Wild Cards - House Rules

Loveday To Be Here

Wild Cards - House Rules 
Edited by George R. R. Martin
Assisted by Melinda M. Snodgrass
Harper Voyager
ISBN 9780008283612

House Rules is, by my count, the 33rd novel in the Wild Cards series of books I’ve been reading since the 1980s. This one was published and purchased by me last year and so, apologies for not getting to this review sooner but my book pile was a little more unmanageable than usual this year. 

This one opens, as did at least one of the other recent ones (if memory serves) with a three page summation of the main points of the Wild Cards world and, if you’re not familiar with the story of the Wild Cards virus from the planet Takis, then a very bare bones summation may be... a horrible alien virus swept the Earth in the 1940s and you and your future generations either die when the Wild Card gene pops up in your natural life cycle, or you are a nat (normal person, unaffected), a mutated Joker, a super-powered being (an Ace) or something in between those last two (a Deuce). But you wouldn’t want to start on the books this late in the series anyway so, go back because, the Earth has its own alternate evolution from the 1940s onward as a result and the various writers who create these ‘mosaic novels’ have created an entire history of this world leading to the present day.

And this one takes place on an island off the coast of Cornwall called Keun, protected by a disappearing causeway when the tide is high. Here a very rich and mysterious ace called Jago Branok has rebuilt a famous manor called Loveday House. And every month or so he invites different guests he’s researched for a weekend party in the house. But you don’t want to go out on the grounds at night and you certainly don’t want ot be wandering the corridors of this vast house alone without one of the servants to guide you... you may find yourself a little lost.

It was only a matter of time, I suppose, that the Wild Cards books found themselves digging into the concept of a multiverse and the unique thing about Loveday House, which is a really dangerous place to the curious and unescorted, is that it is a hub for different worlds which share the same point in time and multidimensional space as this version of Loveday. And, of course, because this is a Wild Cards book, it doesn’t once revert to having multiple heroes and villains from multiple dimensions meet each other in battle (other than one special ‘spectre’, I’ll leave it at that)... instead, the idea is explored by a group of different stories, each taking place at a different party at Loveday... all woven together by the bookends and linking narratives told from the viewpoint of Mr. Gary Bushorn, in story excerpts by Stephen Leigh. Leigh also writes the story of the first party which Gary attends, called Promises Redux. Gary then, after some shenanigans, stays on at the house to be the dance master for Jago and is, of course, the constant story arc observer that weaves through the rest of the stories.

In this story we also meet the butler, who looks like, sounds like and is called Hitchcock... rescued from a parallel world where, presumably, Hitchcock was not a director. To quote Caroline Spector’s later story, “‘Good evening,’ he said, drawing out evening...”, which is exactly how I do my Alfred Hitchcock impression in real life. 

Now there aren’t that many appearances by known aces but there are a few which will delight readers of the previous novels... so Dr. Bradley Finn, the centaur joker, is one of the guests in the first story. Topper and Ink also appear in one of the stories here too and... oh, wait, I’ll get to Herne The Hunter in a minute.

The second story, Lady Sri Extricates Herself, Emerging Not Entirely Unscathed by Mary Anne Mohanra, features an ace I’m pretty sure we’ve met before and is another wonderful story set in the house, where things get kind of out of hand (and things getting out of hand usually means at least one person meets their death at the house, in this particular tome). This one’s a really delightful story about embracing love in unexpected places, too.

Next up is Caroline Spector’s Bah, Humbug, Murder... a Christmas tale which is also a sort of drawing room murder mystery, which is always a favourite around that season. This one also includes Constance, the Ace powered dress designer who we first met in a story where she killed one of the Kray twins in the Wild Cards version of the UK in the 1960s. So, she’s quite old now at the time of this story but she’s certainly no less fun and, of course, solves the murder like an Ace version of Miss Marple. 

After this we have Two Lovedays by Peter Newman, where the owner and builder of the original house, at least one of her multiversal versions, sets ace against ace (including a few you may also remember from the British set cycle of Wild Cards novels) and nearly succeeds in her power play. 

The fifth tale is called The Nautilus Pattern by Kevin Andrew Murphy which tells its story from the viewpoint of the owner of the local antique shop and his wife, an ex-porn star especially remembered for appearing with Jokers in Joker-porn movies in her youth. This one does indeed include Herne The Hunter and said wife who was his ex, has believed him dead all these years since the battle of The Rox, which involved Bloat, who readers of the earlier books will certainly remember.* 

The sixth and final tale before the concluding bookends is Raw Deal by Peader Ó Guilín. This is probably the nastiest of the stories but it’s no less entertaining and, well, the cost of this one certainly threatens to rock the status quo of Loveday House and Lord Jago Branok’s parties. This one also mentions an alternate reality Hitchcock film called The Fish (as opposed to The Birds) and, I for one, would like to know what establishment Jetman is referring to when he says that some unnamed place is “the best comic shop in London” because, frankly, very few comic shops in my country’s capital manage to stock a decent supply of back issues these days. 

