in the series tries to cover events from the initial release of the virus in 1946 to the 1980s, right before present when the book what initially released.

Having only read the three recently released books of the Committee Trilogy, I was struck by the different approach these books take to the mosaic novel concept. The Committee Trilogy is much more a true novel, with the sections written by different authors interlocking into one story. Wild Cards I is more of a collections of short fiction. Although characters some characters show up in multiple sections of the novel, the stories can pretty much be read independently once you know the concept of the Wild Card. The book seems to aim at giving the reader an overview of how the Wild Card virus influenced the world and setting up a number of story lines that will be continued in subsequent books.

There are some very strong stories among the original entries into this series. I particularly enjoyed Roger Zelazny's entry The Sleeper, featuring an Ace who sleeps for days or weeks at a time and wakes up with different powers every time. It's not always an Ace he draws either but somehow it is never a lethal recurrence of the virus that hits him. Like many of the stories in this collection The Sleeper's life is tragic. Witnessing the release of a Wild Cards virus at a young age, he has to grow up much to quickly. The Sleeper is by no means a perfect Ace. After he looses his father to the virus he provides for his family with criminal activities, starting a life in the underworld of New York City. A rather lonely life as we'll find out later in the book. He does some very wrong things but on the other hand you can't help but feel sorry for him.

A second story I think stood out in the collection is Walter Jon Williams' Witness. It introduces the incredibly strong Ace Golden Boy, whose powers make him ideally suited for the 1950s variety of gunboat diplomacy. Golden Boy's real passion is acting however, so once his diplomatic career takes a nosedive, he heads for Hollywood. A place that is about to receive the attention of one Senator McCarthy. Williams shows us how hopelessly unprepared Golden Boy is for his life in the spotlight and how the strongest man in the world basically breaks under the strain. To make matters worse, Golden Boy does not seem to age. It's enough to make one wonder if he has indeed drawn an Ace. There is no outrunning his past for this man. Another very dark part of the collection about a dark part of US history.

Martin's own contribution, Shell Games, is a bit more upbeat. I had already read this bit, Martin included it in the massive, career-spanning anthology Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective. The story introduces the Great and Powerful Turtle, an Ace with very strong telekinetic abilities. Inspired by the comic books he read in his youth, he wants to use his talents for the good of mankind, catching crooks and saving people. In a rather physical way, his friend points out that he is quite vulnerable when concentrating and so they come up with a solution that will make him unreachable for anything short of heavy artillery. His first major challenge comes when Jokertown's leading entrepreneur, a woman by the name of Angelface goes missing. Martin probably approaches the superhero comics that inspired this series closest in this tale. A damsel in distress, an ordinary fellow turning into superhero with great powers, one would almost think the story cliché. Martin also uses his story to give us a look at the dark side of New York's Joker ghetto, a setting important to many of the Wild Cards' stories.

Three new stories were added to entice readers to invest in a book they perhaps already own. For the book, I don't think it was really necessary. Sure, it tries to cover a great span of time in relatively few pages, so there are plenty of gaps to fill, but the general outline of the Wild Cards universe is introduced well enough. The book works just fine without. That being said, I quite enjoyed David D. Levine's addition Powers quite a lot. His anti-hero Ace Frank Majewski, who carefully keeps his ability to stop time for everybody but himself hidden because of McCarthy's antics in Witness, is another strong character in book. His reluctance and fear for his family, deeply rooted in what happened in his native Poland during and right after the war, are some of the ingredients that makes this story work for me. It's very much at odds with the image of some of the more public Aces. This story also an interesting take on the events surrounding the crash and capture of U2 pilot Gary Powers in 1960.

Wild Cards I contains a lot of snapshots from post-WWII history. It is not yet a fully integrated set of stories, but more of a sandbox where each of the contributors do their own thing. The result is a very interesting book and the start of an unusual series, but it also leaves us with a lot of loose ends. It will be interesting to see if Tor goes through with publishing more of the back catalogue of the Wild Cards series, this book certainly whets the appetite for more. As a reader relatively new to the series, I very much liked this opportunity to go back to the origins of the series. Judging from what I have read so far, the series seems to have developed a lot over the years. Wild Cards I was not quite what I expected but it surprised in a good way. If, like me, you have only read some of the later books, this book is really a must read.

