Customer Reviews

Inside Straight (Wild Cards Novel)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've been a huge fan of the Wild Cards series since 1990. I read the first eight books without a break, and stopped only because I had to wait for the ninth volume to be published.

This volume is the 18th entry in the series, and introduces several new characters and several new contributors. All the ingredients for a new start to the series are here, but there's something vital lacking.

For the first time, I seriously considered setting this book aside and reading something else. I struggled to get through the last couple of chapters. It was worth hanging in, as the final sequences are satisfying and are a good setup for further adventures of these new characters.

The story just doesn't have much punch. Most Wild Cards books are intensely compelling, but this one, which focuses on aces participating in an American Idol style competition (called American Hero), drags in places. Even George R.R. Martin's story, his first contribution since Volume 11, lacks the sparkle of his short work. The plot isn't completely without interest, but it is slow.

A little more than halfway through the book, a crisis erupts in Egypt, and the story segues into real action. You'd expect things to pick up at this point, but it still felt flat to me. It wasn't until the very end that things picked up again and delivered a satisfying wrap-up.

I've never been truly disappointed in a Wild Cards book before, although Volume 16, Deuces Down, was more of an anthology than a mosaic novel. Still, that won't stop me from picking up the next volume. Since each book contains a different mix of writers, you never know quite what will happen next, and the basic concept is still a great one.

If you haven't read the series before, I strongly recommend that you start with the first book and read them in sequence. There is a lot of continuity in these books and the later volumes will be much more enjoyable if you're familiar with the background. Plus, if truth be told, the first six or seven volumes are the best, sustaining a very high level of quality that later books don't quite match.

And if you're thinking of buying this book only because George R. R. Martin's name is on it, and you know his work through the Song of Ice and Fire series, I'd advise against it. This is a completely different style and genre. Ice and Fire is heroic fantasy; Wild Cards is comic-book based science fiction. You might do better to pick up an anthology of Martin's earlier short stories, as there are numerous gems among them.

I'm a long time fan of the Wild Cards series, and I loved this book, but it also can be enjoyed by newcomers the series, as it makes a pretty good entry point.

Though the book is technically a collection of short stories by several writers, "Inside Straight" feels much more like a true novel instead. Even though we had a rotating point of view, it is truly a single story. So, I'll not be reviewing each individual tale, like I planned to. I'll just write my thoughts in no particular order.

First, it's a very hopeful, heart-warming book. While I'm a self-confessed fan of the darkness of the former books of the Wild Cards series, I couldn't help but cheer the heroes on this one. Their journey from fake TV heroes to real heroes is impossible not to root for. The book is a crescendo of dramatic, moving moments.

These superheroes (aces) are very much different from the usual superheroes you see in the comics and movies. They're inexperienced, ordinary people with superpowers, much like the "Heroes" TV show. Most of them are like you and me, but with powers.

Except for Stuntman and Double Helix, all of the protagonists are extremely sympathetic. Following the book's general theme of rite of passage, they're all on a journey to heroism and personal redemption. Each one of them is very different, each one of them will realize their potential in a different way, but all of them are very uplifting. Some go from cynicism to the discovery that there are things worth fighting for. Some are ugly ducklings that will come out of their shells. Some want to erase past impressions.

Another new great thing in this book is the presence of strong female protagonists. Perhaps one of the few negative points of the old Wild Cards series, that usually had very few kick-ass female heroes. Curveball, Bubbles, and Earth Witch are all great. Both "Chosen Ones" and "Metagames" feature relationships between two female characters as the main point of the stories, giving the new female characters more realism: they're not there just as romantic interests for the guys.

One last thing I liked a lot. This book is also very "epic". Great superhero battles, change the world stuff, superpowers used in the world stage of global politics.

It struck me how great the Wild Card characters are in this sort of war/political/spy story. They're powerful enough to do things, but they're not so powerful that they overwhelm the other side too easily (as would happen if you had, say, DC Comics' Justice League going to a war). They can take armies, but they're not unbeatable, and this mantains the tension and suspense.

