Customer Reviews

Wild Cards VI: Ace in the Hole

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this series when it was originally released. I wasnt happy with where the series eventually ended up late in the series, but the earlier works are fond favorites.

People buying this book (or others in the series) because they are fans of GRRMartins Song of Ice and Fire series are likely to be disapointed due to misaligned expectations.

The only thing this series has in common with the Song of Ice and Fire is a gritty certainty that favorite characters will get killed....or worse, and the use of widely scattered often disconnected characters and plotlines that sometimes may cross but also might never. Further, as this is a 'mosaic' novel, GRRMartin isnt the sole proprietor of the stories.

Treated as a seperate entity from GRRMartin's more recent series, the Wild Cards series is a fairly unique and often brilliant body of work. Due to its nature, not all of the short stories will appeal to everyone; to be sure there are stories and story arcs that dont appeal to me either.

Regardless, taken as a whole the series is really something special. Its similar to a massive wall mural which cant be appreciated from up close; you have to pull back abit and look at it in its entirety to fully appreciate the overall effect.

The strength of the series lays in its deft characterizations. Some of my favorite fictional characters are from this series; the Turtle, Croyd Crenson (the Sleeper), Golden Boy, Mackie Messer, Carnifex, Mr Nobody, Jumpin Jack Flash (et al), Kid Dinosaur.....the list goes on and on.

The series really picks up in the second book, but the 1st is where all of the necessary background resides.

Unfortunately, the books are being released in a grossly overpriced large softbound edition; my advice it to find the original paperbacks in a used book store.

There are those who have complained that the stories in this book aren't complete, but seem like they're just beginning. This complaint is valid, but the reasoning is inaccurate. Look at the Wild Cards series as comics books told in narrative rather than picture form. A regular comic book series doesn't usually have a complete tale, without clues to the future, and neither does this book. Some of these stories are setups to larger stories, and believe me, that ain't bad. I have read all sixteen books, and in my opinion, while some of the stories ARE weaker than others, the whole is much bigger than the sum of its parts.

The fact is that I grew to care about these characters. I wanted to know more about them, and that need to know drew me deeper and deeper as the series progressed. Now that the series is being re-released, I can honestly say that if you are comic book fan in search of more serious fare, where even the so-called "good guys" can have some unpalatable personality traits, than the wild cards series is for you. If you don't want to blow the bucks for a brand spanking new one, than get one used. I will say that if you dismiss this series without at least trying ONE book, you are missing out on the next level of superheroics.

Try Vol.1 out. If you don't end up loving Croyd (the Sleeper), I'll eat my hat!

A month ago (as of this writing) I'd never ever heard of this series, but now I'm eagerly awaiting the next volume. George R.R. Martin has assembled some fantastic writers to concoct an entire universe of "Wild Card" superheroes that parallels our own world even moreso than the worlds of Marvel and DC Comics which serve as much of the inspiration.

Here's the concept -- in the days after World War II a bomb went off in the skies above New York City, blanketing the people in a virus. Most of them died. Some, the "jokers" underwent a terrible transformation. A select few drew "aces" -- superpowers without a deformity.

Each writer in this collection (an intriguing device martin calls a "Mosaic Novel") tells the story of an ace or joker of his or her creation. All of the stories stand on their own, although many feel very much like a chapter in a longer tale (John J. Miller's "Comes the Hunter" especially) and I hope these threads are picked up in the later books.

As with any collection of diverse writers, some stories are better than others. Martin's own "Shell Games" is my favorite in this volume -- I could have done without the sewer tale, "Down Deep." Even with that lesser story, the concept and execution is wonderful -- I for one am hoping Martin deals out a few more Wild Cards in the future.

For those of you out there that grew up on comic books as I did, this book is a must. From the get-go the collaborative authors strip down super-heroes to their roots and show how truly heroic people are. There aren't any fancy teams or 2 dimensional characters. These are all people that you might meet and love, hate, want... etc. Except some of them have weird powers and some of them as bizarrely misshapen. Oh, and make sure to watch a little boy name Tom become a true hero, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TURTLE, through the books.