Book Details
Title: Wild Cards I
Author: George R.R. Martin (ed.)
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 493
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2615-7
First published: 1987

Suicide Kings - George R.R. Martin

Suicide Kings is the third part in the latest reincarnation of the long-running Wild Cards series. Together with Inside Straight and Busted Flush it forms the Committee trilogy. I guess you could consider this trilogy Wild Cards the next generation. These books are my first encounter with the series and are meant to be an entry point for new reader. Many of the older volumes are out of print, although Tor has plans to reprint some of them. Like most of the previous novels, Suicide Kings is a collaborative effort. This volume is written by six authors - Daniel Abraham, S.L. Farrell, Victor Milán, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Caroline Spector and Ian Tregillis - and is of course edited by George R.R. Martin.

We return to the committee one year after the evens in Busted Flush, when the Amazing Bubbles managed to prevent New Orleans being hit by a nuclear explosion. Bubbles has been in a coma ever since but work for the committee continues. The organisation has attracted more Aces to take some of the strain of the overworked original members but it is also increasingly being bogged down by bureaucracy. When a major crisis develops in Africa, political sensitivities pretty much prevent the committee from taking action. This position cannot be held indefinitely however. The Caliphate seems to be on the brink of collapse after a major defeat at the hands of the People's Paradise of Africa (a nation made up of a number of countries in central Africa). With the incredibly powerful and absolutely ruthless Radical as their main weapon the PPA seems unstoppable.

In the mean time, some of the old guard committee members are asking themselves is this is how they are going to save the world form now on. Disappointed in the UN-leadership and disturbed by reports of the Radical's actions and other atrocities that are taking place in the PPA, many of them find their own reasons for a smaller scale, private initiative. Of course without the official backing of the committee these actions are not very well prepared and often very, very dangerous. Then again, the alternative seems to be worse.

As I mentioned above, this novel was written by six people so, not surprisingly, it has six main story lines that cross and interconnect at various points in the novel. In the previous two books the contributions of the various authors have been split into chapters but are otherwise more or less in tact. In Suicide Kings Martin has chosen a different approach. The book is divided in chapters named after the day they cover and consists of snippets of text by each author. Some of them are as short as half a page and they rarely exceed four. In my eyes this is the greatest weakness of the book, it gives me the feeling of being rushed through the story, of seeing one frame of a movie and then being rushed on to the next scene. At times it is intensely frustrating to leave a character in the middle of something and jump into the next scene.

Thematically on the other hand, this book is probably the most interesting of the three. It clearly refers to events in our time line, in particular the second Congo war. One of the most bloody conflicts since the second world war, this conflict was very much ignored by much of the western world. The extreme levels of violence against the population, women in particular, and the extensive use of child soldiers in the conflict have clearly served as an inspiration to this novel. In an brief afterword Martin asks for support for the victims of this conflict. Victims that are all too often perpetrators as well. Dealing with these children an impossible dilemma and unfortunately the situation in Eastern Congo in particular still isn't stable.

Our Wild Card heroes struggle with these issues throughout the book. Especially the morality of killing child soldiers is something that poses a major problem for some of them. Killing is never easy for most of them but when it is a child pointing a gun at you it becomes infinitely harder to pull the trigger yourself. The question of whether these children are victims or the enemy and the even more complicated question of what to do with these children once the fighting stops is key to the final part of this novel. The authors drive the difficulty of the situation home mercilessly, and although some of their goals are achieved, this makes for a bitter sweet ending of the trilogy as a whole. I didn't quite know what to expect when I picked up a series of books inspired by super hero comics but it certainly wasn't this. The authors have managed to surprise me with the depth of their characters and the difficult problems they've tackled in this trilogy.

A book written by so many different authors will always pose serious challenges for the editor. Martin has done an admirable job in making all these different authors speak with one voice but Suicide Kings also clearly shows some of the drawbacks of this process. Especially in the early parts of the novel the constant jumps between characters made this book though going. Once the direction of the story became clear, my reading speeded up significantly and I must admit the finale of the book is very strong, both emotionally and in terms of the action scenes. I guess on the whole I liked this one better than Busted Flush, which suffered from a meandering plot, but the result is still less than stellar. After the strong opening I am mildly disappointed by the way this trilogy developed but on the other hand I am also impressed by the way the books dare to take on some pretty heavy themes and the way the characters are developed by multiple authors. In short, I am left with mixed feelings about this interesting but challenging project.