The politics of the book also, thankfully, avoid being "partisan" or panfletary. While you do have at least two characters that have Christian undertones (Crusader and Holy Roller) battling Muslims, it's hard to categorize this book as "right-wing", when a lot of it revolve around the very pagan Egyptian Gods and John Fortune, and characters such as lesbians, debauched rock stars, gender-bending hermaphrodites, and liberal bloggers joining the good fight.

The Wild Cards series has a special place in my heart and library, and I was very pleased with this latest installment. I think it's the best Wild Card book in a long time. I cannot imagine the cooperation and planning needed to pull off a coherent shared-universe novel with multiple authors, but Inside Straight accomplished this, if not seamlessly, then certainly logically and readably.

Bracketed, as ever, by the iconic figure of Jetboy, and spiced with blog posts incorporated into the story, this is a book for new Wild Cards fans. There are enough sly references to the old guard to keep long-time fans happy, but the musings of the new aces as they try to find their place amid the falseness and consumerism of Hollywood and reality tv shows, as well as their experiences ofwar and prejudice, make for poignant and enjoyable reading. Recommended.

Launched in 1987, the Wild Cards series dares to take superheroes seriously, breaking ground for comic books like RISING STARS and TV shows like HEROES. There are heroes and villains, along with plenty in between, with story arcs that cover many comic tropes (alien invasion, supervillain-led conspiracy, organized crime with superfolk) and many that are pure social or political commentary.

The new book, INSIDE STRAIGHT, does a fantastic job of bringing together these two thematic strands into one dazzling whole. The comic trope is very much au courant-- young people dealing with their powers (a notion explored in books like RUNAWAYS)-- while the social/political angles include reality TV (with the start of a series called AMERICAN HERO) and an analog of some serious real-world crises.

The stories lead up to two critical questions: 1) what is a hero? and 2) if you have superpowers, do you have a duty to help make a difference in the world?

I cannot recommend the book enough. There are some deeply moving moments and some true hilarity, with the whole assembled brilliantly by George R.R. Martin.

If you like the idea of superhero fiction written for adults, you're going to love this book.

As a lifelong comic book nerd I've been a fan of the Wild Cards books since the late 80s/ early 90s. If you pop on over to the previous entry in the series, John Joseph Miller's novel "Death Draws Five", you'll see that my review of that one was less than positive. This new book, while not the best of the lengthy series, is a noted improvement and a worthy addition. Inside Straight is one of the Wild Cards patented "mosaic novels", a series of short stories by different authors which all feed into a loose central plot. In this case there's a somewhat interesting dichotomy between a slew of super powered young people participating in an American Idol style reality tv show, and the escalating violence in the Middle East.

For those who have never read the series the necessary background is that 60 years ago an alien virus struck the earth, rewriting genetic code so that some of its victims were turned into deformed creatures called Jokers and others, known as Aces, were left with super powers. In this book an unknown Ace has assassinated the new Caliph in Baghdad, a super powered ruler who had gained control of much of the Arab world. Joker terrorists get blamed for it and in Egypt, people begin to take vengeance on the Jokers, many of whom follow a renewed ancient religion based around people who look like Osiris, Isis and Thoth. At the same time a group of two dozen American Aces are participating in the reality show American Hero. Eventually these two worlds come together in a somewhat interesting, yet also somewhat underplayed, manner.

The book contains work by several authors who are new, or nearly new, to the Wild Cards universe. Daniel Abraham, for example, has been a minor contributor to the last several Wild Cards books. Here he does a good job providing the framing device for the stories, in this case the story of a super powered blogger named Jonathan Hive. Other new additions also work surprisingly well.