And what can I say, really, other than that which I say whenever I read a new Wild Cards novel... it’s an absolute joy to read. There are actually no dud stories here again and, yeah, no matter if the writer is new to me or a seasoned favourite, it always captures my imagination and leads me back into the world of the Wild Card characters in the most addictive way possible. I had an absolutely wonderful time with this one again but, asides from my usual warning about House Rules not being a jump on point (you should always read these novels from the very start, I would say), then fans of the Wild Cards novels as a whole should really give this one a go. It’s brilliant and I, once again, never wanted it to end.

*Although this is one of those Wild Card books which doesn’t have a Croyd Crenson sighting, this time around... as far as I could tell, anyway.

Wild Cards 31 - Pairing Up

Hearts And Flowers

Wild Cards Vol 31
Pairing Up
edited by George R. R. Martin
and Melinda Snodgrass
Harper Collins
ISBN: 9780008410667

Warning: Some light spoilers

Wow... I’ve been reading the Wild Cards series of novels since they first started getting published in the mid-1980s and we’re already up to volume 31, subtitled Pairing Up. The publication history has been spotty over the decades, with various sequences in the continuing story, which spans generations of characters, being published by different publishers at infrequent intervals. For the last ten or so years though, the books have been coming out fairly regularly, about one a year and I’m really pleased this is the case because, frankly, the Wild Cards novels are amazing.

A lot of the novels are mosaic novels, single story arcs with different chapters about overlapping characters told by several writers dealing with different people and aspects of the story. There’s even an occasional ‘single writer’ novel. This one, like maybe only a couple of the other novels, is more of a collection of short stories by different writers (some new writers to the series, some old, as has always been the case), which don’t make up a single arc but, instead, are stand alone stories.

Now, I’m guessing the popularity... or rather the frequency... of the released novels just lately has something to do with the film/TV rights being worked on by different production companies over the last 10 years or more and, they are trying to keep the brand in the public consciousness for when a TV show finally happens. Now, I have to admit that while I think a series of interlocking, big budget mini series would be the best possible outcome for a moving picture adaptation of the books... the more I hear about it, the less I like. My understanding is the history and original characters of the series are getting a raw deal in favour of stories set in contemporary times and, yeah... I don’t like that idea. We need Jetboy, Croyd, The Great And Powerful Turtle, Golden Boy, Dr. Tachyon, Blythe, Fortunato, Mark Meadows, Chrysalis and Mack The Knife etc to be in the show and set in their respective eras. I’m very worried about the way a TV version could go now, truth be told.

But, I can’t overlook that a good side effect of that, if I’m right, is more Wild Cards novels. The stories in Pairing Up are all set in different decades... kind of starting a little later than I would have liked but, still. I’m not going to over cook this review and I don’t want to give out any heavy spoilers so, a quick run down of each story instead. Following an introduction which explains the Wild Cards virus and how it released the Aces, Jokers and Deuces... not to mention a heavy death rate and a load of people, Nats, who are unaffected by the continuing legacy of the virus (which is something I don’t remember them recapping like this in the books before, or at least recently... so, hmm), we have the following stories...

1. Trudy Of The Apes by Kevin Andrew Murphy
Setting 1957
This one is about Trudy, a teleporting jewel thief going on a treasure hunt and seducing Golden Boy himself to be the patsy that gets her the gold. There are some nice details in the story... as there are in all the Wild Cards novels to be fair, they are full of ideas and sly winks... but stuff like the fact that Braun is the current TV show version of Tarzan is a nice one and a lot of the action takes place on location for that show. I got a bit bent out of shape when Queen Azura is mentioned as being a character from Flash Gordon, since she doesn’t show up until the second serial, Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars (from before the virus hit and reviewed here) but then I realised the character who mentioned this could well have just been talking about the original Alex Raymond newspaper strip instead.

2. Cyrano d’Escargot by Christopher Rowe
Setting: 1981
Next up is a story about the super intelligent snail joker who was a big part of the plot of Joker Moon (reviewed here) and how he first meets his actor friend, who he hires to help ‘Cyrano’ his way into the heart of the Ace Chrysalis.

3. In The Forests Of The Night by Marko Kloos
Setting: 2010
This one is the tale of a sympathetic half human, half tiger bodyguard to a high ranking criminal and what happens when he lets one of the opposition, a lady ace assassin (who I’m sure I’ve met before in the stories and I can’t remember anything significant about her) get too close to him, romantically.

4. The Wounded Heart by Melinda M. Snodgrass
Setting: 2013
Veteran Wild Cards writer Snodgrass continues the adventures of Franny from what is now know as the Mean Streets triad of Wild Cards novels. It deals specifically with that characters emotional damage from High Stakes (reviewed here) in terms of the terrible decisions and consequences of that adventure, not to mention the truth about his parental legacy. It also deals with his current girlfriend and the next one coming along. For regular fans of the series, there’s also a quick, blink and you’ll miss it, Croyd sighting.

5. Echoes from a Canyon wall by Bradley Denton
Setting: 2019
The Deuce Adesina’s Auntie Ink is sent to protect a newish Ace that a sinister force wants to control... falling in love with a guy for the first time (as opposed to her usual ladies) and trying to keep him alive while waiting for Carnifex or Midnight Angel to come and get him to safety.