Book Details
Title: Suicide Kings
Author: George R.R. Martin (ed.)
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 445
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1783-4
First published: 2009

Busted Flush - George R.R. Martin

Busted Flush is the nineteenth entry in the Wild Cards series of mosaic novels edited by George R.R. Martin. The previous book, Inside Straight is something of a new beginning for the series, a new trilogy with new characters and a couple of new writers. It's a good point to get started. A lot of the earlier novels are out of print so it would take a bit of effort to round all of them up. Inside Straight was not something I would normally read. I'm not a huge fan of comics to begin with and the bunch of lousy movies they've been turned into recently doesn't help. I had to admit is was an interesting read however. Unfortunately Busted Flush falls short of the standard set in the first book of the Committee trilogy a bit.

The story picks up some time after the events in Inside Straight. The UN secretary-general has snapped up the new American heroes after their dramatic performance in Egypt and formed the Committee. A group of Aces dealing with everything from genocide to natural disasters. And there is plenty of work, our heroes are spread thin. In fact, the cracks in their organisation are clearly beginning to show. There is no time for rest however, a crisis is developing in Africa, where the People's Paradise of Africa and Nigeria are headed for armed conflict. Most inconvenient, Nigeria's oil is in great demand now that the Caliphate is driving up oil prices and crippling western economies. Here too the Committee is called upon to save the day. A third party heads out to New Orleans where a particularly bad hurricane season is creating all manner of problems for the local populations. Will these small groups of Aces be up to the huge challenges the UN has set them?

Like the previous book, this mosaic novel is written by nine people. A slightly different crew than last time: S.L. Farrell, Victor Milán, John Jos. Miller, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Walton Simmons, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Caroline Spector, Ian Tregillis and Carrie Vaughn. Martin himself has limited his role to editing in this volume. Again who has written what is clearly indicated in the book and again Martin assisted by Snodgrass have done a fine job of making the book work stylistically. I have more problems with the plot however.

At one point in the book we have most of the main characters at one place before the story branches out. There are three main challenges the Committee faces but the other parties all have their own plans as well. Besides the African revolutionaries and the Arab rules there are two western government agencies involved in the story as well. All of these get their share of attention turning the novel into a mosaic for real. These little pieces are interconnected of course and they do build a surprisingly complex picture. What they fail to do is turn the book into one story.

The assignment in the Middle East for instance, feels like a loose thread in the story. Although there is some development in some of the characters, a couple of people have it pointed out to them that politics are not as black and white as they were lead to believe, events there don't really add much to the overall story. The authors don't manage to really connect this thread to the things that go on in the finale of the book either. I had some problems with the idea of the Caliphate as well. We tend to see the Arab world as one block of nations in the west. In reality they rarely agree on anything though. Sometimes on oil prices but even that is a stretch a lot of the time. Several attempts in the last century to unify two or more Arab nations have failed miserably. Mostly because each of the respective nations' leaders feels they should be in charge of the whole. And then there is the fact that there are a lot of people in that region quite prepared to underline their own political or religious ideas with a Kalashnikov if need be. The Caliphate is a very unlikely bit of fiction.

The situation in Central-Africa worked a lot better for me. Clearly based on the enormous mess we think of as the First and Second Congo war, some of the bloodiest and most brutal fighting in recent history, it injects a dose of gritty political realism into the story. Not that I think a (nominally) Marxist revolution would have any more success controlling Congo than the factions currently fighting over the region but the brutal fighting and chilling disregard for human suffering hit close to home. Martin et al. are not afraid of exposing the role a number of outside factions play in the conflict either. The way the world deals with Africa isn't pretty and that message clearly echoes though this part of the novel.

I guess this novel shows the limits of the Wild Cards approach. This book is graced with some very good writing, a number of good action scenes and a fair number of interesting ideas, superpowers and characters. The plot is all over the place however. The Wild Cards collective has failed to make this book into one novel. For the real Wild Cards fan there is still plenty to enjoy compared to the previous entry it isn't a very strong book. Maybe it suffers from the middle book syndrome a bit? Perhaps some of the loose ends will be dealt with in the final book of this trilogy, Suicide Kings, but even that is not going to turn Busted Flush into a truly satisfying read.