This book is largely a fresh new start. Very few characters from previous books appear, and those mostly at the periphery. Martin, as editor, has admirably kept the focus on a series of new Aces. As with any anthology, some of the stories work better than others, I found Melinda Snodgrass' contributions a bit tiresome, but that may be because of my deep antipathy to the new character she introduces. Perhaps not so oddly in a series which has always been character driven, some of the more engaging segments are set during the reality tv show competition, before the main action of the book starts. The character interaction in some of these is top notch. The book introduces a host of new characters. Predictably, some are more interesting than others, and it will be interesting to see which, if any, become regular characters in the next couple of books.

As I said above, the book is not the best in the series. Thankfully it eschews the ridiculous "Card Sharks" and conspiracy themes which had been central to the last several editions in the series. However, international events are an important part of the book, and their treatment here reminds us that the Wild Cards writers don't have a very good handle on politics, particularly international politics, or with things outside of the US. Many of the international characters are based off of rather broad national stereotypes, and the portrayal of Arabs and Muslims is very orientalist. The Wild Cards series has always worked best when they had a rather intimate scope. The first several books tended to revolve largely around New York City and they were the tightest. The bad news is that the action here is globe trotting and it appears to be so for the next installment too. This exposes some of the weakness of the writers. Hopefully they'll bring things back to a more intimate level soon. What's also notable in the book is how "heroic" centered it is. One notable thing about Wild Cards in relation to most super hero fiction is how much it's avoided the typical tropes of super heroics: few costumes, few super teams, few super heroes in the traditional mode. What we've gotten instead have been ordinary people with super powers getting into adventures, often for personal reasons (threat to themselves or a loved one, payment, revenge etc). This book is the most conventionally super heroic of the series, with a flat out super hero as one of the main characters and several others as super heroes in the making. While this works fairly well in the context of the book it does get away from a paradigm which has worked best for Wild Cards and there's a real danger of future books taking this trend in a less workable way.

The long awaited eighteenth volume in the Wild Card series is a good one.

It doesn't live up to the brilliance of the early series, and seems to have changed tone somewhat. Far less sex, and perhaps even less violence, at least up close as opposed to blogged about afterwards than the earlier work.

The amount of interest I have, or time spent watching reality television can be added up on the legs of a snake. If I lived in this world, would I have some interest in watching loser aces make fools of themselves? Probably some of it, like the almost anything goes type contest stuff, anyway.

Daniel Abraham has the toughest job to pull off her with the multi-story Jonathan Hive tales, going from smartarse blogger, to vaguely panicked smartarse war correspondent.

Some of the veterans shine as usual, Martin, Snodgrass, Leigh. Hopefully the former has enjoyed writing something not a gazillion pages long and medieval, again, as his work again features for best story.

To follow on from the cover of the last book, this time around they have gone for the exceedingly cheesy romance novel Lancelot beefcake picture, complete with bad 90s comic gold foil type look into the bargain.

Good to have Wild Cards back, hopefully there will be more.

Wild Cards 18 : 01 Jonathan Hive 1 Who the Fukc Was Jetboy? - Daniel Abraham
Wild Cards 18 : 02 Dark Of the Moon - Melinda M. Snodgrass
Wild Cards 18 : 03 Jonathan Hive 2 Jonathan Hive Sells Out! - Daniel Abraham
Wild Cards 18 : 04 From the Desk of Rebecca Lieberman - George R. R. Martin
Wild Cards 18 : 05 Chosen Ones 1 - Carrie Vaughn
Wild Cards 18 : 06 Jonathan Hive 3 First Among Losers - Daniel Abraham
Wild Cards 18 : 07 Chosen Ones 2 - Carrie Vaughn
Wild Cards 18 : 08 Jonathan Hive 4 Better Than Television - Daniel Abraham
Wild Cards 18 : 09 Looking For Jetboy - Michael Cassutt
Wild Cards 18 : 10 Metagames - Caroline Spector
Wild Cards 18 : 11 Jonathan Hive 5 All the Best Stories Start This One Time We Were Really Drunk And - Daniel Abraham
Wild Cards 18 : 12 Star Power - Melinda M. Snodgrass
Wild Cards 18 : 13 Wakes the Lion - John J. Miller
Wild Cards 18 : 14 Jonathan Hive 6 A Bad Day In Cairo - Daniel Abraham
Wild Cards 18 : 15 Crusader - George R. R. Martin
Wild Cards 18 : 16 Jonathan Hive 7 Real People Really Dying - Daniel Abraham
Wild Cards 18 : 17 The Tin Man's Lament - Ian Tregillis
Wild Cards 18 : 18 Jonathan Hive 8 Hey Guys My Dad's Got A Warehouse Let's Put On A War - Daniel Abraham
Wild Cards 18 : 19 Incidental Music For Heroes - Stephen Leigh
Wild Cards 18 : 20 Blood On the Sun - Melinda M. Snodgrass
Wild Cards 18 : 21 Looking For Jetboy Epilog - Michael Cassutt
Wild Cards 18 : 22 Jonathan Hive 9 Give the Wookie A Medal - Daniel Abraham