6. The Long Goodbye by Walton Simons
Settings: 2020, 1913 and 1911.
This one takes place in flashbacks from 2020 to Chicago in 1911-1913 as shapeshifting Ace detective Jerry Strauss is stranded there with a few others, building a new movie studio, one successful movie after another... and waiting for Croyd to get them back to their own time. Regular readers will realise this takes place sometime during the adventures of the various characters in the Wild Cards novel Low Chicago (reviewed here). There’s a lovely moment in this one where Jerry screen tests his girlfriend and you realise straight away he’s recreating the screen test between Robert Armstrong and Fay Wray from the original version of King Kong (reviewed here).

7. What’s Your Sign? By Gwenda Bond and Peter Newman
Setting: 2021
This is about the accidental meeting and ‘dating for charity’ of an Ace who can change herself to any astrology sign and another Ace who has the unfortunate happenstance of having his name chosen by the public for charity and ends up with the monicker Hero McHeroface (and if you don’t get the joke, Google Boaty McBoatface and you’ll know the score).

8. The Wolf and the Butterfly by David Anthony Durham
Setting: 2023
This last tale is what happens when Adesina meets a new Ace who is figuring out still how to control his inner... and not so inner... Wolf. It’s a nice conclusion to the volume.

So, just a couple more comments. One is that, if you haven’t figured it out by now, the stories in Pairing Up are all stories about... well, people doing just that. They are romantic tales... albeit also appropriately action packed... and are as close to the constantly warm beating heart of the Wild Cards universe as possible. However, buyer beware (so to speak)... they’re not all happy endings. Over half of the stories here don’t end in the best places for the characters but, at least there are significant strings left in place for most of them (not all, alas) to be more happily resolved in some future stories.

The other thing I want to say is... and this may be a boring statement, not to mention obvious to fans of the series but... there’s not a bad story in the bunch. The Wild Cards novels are never hit and miss, that’s for sure and Pairing Up is no different. After just a page or two into each story I was completely hooked into each set of characters again and sailed through this book in a quite pacey fashion. My only regret is that I now have at least a year to wait until the next time around. As always, I give this book my heartiest recommendation to fans of the series and remind those who have never read them before that, despite it having a brief explanation of the world at the heart of these books in an intro, if you are a newcomer you would be better served starting right at the beginning of the volumes rather than trying to play catch up from here. You’re missing half the story behind the emotional context of the some of the characters if you do try and jump in at this point.

Wild Cards - Joker Moon

 

Lunar Tunes

Wild Cards - Joker Moon
Edited by George R. R. Martin
& Melinda M. Snodgrass
Harper Voyager ISBN: 9780008283605

Joker Moon is, by my count, the 29th of the series of mosaic novels which comprise the Wild Cards saga to date. The majority of most of the novels are short stories, often split between sections, which make up an overall story arc for that specific novel, written by a hugely talented array of science fiction and fantasy writers over the years. Nowadays, the overview and editing of the novels is accredited to George R. R. Martin & Melinda M. Snodgrass although, I have to say, it’s been many years since I’ve seen Martin contributing significantly to the content as he used to (although Snodgrass still has at least one story per novel, it seems to me). That being said, this is obviously a marketing ploy for the front covers to cash in on Martin’s successful Game Of Thrones novels and, I can’t blame them, to be honest. I noticed on the inside of this one, it actually says it’s edited by Melinda M Snodgrass and ‘assisted’ by George R. R. Martin so, yeah, make of that what you will.

I’ve been reading these novels since they first appeared, with handsome paperback covers by British comic book artist Brian Bolland, in the mid-1980s and, hard as it’s been over the years where various publishing houses for the series have gone bankrupt a week after a novel came out or just jumped ship on the series, I’ve managed to buy a copy of each and every one, more or less, as they were released. On the one occasion where one went in and out of print within a week or so, as is my understanding, I actually picked that one up on ebay a few years later and... that was even more of a thrill because it turned out the guy selling it to me, who only had one copy left, was the sole writer of that tome so he personalised it for me. So, yeah, I’ve been lucky with this series of novels over the years too, for sure.

The basic plot is of an alternate history of Earth when the time line diverges from our own in 1946 due to an alien Black Card virus, which is our constant legacy for ever after, is released into our atmosphere. Many die. Some people stay the same... the Nats. Some turn into Aces with superheroic and bizarre powers. Some turn into hideous jokers of all shapes, sizes and forms. And some of them, Deuces, are a little bit Ace and sometimes a bit Joker too. And there’s anything in between. And because the virus is lodged in our genes, sometime (in puberty perhaps), your card might ‘turn’ and you get powers or go through some hideous mutation.

And the books are great, it has to be said.

