In 1987, a mop-haired, skinny thirteen-year-old, on a brilliant and golden Easter Sunday took his Huffy bicycle off a ledge and dropped head first down into a hay pasture. The boy had been daydreaming, riding furiously against the pursuit of his alien enemies and had not calculated the drop that waited beyond the tall grass at the edge of the drive into the field.
I was that kid that came a sliver away from killing myself, and ended up fracturing my collar bone and then wandering with my arm in a sling into Brooks drug store hours later. While my mother busied herself picking up the prescription codeine that would some hours later send me into a fuzzy place where Bob Hope easter specials were strangely vivid and beautiful (the thought still disturbs me), I headed to the spinning comic book rack. On the way there I found something better.
Only a bibliophile would understand the feeling one gets when discovering a favorite series or author for the first time. It is like recounting a first date with someone who filled your hours with joy for the rest of your days. The book was Wild Cards, Edited by George R. R. Martin and written by slew of writers. Wild Cards created a shared superhero universe where an alien virus explodes over New York City in 1946 and changes life on earth forever. Ninety percent of those exposed to the wild cards virus draw the black queen and die horrific deaths (think creative Ebola on crack) and nine percent become twisted into mutated Jokers. A lucky few become Aces, those gifted with powerful abilities. I read and re-read that book as I recovered from my injury.
Now, thirty-two years later, I’ve just finished one of the latest novels in the Wild Cards series, Mississippi Roll, and what a ride! The story pinwheels around the Natchez, a Mississippi steam boat that is facing retirement and the “ghost” of the captain, Steam Wilbur, who once commandeered her. On the journey up the Mississippi, we meet aces who have to stand up to ICE and protect a group of Kazakh Joker refugees, Jokers who perform miracles for the paying customers and many old and fond characters that have been featured in previous volumes. The story is simple and the scope is tiny compared to many of the novels in this series, but it takes its time to fully capitalize on the Joker’s plight as an allegory for political realities today. Although some of those readers who love the moral ambiguity of Game of Thrones might find some of the sections a bit saccharine for their tastes,this book was just the thing to remind me what I loved about speculative fiction and helped me once again get lost in a world of wonder and forget for a while the troubles I face.
I give Mississippi Roll five aces!
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