Book Details
Title: Busted Flush
Author: George R.R. Martin (ed.)
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 398
Year: 2008
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1782-7
First published: 2008

Inside Straight - George R.R. Martin

I have read pretty much everything by George R.R. Martin I have been able to get my hands on. That is not to say I have read everything he has written, some of his short fiction is pretty hard to find these days. Another notable omission is the Wild Cards project he co-wrote and edited. The year 2008 saw the (second?) rebirth of this series of 'mosaic' novels, a series of books set in a shared universe, written by several authors. The first part appeared in 1987, Inside Straight is book 18. Normally I wouldn't start a series at book 18 but many of the previous books have been out of print for a while. I understand Tor means to reissue some of the older ones in omnibus editions but I can't find a publication date for the first one. To make this 18th book a good entry point Martin and his companions created something of a Wild Cards: the Next Generation to reboot the series.

What do you need to know about the back story of the Wild Cards? Not a lot really. In 1946 an alien virus hit earth. It killed ninety percent of those infected, disfigured nine percent and left a lucky one percent with superhuman powers. The unlucky nine percent are referred to as Jokers while the ones with interesting powers are the Aces and have influenced to course of history and politics considerably. By 2007, the year in which Inside Straight is set, some of them have attained fame and wealth. At the same time their less fortunate fellows are still very much discriminated against. Many of them live in poverty.

For some 1946 is a long time ago, the world has grown used to the virus and the Aces it has created. Why, someone in Hollywood thinks they are fine material for a reality TV-show. Thus American Hero is born. It pits a number of, mostly, young Aces against each other in staged contests. The series is a hit and prime fodder for the entertainment press. Fights, sex, relationships and backstabbing predictably ensue. Not everybody is distracted by the TV-show however. Contestant and early discard Jonathan Hive develops an interest in events taking place in Egypt, where the assassination of an Arab Caliph has resulted in a severe outbreak of anti-Joker violence. He figures it is better to be a hero in real life than pretend to be one on television.

Wild Cards is clearly the result of the young George Martin's love for comics. Superhero comics isn't something that has become very big on this side of the Atlantic. If you look for them they are available of course but it is not quite as big a cultural influence as it is in the United States. That puts me at a bit of a disadvantage. Superheroes are supposed to act a certain way and I am sure I will miss some of that. Just ignore it if I include a silly comment into the review. I did suffer from one quite unwanted association. The abbreviation of American Hero (AH) is also the name of the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands. I tell you, this book conspires not to let me take it seriously!

I must admit it does take some getting used to. For this superhero stuff suspension of disbelief simply is not enough. You have to blindly accept the powers some of the Aces have as some of it is complete nonsense. The Crusader for instance can create an impenetrable armour and a sword that will cut though any known substance, there is an Ace who can change himself into a swarm of wasps, an Ace who changes kinetic energy into bodyweight and we even encounter a magic amulet. Once you get past that hurdle it is very entertaining reading though.

The advantage of these books over a comic is that you get to see a lot more of what the character is feeling and thinking and Martin has collected a group of authors who flesh out these characters well. They have created quite a volatile mix in the American Heroes contestants. Some of them are angry, selfish, impulsive or plain stupid and it clearly shows in what they do to each other on the show. But, and I guess this is what makes them superheroes, when they really need to, they pull together and pull off the impossible. All things considered it is still a bit of a lightweight and predictable plot but I enjoyed it all the same.

What I really admire about this book is the editing. There are nine contributors to this volume and I guess I should name them somewhere in the review so here we go: Daniel Abraham, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Carrie Vaughn, Michael Cassut, Caroline Spector, John Jos. Miller, George R.R. Martin, Ian Tregillis and S.L. Farrell. It must have been one hell of a job to make these people speak with one voice and take into account 17 books of back story. Which sections of the book are written by which author is clearly mentioned, I guess if you really make an effort you can see the differences in style, but I thought is was a pretty smooth ride. I do feel like I missed an awful lot of references to things that have happened in earlier books. Most of the Aces that will be familiar to the fans of the series only play a minor part in the novel, which I am sure will disappoint some readers, but there are still a number of things in the book that made me wonder if I missed something. I guess that was unavoidable given the history of the series. It didn't stop me from understanding what was going.

So is Inside Straight a successful restart of the series? I don't think I can really answer that. It was an entertaining book but not having read any of the others I have no idea how it holds up to what has come before. I do think it is a fast and fun read and a very unusual project. It's definitely a series I want to read more of so expect a review of Busted Flush, the second book in this new trilogy sometime in March.

Book Details
Title: Inside Straight
Author: George R.R. Martin (ed.)
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 384
Year: 2008
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1781-8
First published: 2008