Over the years we are introduced to characters and some are killed, some age and die and other generations take their place. Indeed, sometimes, as in the case of Roger Zelazny or Victor Milán, writers die and their specific characters either exit the story, are used just as little cameos or, sometimes, taken over as something all the writers can seem to include in their stories if they like. So one of the most famous characters in the saga.. Croyd Crenson (aka The Sleeper, created by Zelazny), who has an infinite lifespan because whenever he finally sleeps (when the speed he’s on to stop him from sleeping finally doesn’t do him any good) he wakes up as either a new kind of Ace or Joker... still turns up every now and again from the original generation of Wild Card heroes. And, yes, for all of those Wild Cards fans who are constantly on ‘Croyd watch’, I’m happy to report that he does indeed have a few pages of a very specific adventure in this latest volume.

Okay, so the main interlocking story points of this one, as told through multi-part chapters gluing the other stories together with split sections entitled The Moon Maid and Within That House Secure, are focused on three specific characters. We have the Indian, Aarti, whose card turns in 1948 when she’s studying at Oxford University over here in the UK (among her fellow students are J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis). She has her head swelling up to resemble the Moon and her body marked by craters etc. However, unknown to everyone, is the fact she is teleported to the moon by night and has the night time to paint and frolic and create whatever she wants with her special powers on the moon. So she’s more or less confined to her bed as a joker by day but, by night, she is the sole occupant of the Moon, and she likes it that way. Which is where her other problems begin.

The other two characters start off as children... Mathilde is a red skinned joker girl and her best friend is the super rich heir to a fortune, Theodorus. Both are lovers of science and both have the talent for rocketry. Mathilde is especially good at maths and inventing things. However, not long before his parents’ death, when he inherits the estate, Theodorus’ card turns and he becomes a huge snail centaur, half man, half snail. He doesn’t let it set him back though and he pulls the strings of his ambitions from his rich, hermit like existence with his best friend Mathilde at his side... a bit like Nero Wolfe in a way, since he’s often in his green house cultivating his army of super sized snails.

His ambitions however, take him into direct opposition to Aarti, The Moon Maid. The book takes place in various stories from 1948 up until 2020 and tells the tale of Theodorus’ plans, decade by decade, to populate the moon and terraform it so that all the jokers of the Earth can live there in peace and harmony, free from the hatred and prejudices of the Nats (aka regular humans). But, you know, The Moon Maid has other ideas.

And, like any of the Wild Cards novels, it’s a hugely emotional ride and a very clever series of interlocking stories, which I certainly won’t spoil for any potential readers here. Because it’s set over various decades, many of the characters from the past pop up in odd cameos or mentions throughout. So the original Dr. Tachyon actually turns up as a character early in the novel (a Takisian from the race of aliens whose virus got accidentally unleashed on Earth). There are also sizeable appearances from characters like Bugsy, the joker centaur Doctor Bradley Finn, Tesseract, the Infamous Black Tongue and Bubbles... including one chapter set in the heat of the battle of the war in Egypt where these ‘green’ Aces from the American Hero reality TV show ended up fighting in wars to protect the Living Gods of Egypt. And, yeah, obviously famous Wild Cards twists on history from previous stories make it in as mentions in the novel too... such as The Rox on Ellis Island (where jokers took the island in an incident in the 1990s) and there’s even a chapter where Aces are battling The Swarm again from the 1980s (if you’ve not read these then this is an indication, I think, that if you want to jump on board with these, then you really need to start from the very beginning). There are also some lovely little mentions and very brief, one liner appearances from such Wild Cards stalwarts as Golden Boy, The Great And Powerful Turtle (I really miss that character), the late but great Father Squid and, from the recent British cycle, The Green Man.

And I don’t want to say a whole lot more about the story but I will say it’s as powerful as most of the Wild Cards novels and it contains some great moments (including an unexpected villain from the most unlikeliest place, at one point) and various dramatic situations on both Earth and the Moon. Although the end is a fairly optimistic one, in some ways, it’s a mixed bag of emotional intensity again and I found myself counting the losses in terms of characters who meet their end in this novel as much as watching the bitter sweet celebration of the final mini chapter, which presumably takes us into where the next couple of novels might go. Like I say in pretty much all of my Wild Cards reviews, Joker Moon is an absolutely fantastic novel but... it’s definitely not a jumping on point. These books really should be read from the start and, fortunately for newcomers, the earlier novels are slowly coming back into print again so, if you’re going to do it, now might be a good time.

Wild Cards - Three Kings

Joker Lives Matter

Wild Cards - Three Kings
Edited by George R. R. Martin & Melinda M. Snodgrass
Harper Voyager ISBN: 9780008283599

Three Kings is the 28th in the Wild Cards series of mosaic novels which have been going since the 1980s. This one is the second of the British interlocking viewpoints into the Wild Cards saga, following on directly from the various stories in the previous volume, Knaves Over Queens (which I reviewed here). Pop into my book index and you’ll see all the more recent novels, from the last ten years, have been reviewed here so if you want to get a flavour of what the Wild Card universe consists of, then you should maybe have a look at one of those earlier reviews before diving in here.

So, I said in my last review that I thought the new UK series, while excellent, had rather shot its bolt by having so many decades rushed through in one volume. So yeah, this one is set square bang in a few weeks ranging from February to March 2020... finishing literally before a real life virus shut down the nation. Coronavirus is, unsurprisingly, not mentioned here in any form and, since this is an alternate reality anyway, it doesn’t need to be. Something tells me though that, had the writers known just what would be going on in the world right now, they would have slipped some sly references in.