An old loser hero blog from bug boy.

3.5 out of 5


A teleporting ace agent wetwork specialist finally gets to the Nur.

4 out of 5


Joining the reality show.

3.5 out of 5


Reality show roll call, in suits.

3 out of 5


Rescuing people from burning buildings etc. is harder than it looks, even with super powers.

3.5 out of 5


Wisecracking bugsy observers discarded.

3 out of 5


Earth Witch and her new skills come in handy for underwater recovery.

3.5 out of 5


Some wasp spying by the discarded one, as he realises there may be something better to do for him and John Fortune than really bad tv shows.

3.5 out of 5


The Scavenger Hunt gets a bit vicious.

3.5 out of 5


More tv team-ups, discards, and some real ace contests, even with a Golden Boy.

4 out of 5


Burning down the house, amulets of power, a flaming lion, and a couple of drunk friends for John Fortune.

3.5 out of 5


Straight Arrow has some spook recruiting in mind.

4 out of 5


Symbiote Fortune in Vegas, and Lohengrin suggests Hive should actually be a real journo.

3.5 out of 5


Dead Caliph riot observations for Hive, Fortune, and Lohengrin.

3 out of 5


The three aces in Egypt start to earn a reputation, and find out an army and some bigger aces are coming for them.

4.5 out of 5


Warblogging.

3.5 out of 5


Discarded and torn, it is time for war.

4 out of 5


Bugsy gets reinforcements, but a three times bigger other army coming to get him.

3.5 out 5


A not very little Drummer Boy decides to lend a hand.

4 out of 5


Double Helix, pommie spook ace shows just how many side he/she can play.

4 out of 5


With important stuff on, nobody actually cares about reality tv.

3 out of 5


The UN and Jayawardene, after looking useless, decide that a super team (or actually, Committee) might be a good plan.

3 out of 5

A plague has transformed ordinary people into Norms, Jokers and Aces. The Aces are given superhuman powers, but for a lot of Aces, it's business as usual. One digs holes. One can turn into wasps and uses the wasps to snoop on others, one blows bubbles. Until, that is, they have a chance to appear on a TV reality show. One of the aces will be named as the new American Hero, but first, they'll be divided into four teams (for the four suits in a deck of cards) and be faced with obstacles that will take every bit of their Ace powers to defeat.

Meanwhile, an assassin attacks the restored Caliph, and the Arab world convulses into an orgy of destruction--much of it targeting the Jokers--especially Egyptian Jokers who take the form of the old gods of Egyptian Mythology.

For a few of the losers (discards) on the American Hero show, escalating genocide in Egypt becomes more important than hanging around and watching former allies destroy one another. In Egypt, they figure, their powers can be used for something more significant than stunts and TV ratings.

George R. R. Martin (see more BooksForABuck.com reviews of novels by Martin) created his Wild Cards series long before his Song of Ice and Fire fantasy, but there's a lot to enjoy about the angst-filled antics of wanna-be heroes who are suddenly given the opportunity to become, in reality, what they've only acted out before. Martin is joined by several other authors but Martin's editing is smooth enough to allow INSIDE STRAIGHT to read as a seamless novel--I certainly couldn't tell from the writing where one author left off and another began.