This is a reprint of the first book in the Wild Cards series. When I first read the original many, many years ago, I became absolutely enthralled with the characters and the unique style of storytelling. The Wild Cards series is made up of predominantly "Mosaic Novels", meaning that each novel is comprised of short stories written by different writers, each from the point of view of their own characters in the Wild Cards universe, but all the short stories taken together comprise one whole META-story, if you will. When I finished this first book, I began a frantic search to find the rest of the series (they were out of print before I had even read the first book) that took me several years. And, to my surprise, I found that this book, as amazing as it was, wasn't even one of the best in the series! But, it's very important, as it portrays the events that seperate the Wild Cards universe from our own reality, and therefore is ALMOST essential to fully experience the Wild Cards. Most of the series I had ended up borrowing and have never been able to find for sale, so I was overjoyed when I found out they were reprinting it. The reprints contain some really nice art to illustrate the tale as you go along (the best art I have seen of the Wild Cards so far), and they make this book worth the purchase, even if you already own the original printing.

This is the first book in the long-running Wild Cards series, edited by George R. R. Martin. Several authors contribute stories, which taken together form a "mosaic" novel.

This works better than you might think. The quality of these stories is very high, and while there are one or two rough spots, Martin's editing, ably assisted by Melinda Snodgrass, keeps the continuity smooth.

The premise is simple enough: In 1946, an alien virus is detonated over New York City. The Takisians decide to use Earth as a guinea pig to test this new weapon, and although one of their princes comes to Earth to prevent this, he fails.

90% of those exposed to the virus "draw the Black Queen" --- they die a horrible and painful death. 9% suffer horrific disfigurement --- these are the Jokers. And 1% develop supernormal abilities, and these are the aces.

Yes, this is superhero fiction, but it's much more sophisticated than the X-Men or the Heroes TV series. It's occasionally tongue in cheek, but it's much darker than you'd expect from a superhero story. It's graphically violent and sexually explicit, and a lot of the action is extremely grim. It's a strangely compelling world, a kind of funhouse mirror held up to our own world, dealing with serious drama while maintaining a light, breezy tone on the surface.

This first volume begins with a story by the eccentric genius Howard Waldrop, which contains some of the finest writing I've come across in 50 years of reading. The following stories develop the Wild Card universe from the late 40s until the late 80s, setting the stage for the later volumes, which are contemporary in setting.

You'll find some of the best science fiction ever published in this book, with everything good fiction offers: drama, suspense, tragedy, comedy, hope, fear, disappointment, love, sex, death and rebirth --- all in a world where people can fly and read minds and have super strength ... and so on.

George R. R. Martin contributes most of the connecting material that links the stories together, plus an excellent story of his own, but this is nothing like Song of Ice and Fire. As Martin's name is now being used to sell the books, some people may be surprised.

If you like superhero fiction, or fast paced adventure SF, this is for you. If you're reading it for the first time, I envy you.

I have read this many times. Brilliant stuff. A duel between alien ships, an experiment gone wrong, at least from our point of view. Born out of a superhero gaming group, Wild Cards is a shared world anthology series, in the main.

An alien experimental virus is released on Earth after Jetboy, a famous fighter pilot hero fails to stop it. This is the first story in this anthology "Thirty Minutes Over Broadyway".

For those affected by the virus, 90 are killed, 9 are deformed in some mannter, and 1 is given some sort of superhuman or enhanced ability.

This causes chaos and carnage, and changes history forever.

Various elements of American history do still happen, and the HUAC terror still happens, as one story involving Dr Tachyon, an alien telepath who comes to Earth to try and help. This leads to the tragedy of Golden Boy and the Four Aces see "Witness" by Walter Jon Williams.

The Turtle, Croyd Crenson, Yeoman, Fortunato, Captain Trips and Puppetman all appear here.

It will take some of them working together to defeat a menace.

If you have any sort of interest in the subject, this book is a must read.

Wild Cards 01 : 01 Prologue - George R. R. Martin
Wild Cards 01 : 02 Thirty Minutes Over Broadway! - Howard Waldrop
Wild Cards 01 : 03 The Sleeper - Roger Zelazny
Wild Cards 01 : 04 Witness - Walter Jon Williams
Wild Cards 01 : 05 Degradation Rites - Melinda M. Snodgrass
Wild Cards 01 : 06 Interlude One - George R. R. Martin
Wild Cards 01 : 07 Shell Games - George R. R. Martin
Wild Cards 01 : 08 Interlude Two - George R. R. Martin
Wild Cards 01 : 09 The Long Dark Night of Fortunato - Lewis Shiner
Wild Cards 01 : 10 Transfigurations - Victor Milán
Wild Cards 01 : 11 Interlude Three - George R. R. Martin
Wild Cards 01 : 12 Down Deep - Edward Bryant and Leanne C. Harper
Wild Cards 01 : 13 Interlude Four - George R. R. Martin
Wild Cards 01 : 14 Strings - Stephen Leigh
Wild Cards 01 : 15 Interlude Five - George R. R. Martin
Wild Cards 01 : 16 Comes a Hunter - John J. Miller
Wild Cards 01 : 17 Epilogue: Third Generation - Lewis Shiner
Wild Cards 01 : 18 Appendix - George R. R. Martin

Tachyon arrival denial.

