Wild Cards - Mississippi Roll

Emotional Roll-ercoaster

Wild Cards - Mississippi Roll
Edited by George R. R. Martin
Tor Books
ISBN: 978-0-7653-9052-3

Mississippi  Roll is the 24th in the series of the long running Wild Cards mosaic novels which I’ve been reading since they first started getting published, sometime back in the 1980s if I recall correctly. Now, after that initial spurt of amazing early novels, the entries in the series have been rather sporadic in their releases over the decades, spanning multiple publishers and sometimes having as much as seven years between new novels. Indeed, I seem to remember one of the novels was only out a week or so before the publisher went bankrupt and the novel became very hard to get hold of. It was an important linking novel too, where something significant happened which, as far as I was concerned, was important info for future novels (all I can say about that one is… thank goodness for eBay and for the writer who sold his last spare copy and signed it for me). Although I believe it’s going to be back in print at some point.

It seems amazing to me, then, that in less than a year since this 24th novel in the series was released, two more new Wild Cards novels have been released with another already on its way. So… definitely a bumper year for Wild Cards then and one wonders if the fairly recent purchase of the TV rights to the series meant that the team of writers who put together these interlinking story arcs thought they would get some more source material out there while the property is slightly hotter than it has been in a while. Of course George R. R. Martin’s name on the cover as editor, though I don’t think he’s written any of the sections of Mississippi Roll himself, can’t hurt sales of the books.

Bearing in mind the drip feed publication schedules the series has had in the past, one thing that isn’t sporadic, despite being written by multiple (and extremely talented) writers is the quality of the stories. The Wild Cards novels, chronicling the last 70 years of the Wild Card alternative history of our planet, since the Takisian virus ravaged the Earth and separated people into super powered aces, hideous jokers or nats (naturals), have always been absolutely gripping in the way the characters of this alternate world have been portrayed. Mississippi Roll, I’m happy to say, is certainly no exception to this rule… it’ a real page turner.

The way this novel works is with a framing story which starts and finishes the main tale and inserts a chapter between each of the plug in chapters, which follow an individual set of characters created by the specific writer of that chapter… although those characters do, of course, appear often in all of the stories, interconnecting with each other to build up the main arc of the novel. The novelty of this particular Wild Cards novel is that around 90% of it is set on a paddle steamer that is, quite possibly due to certain plot points, on it’s last ever entertainment cruise before being put out to pasture. Something which the original captain doesn’t want to happen.

And when I say original captain I mean his ghost… or more probably the Wild Card ‘turned’ version of the captain after his death over fifty years before. A man barely visible to most and who is condemned to walk the decks of the beloved steamboat he built and to which his ‘spirit form’ is somehow bound, unable to leave. As you meet 'Steam Wilbur', as his occasionally glimpsed 'ghost' has come to be known, you slowly see just what’s at stake and how he helps out the various guests in the stories for their small parts of the tale. 

The bigger picture, that is to say the ‘other’ bigger picture, is the fallout from the doomsday adventure which reached its peak in the last Wild Cards novel High Stakes (reviewed here). The various refugees, or at least a small portion of them, are smuggled aboard the steamer and are being hidden by the current captain because they are not being welcomed in America, whose government are trying to ensure they are being shipped off to a Joker Island in Ireland (hmm... I can’t think but this treatment of refugees by the Americans is reminiscent of something familiar right now). As the steamer docks at various points along the river over the week or so the boat takes until the tale reaches its epic conclusion, various refugees - jokers, aces and nats alike - are being illegally hidden on board and then dropped off with various people along the route who can grant them at least a chance at a safer life.

And that’s the main set up and it also gives you the chance to remake the acquaintance of some of the more recent characters who have joined the Wild Card universe… such as ex-Fort Freak copper Leo, who now, along with the love of his life, works as an insurance agent and is on board trying to solve the possible mystery of a recent death on the steamer. And, as usual, each and every story in the compendium is absolutely brilliant in its own right and adds weight to the main event going on in the linking narrative.

As you would expect, the detail and emotion of the various characters and their relation to the world around them is unparalleled but the background history of Wilbur, which gets frequent revisits in the linking chapters, is truly tragic and as the story goes full steam ahead to its conclusion, you’ll wonder what this poor ghost’s final fate will be. All I’m saying is that the ending of the novel is a real humdinger but at the same time leaving the fates of some of the regular characters… such as Billy Ray, The Angel and the Infamous Black Tongue… open ended enough that they can presumably be picked up in the next two books, which I’m informed will form a trilogy with this one.

It’s the final couple of pages, however, that really give you the emotional kind of gut punch I associate with the series and all I will say is that, when I read… literally the last sentence of the novel… there were tears in my eyes and they were soon running down my face waiting for some kind of mop up crew. I can’t tell you why though because, in some ways the ending doesn’t go where it’s been threatening to go and, while not entirely optimistic, it’s certainly a soppy and sentimental one so… yeah, if you know me then you will probably be able to guess I would be a blubbery by the end of his one.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about Mississippi Roll. Another outstanding story from the Wild Cards universe and I’ll be reading the next couple sometime over the next few months. So, yeah, more Wild Cards reviews coming to this blog fairly soon, I’m happy to say.