That being said, there are parallels to things happening right now as this particular story deals with rioting on the streets as the Twisted Fists (still headed by The Green Man from the previous story), Britain First and other factions fight in the streets as rioting breaks out at some point over the monarchy and who will be on the throne at the end of the story.

This one starts off with the dying Queen Margaret (Elisabeth drew the Black Queen and died from the Wild Cards virus before ever taking the throne, back in the 1940s) who entrusts Alan Turing, the Ace known as Enigma, to search back through the records to find her Joker offspring, abandoned at birth, as she fears both her sons, Richard and Henry The Ninth (as he becomes for a while) are incapable of taking over from her competently. And so is set in motion a chain of events involving Turing, Richard, The Green Man, Noel/Lilith, Constance the Ace fashion designer (still making protective clothing for the new monarchy, much to her anger) and one or two other players including, of course, the evil Irish crow Goddess Badb who is pretty successfully manipulating everything, unknown to all the others, in the hopes that she can turn Great Britain into a bloodbath of heroic proportions.

And like pretty much any of the Wild Card books you’d care to grab over the years, this one is a great, fast paced yarn full of pathos, drama, action and, as it happens, the death of at least one regular character (or more, I’m not going to tell you). This one is also one of the less fragmented of the mosaic novels. Unlike the last volume, which fit together various stand alone stories, this one is taken bit by bit from multiple viewpoints of specific characters and locks together as a quite seamless story. What this means is that you have specific goals and character motivations which you can focus on and watch (or read, I guess) play out as an arc over the whole story, rather than having lots of mini climaxes throughout.

It goes without saying, at least in the Wild Cards novels, that you care for each and all of the characters... except for the villains of the piece, obviously. Even though the pacing on this is terrific and the stakes are high (at least on a national level, it’s nothing compared to some of the threats faced in the Wild Cards universe which, quite recently, nearly saw the destruction of the world), it still manages to explore the subtleties and worries of the main characters in a way that will have you investing in their well-being from the start and, of course, that means the narrative can really punch you in the gut when each and every twist or death is just around the next corner.

In terms of its space within the engulfing Wild Cards shared universe, there really aren't that many links to the more US or global based novels in the series and there’s not even a Croyd Crenson sighting or much of anything about what’s been going on in the world since it almost ended in High Stakes (which I reviewed here). You won’t miss that though because there’s so much going on while the Knights Of The Silver Helix (as the Ace division of the British Secret Service are known) are trying to find any information at all which has been buried in the past about a possible heir to the throne before the Joker-hating Henry the Ninth gets properly bedded into the throne and his supporters take to the streets to attack the least fortunate heirs of the Wild Card virus.

There are shifts in allegiance for some of the characters here, as Aces switch sides or are asked to do things which go against their role in the grand scheme of things. And, of course, there are many sacrifices along the way, not just the loss of life but various acts of betrayal and redemption as the clash of the cold war meeting terrorist organisations like the Twisted Fists (technically) forces people into situations and actions which might seem unthinkable to them in lighter times.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about Three Kings... I’m not going to go into too many details here but I will say that, while there is a sense of resolution to things as they are, there are also some characters that I really hope they don’t leave behind. What I’m saying is... I hope this is another of the mini trilogys that pop up from time to time in the Wild Cards universe. I need to know what becomes of the relationship between Constance and Bobbin, for starters. And Alan Turing’s arc seems a little unresolved too, I would say. So I hope the next volume in the series is published sooner rather than later. These characters come alive so well on the page it would be a shame to lose them just yet, even though most of the main players in this one are in their seventies or over. As usual I will end this by saying that, if you’re a loyal reader of the Wild Cards books, Three Kings is an absolute winner. If you’re not that familiar with them though, this is really not a good jumping on point and you should maybe consider reading them in publication order. 

Wild Cards - Knaves Over Queens

Knaves All Gazing

Wild Cards
Knaves Over Queens
Edited by George R. R. Martin
Harper Voyager ISBN: 9780008283599

Knaves Over Queens is the 27th in the series of editor (and, once upon a time, contributing writer) George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards mosaic novels. It’s an absolutely brilliant series of books and I’ve written numerous reviews of the more recent tomes in the series on this review blog. The stories tell of an alternate historical timeline which splits off from our own after Jetboy fails to stop the release of an alien virus from the planet Takis in the 1940s, known later as the Wild Cards virus. Humanity is changed in the wake of the virus which leaves behind superheroes (known as Aces), hideous malformed freaks (known as Jokers), Knaves (who are a kind of combination of both… Joker Aces if you will), nats (naturals... those left with absolutely no change) and a lot of people who just die when their ‘card turns’ (when the virus finally manifests itself in their body at some point in their lifetime), which is known as ‘drawing the black queen’, naturally.