3.5 out of 5


Jetboy: No Jolson, no Joy.

5 out of 5


Croyd Crenson waken, wedding shaken.

4.5 out of 5


Jack Braun, Four Aces Golden Judas Boy.

5 out of 5


Brain Trust no more.

4.5 out of 5


McCarthy's Wild Card Act disintegration.

3.5 out of 5


Turtle power, Tachyon cower. Team-up!

5 out of 5


Jokertown Clinic.

3.5 out of 5


Power discovered, evil uncovered.

5 out of 5


Lizard King glad Mark Meadows is Radical.

5 out of 5


Hiram's food is Aces High.

3.5 out of 5


Bag lady and cat lady discovers that there really are werealligators in the sewers, and the odd mafioso.

5 out of 5


Jokertown activist politics.

3.5 out of 5


Puppetman, killer manipulator.

4.5 out of 5


Aces! quotes.

3.5 out of 5


Yeoman roamin'.

5 out of 5


Kid Dinosaur.

4 out of 5



Wild Card science.

5 out of 5

Wild Cards is a great series. This, of course, is not by far the best book in the series; as it mainly serves as a 400 page introduction; but for such an involved and sprawling saga, perhaps such a thing was necessary. The huge back story had to be chronicled, and there was little other way to introduce such a large gallery of significant characters other than to devote chapters to each without getting into a consecutive story. Even so, this book sets certain events in motion that DO eventually put it into the bigger picture and link this with the two following books as somewhat of a trilogy. Overall, very well written, great characters, and Martin edits it exquisitely; making this shared, multi-author book seem like it was all done by one person.

I am a fan of George R. R. Martin, I think he is one of the most talented writers around today. Furthermore, Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" Series is a masterpiece of writing. Additionally, I have enjoyed some of his short stories. However, I would caution anyone about the "Wild Cards". This is not at all like Martin's other works. "Wild Cards" is a single plot carried over many different short stories written by many authors.

The plot is interesting and initially it sounded great. A deadly virus infects earth after World War II and humans that are infected undergo various physiological and mental changes. Each author brings his own style to the story and some are outstanding. I especially enjoyed Roger Zelazny's story "Ashes to Ashes".

However, overall I could not get into the story. Trying to follow a single story line over many short stories is difficult enough but having to contend with different author's styles, makes it tedious. Some of the stories are down right boring, others are hard to follow. This is very unfortunate because I had great hopes for this book.

This review is for Volume 1 of Wild Cards.

In the 1980's in Albuquerque a group of role-players would gather to play Superworld, a game of comic book style superheroes. George R. R. Martin was the gamemaster and from those games an idea for a Mosaic Novel was born. This is a shared world adventure and many of the writers in this first volume of Wild Cards wrote stories with their game characters central.

The premise is that aliens release a virus on earth despite a heroic attempt by Jetboy to stop them. This virus mutates the humans it contacts - some become disfigured "jokers," some die, and some are transformed into "aces" with remarkable superpowers.

Together the stories work rather poorly as a novel, but as an anthology with common rules, a common setting and some shared characters it's quite interesting. The one disconcerting thing about the book is that when a common character (such as Dr. Tachyon, the one alien friendly to humans who tried to stop the viral release) is portrayed by these various strong-willed writers their personalities change dramatically and the cohesion is lost. I found myself empathizing with Dr. Tachyon in one chapter, despising him in another, pitying him in yet another and wishing for his merciful death in various points. The development was inconsistent and subsequently I had to embrace the idea that the stories were more isolated than interlinked.

That isn't to say I didn't enjoy the book. I did, and I'll read more in this series. It's my understanding that there are a dozen published already with three more in the works. The talent is obvious, the words well-crafted, well-edited, and the short stories are captivating. I'd perhaps enjoy it more if there were less shared plotlines and characters.

This first book has chapters by Roger Zelazny, Stephen Leigh, Edward Bryant, Howard Waldrop, Lewis Shiner, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Walter Jon Williams, Leanne C. Harper, Victor Milán, John J. Miller. Can you imagine sitting down to some gaming sessions with those people? With George RR Martin as gamemaster?

I recommend it.

- CV Rick