I did have some problems with the implausibility factor. The American (and one German) Aces squared off against entire national armies aided only by a few untrained jokers. Their defensive heroics along the Aswan Dams in Egypt are simply difficult to buy. Why, for example, did the new Caliph have to cross the Nile under fire? Why couldn't he have sent a force across the river to the north (or south) of where the Aces and returned gods waited? And why, when so many Aces were available in America that they could be used to dig holes in the ground, did the entire Egyptian army have none, and the Caliph only two?

Fantasy doesn't have to be believable--after all, it is fantasy. Still, it is nice to be able to maintain that suspension of disbelief. INSIDE STRAIGHT is engaging and well written. It certainly held my attention. I would have liked a few less opportunities to roll my eyes and say "that couldn't happen."

Although his grandfather will never forgive him as he was part of the age of chivalry before JFK and Jetboy died; Jonathan Hive and twenty-seven extraordinary marvelous superheroes (that word is used loosely) sign onto a survivor reality TV show. In actuality, the chosen 28 have never been heroic, but each has a superhuman skill. These "aces" will initially belong to one of four "suits" while competing in staged contests as only LA-LA land could dream up with losers voted off the show until the greatest American Hero is left standing.

However, as the weeks go by those left standing are stunned by appalling sickening events in the Middle East. There inane games look pathetic when compared to those without superpowers risking their lives. Stunningly several including Jonathan whose grandfather is probably smiling, leave the set to become real American Heroes not just Hollywood Heroes even knowing they may die in their endeavor.

The latest round of the Wild Cards thrillers starts a new saga in which several authors (Daniel Abraham, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Carrie Vaughan, Michael Cassutt, Caroline Spector, John Jos. Miller, George R. R. Martin, Ian Tregillis and S. L. Farrell) contribute. The well written tale reads smooth (a trademark of the previous entries) in spite of the numerous contributors while satirizing reality TV and world affairs. INSIDE STRAIGHT entertains the audience but also asks readers to ponder two key points. First who is a hero reminds us of Charles Barkley's "I am not a role model. Parents should be the role models"; in this case soldiers are the heroes. Second that with great power comes greater responsibly beyond "Bring em on" bravado from a safe house or Hollywood set. This is an excellent exciting and thought provoking royal flush as the whole is greater than the individual parts.

Harriet Klausner

I've never read a Wild Cards book before, so this series is new to me. This novel is very disappointing considering George R.R. Martin's pedigree. He's certainly written some great stuff. However, the concept of Super Heroes in a reality TV show has been done before in the much better run of Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's X-Force/X-Statix for Marvel comics. I'm no fan of Reality TV, so perhaps this will appeal to fans of those types of shows. Nothing is very original here. It seems like a bunch of recycled ideas in pedestrian form.

I'm on my library's email list for new SF books. I actually remember thinking... 'Hey - Great' ... when their last email showed they had 'Inside Straight' on shelf.

I'd read all the original Wildcards (thru XII)and liked them and this notification reminded me of how much I enjoyed the series.

While I was waiting for the book to be delivered to my local library branch, I looked through Amazon to see if I could find and buy the books since Volume XII - the last I'd read. (They are all available somehow and some at quite a price at this date)

Then yesterday I picked up 'Straight', took it home and started reading.

There were authors I recognized - Martin, Miller and Snodgrass - and six others that I hadn't heard of.

Known or unknown didn't make any difference - each of the authored stories were poorly written, lacked any drama or character interest and frankly, I was having to push myself to finish the book.

I have finished the book and it finished as it started - bad work.

On a specific point, the sparse use of four-letter words was rather pathetic. I can tolerate their usage but it seemed that where used throughout this book, they were simply there to provide some rather desperate street-cred.

I'm no longer motivated to buy the unread books from the series.

This book has one star from me - that's only because Amazon don't have an option for zero stars.

Color me disappointed.