This new novel, though, is not a continuation of the various characters who have been living in this universe in the more recent of the novels from the last decade or so (this series of books has been going since the 1980s). Instead, this new one goes right back to the times of the very first book of the series but gives us the various interlocking short stories of what was happening in the United Kingdom at the same time. So this is, essentially, a British Wild Cards novel but, even though some of the contributing writers are the same (including the queen of the Wild Cards writers herself, Melinda M. Snodgrass), it perfectly captures the spirit and fluctuating tone of the rest of the series and it’s one of the more interesting of the series I’ve read recently… although they’re pretty much all good, it has to be said.

Now, there’s one thing I suspect the original writers of the Wild Cards series did without considering the consequences of success too much with their very first novel and over the years I’ve come to look at it as a mistake, with the gift of hindsight. And that is the fact that, in that first volume, the writers flew through the decades from the 1940s to what was then the present of the 1980s all in one glorious gulp… so many of the subsequent novels had to be set, more or less, all around the same time. However, having said that, I can’t qualify that as an accident on the latest collection of stories because Knave Over Queens, sadly, does exactly the same thing. There are single stories set one each apiece in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s… a few in the 1980s and then onto one or two stories of each of the intervening decades from then until the present decade… and this is a great shame, I feel. Not that it isn’t a lot of fun, for sure but, it would have been nice if some of the new characters and scenarios developed in these wonderful shorts could have been maybe explored in more detail with, say, one decade per novel or some such.

That being said, it certainly doesn’t hurt the tome any and it’s as furiously fast paced as some of the best Wild Cards novels. There are, as usual, some rich character ideas and situations so you have some interesting origin stories ranging from what was happening aboard the Queen Mary, stopped from entering New York harbour when the Wild Card virus was first released in the 1940s, an alternate look at the reign of terror perpetrated by The Kray Twins in the 1960s and a heck of a lot of stuff about various ‘terrorist’ groups such as the IRA and the Twisted Fists (who long time readers of the Wild Cards series will certainly remember).

There’s also the usual interesting characters peppered throughout with Alan Turing, for instance, drawing an Ace of sorts and going by the code name Enigma. Or Mick Jagger who, we are told, would sleep with anyone but who is also, in addition to being a pop star, a werewolf. And all this is set in a world where, back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Princess Elisabeth drew the black queen and Princess Margaret was crowned queen. A world where Winston Churchill’s ace allowed him to lead an extended life, including a long political life, where he set up The Order Of The Silver Helix… which is the British equivalent of the aces who work secretly for the government. Another character proves himself fairly useful in the ‘Falklands Conflict’ which I remember seeing all over the news in the 1980s.

As usual, the various characters and incidents either connect to or, at the very least, have consequences in other stories in the novel although, like the very first novel all those years ago, it’s less of a single story arc coming together so much as a few story arcs clashing and sustaining the weight of the various mini adventures throughout. So there are three sets of characters who appear at different times or are at least mentioned in a number of, often unconnected stories, who are there to give a little glue to the thing as a whole. One character starts off his adventure from the Queen Mary in the 1940s and is still going strong by the last stories set in contemporary times. Another character, a nasty goddess who weaves a spell of quite gory death as she plays off the various sides of ‘the troubles’ has her own story arc which leaves the novel with a chilling climax rather than anything a little more upbeat. A third character starts off his adventures as a spin writer for the alternate history version of Margaret Thatcher before his card turns and he ends up having to go undercover for Winston Churchill, in order to infiltrate an organisation which will mean something to regular readers of the series. These are all woven into the fabric of the novel and often find themselves on various sides of conflicts going on in various stories.

There are some nice Easter eggs and bonuses for regular readers too.  Now my mind is a bit fuzzy on all the characters in the Wild Cards universe I’ve read over the last 30 odd years but I will say that there’s a least one story that took me by surprise, somewhat, as being the origins of a character who occasionally makes some dramatic and violence filled appearances over the years. And, although there are a few crossovers with characters from the earlier novels, there aren’t all that many blatant crossovers (at least not as blatant as the aforementioned Miss. Snodgrass’ wonderful contribution to the novel). There are, however, a fair few mentions (and probably a lot of little cameos I didn’t pick up on) so frequent followers of the series will, as I said earlier, have a richer experience with this particular tome than people who are just jumping on at this point. That being said, I didn’t catch one Croyd Crenson reference in this one but... I guess you can’t have everything.

And, as you might expect from these stories by now, there is a rich variation of the kind of interlocking tales showcased from here… from 1960s London gangland to a Hatton Garden heist by way of John Le Carre style spy stories, pulp horror and even the horrors of war. So if you’re a fan of postmodernist, eclectic tale spinning with a vaguely super-powered tint and, of course, if you’re already an avid reader, then you will want to grab a copy of this one, for sure. Wild Cards - Knave Over Queens is another triumph for the series and I really hope this doesn’t turn out to be the final novel in the sequence. These books are precious jewels of the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres and they deserve to be cherished for generations to come.

Wild Cards - Texas Hold 'Em

Bubble Mum and
the Beautiful Dreamers

Wild Cards - Texas Hold 'Em
Edited by George R. R. Martin
Tor Books
ISBN: 978-0765390592

So here we are at the 26th of the George R. R. Martin edited Wild Cards mosaic novels, Texas Hold ‘Em. Now, I’m usually quite positive and enthusiastic about pretty much all of the Wild Cards novels, which I’ve been reading since they first started in the 1980s and, this time too, I’m going to be just as enthusiastic. I do though... and this is quite unusual for me in terms of the series in general... have one, possibly three, slight criticisms. I’ll get to the other ones in due course but the first one is based purely on my expectations and it is this...

Since, I think, Tor Books have been publishing the later novels (and, I think, reprints of some of the earlier novels), they have kind of retroactively bunched both these and all the old ones into clusters of  named story arcs. Now the previous ‘trilogy’ was called The Fort Freak Triad and it was pretty heavy and dramatic for all the active players in the contemporary Wild Card universe (and you can read my reviews of it here, here and here). It started off soft and then got really heavy, very quickly by the end of the second volume. This current trilogy, which is the last of a trilogy called The America Triad, started off with a very dramatic and moving story promising lots of future consequences for some of the characters, called Mississippi Roll (reviewed here) and then went full steam ahead to a completely unrelated time travel story for the next volume, called Low Chicago (reviewed by me here). Now, I commented at the time that I was going to assume that, like the last trilogy, the final tome in that sequence would bring all the loose ends from these two together and close out the trilogy as recognisably a single arc. Well... I’m wondering just who is it is imposing these collective cluster titles on the books now because, frankly, this third volume really has nothing much to do with either of the previous two novels. So, there you go... that’s one grumble.

Okay, so the plot set up is very simple for this one. The Amazing Bubbles, who went through such a hard time at the end of the last trilogy, has been talked by her Deuce daughter Adesina, into being one of her high school joker jazz band’s chaperones for the national jazz band competition finals in Texas. This book covers just under a week of the incidents that happen to the kids and the competing bands while they are staying at the hotel for the competition and, perhaps somewhat predictably, deals almost solely with the issues surrounding ‘joker prejudice’ and is pretty much, in some ways, dealing with exactly the same kind of not-so-much-of-a-stretch metaphors that the original 1960s The Uncanny X-Men comics were dealing with when Stan Lee first created them. And... well I have to say that it’s a very light and frothy, for the most part, mosaic tale with the various writers concentrating on certain characters in mostly short bursts and then handing over the next crossover of characters to the next person before returning back to them... and most of the writers span the whole length of the novel with just a couple of exceptions.

Now, I usually like the lighter, whimsical stories in the Wild Cards universe and they are often a refreshing and welcome respite from some of the heavier issues but, in all honesty, this does somehow give this particular tome a kind of ‘young adult’ vibe and, well, I normally wouldn’t be caught dead reading something written especially for such a dubiously titled section of the audience. This novel is great fun and that’s fine but... it just feels like there’s absolutely nothing at stake. In the last ‘trilogy’ the whole world was almost obliterated and even in the previous volume in this trilogy, the whole world was at risk of being completely rewritten. Heck, even Mississippi Roll, which was much more a lighter tale, was extremely moving and you cared about the characters because the stakes to them personally were quite high. Here, the stakes are... I dunno... maybe trying to win a competition and trying to figure out teenage hormones, I guess. Which, frankly, makes the big finale, set piece battle of the novel seem kinda superfluous.

I did enjoy the inclusion of Creighton, the shape shifting detective who is ‘popped’ over by Popinjay to help clear up the ‘behind the scenes’ sabotage at the competition. I love the fact that he often uses old movie stars to base his character on so when he changes to Dwight Frye, the James Arness incarnation of The Thing (From Another World) and the William Powell version of Nick Charles from The Thin Man films, it’s always a pleasure to read his antics. And there are some great comic moments too when he has to impersonate Bubbles and babysit her grounded daughter while she has to go and take care of some business herself. This is not a bad novel by any stretch and, certainly, there are no really bad Wild Cards novels... but it’s possibly the most trivial of the series for sure.

So, as I said before, the story has a big action set piece at the end of it and, don’t get me wrong, it’s a pleasure to read. It involves Creighton who has gotten so drunk in his impersonation of The Thin Man that he has morphed into Mighty Joe Young and is rampaging his way towards The Alamo and, well, the way he’s stopped from obliterating this historical landmark is something that I’ll just say that anyone who is a fan of the original version of that particular movie (I’ve not seen the remake and don’t even talk to me about that) will absolutely love and applaud. And I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming even sooner than I did because it’s frankly the only solution that would do in this case. I have the original movie on Blu Ray now so I’ll probably revisit it sometime later this year and do a review here.

However, although this sequence is, again, a joy to read... the whole thing felt like it was just tacked on because the writers or possibly editor felt like they needed to have some kind of big ‘potential carnage’ scene at the end and, it doesn’t really have any consequences to do with the rest of the novel at all. It’s just a piece of spectacle similar to what Hollywood might add on to the end of a film to make it seem a little more punchy. However, brilliant as it is... it really doesn’t add anything to the book and, in all fairness, with so little at stake, there doesn’t seem to be much point to any of it.

So there you have it. Texas Hold ‘Em is another, hugely entertaining tome in the Wild Cards shared universe but, in all honesty, it’s also one of the worst and, almost certainly the least relevant of the series. Regular readers may like to know that there are no new Croyd Crenson sightings in this book but the character is referred to at least twice over the course of the story. However, with only a few Aces in sight and mostly just a bunch of jokers and the odd deuce, there’s not really a lot going on in this one. However, if you are a regular reader of the series, like me, then of course you will love it and want to read it for sure. So that’s me done and I’ll hopefully get around to reading the next novel in the series - which jumps back right to the beginning of the series but taken from a British viewpoint - sometime fairly soon.

Join the Acebook phenomenon

Wild Cards: Suicide Kings. 2010.

Edited by George R. R. Martin.

TOR. ISBN: 9780765317834

You know... there’s something about the Wild Cards series of “mosaic” novels that just makes me come alive when I read them more than any other series of books have (except maybe for those old Doc Savage pulps I enjoy so much ;-).

Suicide Kings is the 20th in the series of books written simultaneously by a number of very talented science fiction writers who write either a short story which contributes to the overall thrust of the novel or various sections of chapters dealing with the specific characters they have created for the series.

Now I have to say that I am not a big fan of this style of working but in the case of the Wild Cards series it’s the exception to the rule. Ever since the first novel came out back in 1987, they’ve been plugging away and plugging away at stories set in an alternative version of history (1946 to present) and although some of the books have been almost impossible to get ahold of (I’ve finally managed to fill my last “hole” a couple of years ago when I realised the series hadn’t stopped in the early 90s) due to various accidental limited runs from bankrupt publishers etc... I think it speaks for both the quality of the writing and the sheer entertainment value of these novels that they are still finding an audience.

A brief history for those of you who have not read the Wild Cards novels. In 1946, national American superhero “Jetboy” died (his famous last words were something like... “Now I’ll never get to see The Jolson Story”) when he failed to stop the diabolical “Wild Card” virus being unleashed on earth. Since then and forever, the Wild Card infection is forever present. 90% of the population of Earth draw “The Black Queen” and die on exposure. A certain percentage of the population draw Aces which give them devastating and often wildly improbably super powers. Some draw deuces, which just gives them mild special abilities. And the rest become hideous and mutated Jokers (and end up living in ghettos like Jokertown). Naturally, the history of our world was changed when the Wild Card hit, and so in this parallel version of history things are a little different... asides from the obvious fact of various superheroes and villains battling it out to save the Earth. Marilyn Monroe, for example, lived to make many more films.

As the series has run it’s course there is usually a strong political “world peace” undercurrent running through the series and this one, set mostly in modern day Congo where children are victims to unspeakable atrocities involving the original Wild Card virus which is a parody of real life events going on right now... is no exception to this. Now don’t ask me to comment on the political issues tackled herein... being a bear of very little brain I’m afraid I just don’t understand stuff like this. But I do love these books, and that includes this one, so you don’t really have to be politically minded to follow these.

This book continues the adventures of the next generation of Aces which have been going for a few books now. These were the youngsters picked to go on the first edition of the Wild Cards version of Big Brother... the reality TV shoe American Heroes. And, much as I love the old guard and deeply miss characters like Doctor Tachyon, Croyd the Sleeper, The Great and Powerful Turtle, Chrysalis and Peregrine... well these new kids are brilliant too.

It also has a great cover (with metal foil enhancements... I love that stuff) which is very much a parody of those old Bama Doc Savage covers from the Ballantine reissues of the 60s-80s.

I know what you’re thinking... books about superheroes are childish and just not credible. Well I thought that too until I started reading the Wild Cards series. And while there is a very deliberate and very welcome injection of humour in these mad tales of human emotions pushed to the edge... you should probably be warned that they can also get very dark and depressing. As this one does. The thing about these characters is... even the ones that have ben invested with a long career... well they could die any moment. Like in this one. And it’s often not the characters you are expecting to die who get slaughtered for the drama. I lost another two of my favourite characters in this one and... not to give too much away to those who like the Wild Cards novels... one of those characters was like losing hundreds of characters at once.

For fans of the earlier novels, there are some brief cameos (no pun intended for anyone who has read these and realised that was a pun) from older characters, such as Popinjay, the Deuce/Ace who can teleport anyone to where he wants them to be as long as a) he can picture a place in his mind and b) points his finger at them and clicks his thumb down in a mock gun firing mime. The pop from his name is an allusion to the popping sound made as the air quickly rushes to refill the physical space a person just occupied.

And old hero turned villain Tom Weathers, the most powerful Ace in the world, is back to lead the People’s Paradise of Africa on a blood soaked crusade against “the man” but... and get this good Wild Cards fans... the original Mark Meadows flower power hippy version of his mind is fighting back... and keeping an eye on his mentally deficient daughter Sprout.

I think the main reason I read this incredible series is because... at the end of the day... superheroes or not... these books have a real heart to them. A profound and idealistic soul to the writing not often found in modern writing.

This novel is another great crowning triumph in the Wild Cards series!