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 30 - Full House

Short Runs

Wild Cards Vol 30
Full House
by George R. R. Martin
Tor Books
ISBN: 9781635912715256167958

Proclaiming itself a Wild Cards mosaic novel on the first printed page of the book, this 30th new collection of short stories in the Wild Cards series, Full House, isn’t really that at all. Sure it consists of new stories by a variety of the Wild Cards writers but, unlike the majority of the multi-authored previous volumes in the series, these aren’t all going towards making up an overreaching story arc. Instead, this is a collection of stories previously published on Tor’s website... which is fine by me, I don’t really have time for electronic PDFs or Epubs of fiction when there are so many good printed stories to be read... hence, I haven’t read any of these before, myself.

But the point is, these don’t go together so well and, yeah, I’ll hit you with my one negative comment at the end but, if you are a Wild Cards fan... lapping up these tales taking place in an alternate Earth history where a virus from an alien world was unleashed in the 1940s, which either leaves people as they are, turns them into hideously deformed Jokers, kills them or gives them Ace powers (basically gives them super powers)... then you are going to love this one.

As usual, all of the stories in this tome are amazingly well written and, if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably be absolutely into all the characters... old and brand new alike. These are skilled writers giving us fantastic prose set in a version of Earth where literally anything can happen... these books are like addictive drugs, they’re so good. Here’s a very brief rundown of what’s in this new edition of the stories... I’m not going to go into detail on each one because, frankly, they’re all absolutely brilliant.

When We Were Heroes by Daniel Abraham
This one has former American Hero contestant Bugsy, moved on since the various big international conflicts he’s been involved with since the first season of that reality show, now working as a ‘reporter’ on Aces magazine, a gossip rag of some notoriety. He is on the sharp end of an angry Curveball, after she finds out about a shot he uses of her combined with an Ace celebrity piece he puts out, catching her on a first date. The conversation they have crosscuts between a recent, tragic event in Bugsy’s life where he was working security for an organisation and the awkwardness and romance of Curveball’s first date with a Nat (Nats or naturals are people who haven’t been affected by the virus... yet).  

Evernight by Victor Milan
This one’s a fairly dark tale featuring Candace Sessou aka The Darkness, as she tries to free her terrorist brother from captivity in a Joker sanctuary beneath the catacombs of Paris, by doing a job for those who run the place in exchange for his release. Things go wrong all over.

Lies My Mother Told Me by Caroline Spector
This one sees Bubbles and her adopted, insect-like daughter Adesina attacked by zombies on a carnival float. However, it’s not Bubbles former lesbian lover and friend Hoodoo Mama who is responsible for the zombie disruption and deaths. Someone sole Mama’s power temporarily to specifically put pressure on Bubbles through her friends. Between the two of them, the ladies fight back and neutralise the threat... as far as we know... in the usual deadly manner.

Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza by Carrie Vaughn
Earth Witch, still mending from a bullet wound she received in one of the big international battles told in the novels, is wracked with guilt for killing so many enemy soldiers and then finds out that, somewhere in Mexico, her grandmother is still alive. Finding the advice of the local priest completely unsympathetic to the plight of those touched by the virus, she takes a road trip to go and find her grandmother for some advice on the matter... one Ace to another. A background detail... Curveball seems to still be in a relationship with John Fortune, son of the first wave Ace Fortunato, in this. Which kinda contradicts the first story in the volume... I’ll get to that soon.

Discards by David D. Levine
This one is by David D. Levine who wrote the wonderful Arabella of Mars novels (which I reviewed here, here and here). This one tells of a new Joker/Ace when his card turns, transforming him into someone who can attract certain kinds of junk and debris to overcome his obstacles. Now, I think Levine has been involved in the Wild Cards novels before on a number of occasions but this is the first time I’ve consciously noticed that this is the same guy who created Arabella. The writing style is totally different here to those aforementioned tomes and shows what a great, diverse talent this writer is... but the same can be said for all the Wild Cards writers, I’m sure.

The Elephant In The Room by Paul Cornell
This one’s a nice little sketch of Abigail, who picks up passing Ace and Joker powers (I think her first appearance was in the Wild Cards novel Fort Freak, reviewed here). She’s also the current girlfriend of the original, multigenerational, ageless Ace... Croyd ‘The Sleeper’ Crenson. But when Croyd is coming to the end of his current waking cycle and desperate to stay awake via whatever amphetamines or alternatives he can find, becoming his usual cranky self... Abigail’s mum comes for a visit.

When The Devil Drives by Melinda M. Snodgrass
Star Trek writer extraordinaire Melinda M. Snodgrass is one of the old and constant guard of the Wild Cards universe (and sometimes shares the editing credit with George R. R. Martin). This is another tale of assassin Noel Matthews, former teleporting assassin for the Order Of The Silver Helix and his various male and female incarnations. In this one, pursuing a somewhat ‘straight’ life, he is framed for a murder he didn’t commit and, in chasing down the real culprit, finds himself trying to fix his own family, from whom he has retreated.

The Atonement Tango by Stephen Leigh
This one headlines Drummer Boy, everyone’s favourite Joker/Ace musician. However, when a Joker Plague concert is bombed and all but one of his group and himself survive, with life changing injuries, he needs to investigate just what crackpot let the bomb off and come to terms with some home truths. This one features another cameo by Croyd Crenson and also the centaur Dr. Bradley Finn, who is looking after DB’s wounds. There’s also a mention of Jube, the walrus newspaper vendor and I love that people still assume that Jube is just another Joker, rather than an alien visitor from the old days of the early books in the series.

Prompt. Professional. Pop! by Walter Jon Williams
Irritating, self important, teleporting Ace Cleopatra is leading a life of crime but an intervention by original 1940s Ace Jack Braun, aka Golden Boy (who also doesn’t age and has been both a hero and a villain... due to his turning evidence in 1950s McCarthy hearings on ‘hidden virus citizens’ back in the 1950s) helps land her in more trouble pursuing fame and money.

How to move Spheres and influence people by Marko Kloos
This one is another story of a new Ace. When disabled 15 year old TK’s card turns on the last week or two before her summer holiday from the expensive school she is enrolled at, she eventually becomes a hero when she is trying to have a holiday in Edinburgh with her folks. She is expelled from school for her heroism but she is also approached by The Committee On Extraordinary Interventions, who are helpful and let her know she can go and work for them when she turns 18, if she wants to.
TK’s Ace ability is she can manipulate any spherical object with her mind... which obviously makes her very dangerous but, I won’t tell you her Ace name because the writer holds that back as a little reveal at the end of the story.

And that’s me done with Wild Cards Full House. My one disappointment is that the stories aren’t presented in chronological order, so there are lots of contradictions from story to story as various Aces are mentioned as doing different things at different stages of their lives (even though the stories are all about the more modern of the Wild Cards heroes... within the last ten years). So you do have to kind of ignore the seeming contradictions as you go on this one. But, other than that, another absolutely fantastic ride and I can’t wait for the next volume, which is due out next year. I love these books and have been reading them since the first tome appeared in the 1980s. Great stuff.

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 - 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.

High Stakes - Wild Cards 23

Frandemonium 

High Stakes - Wild Cards 23
edited by George R. R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass
Tor Books ISBN: 9780765335823

Well, here I go again. Almost 30 years since I started reading the first Wild Cards books (in those wonderful Brian Bolland covers), the Aces, Jokers and Nats are back in the 23rd of the mosaic novels to date.

Looking in the ‘previous books in the series’ style listing in the front of the volume finds that the publishers have now split up different chronological groups into subsets that, despite all the novels overlapping and making up the same timeline, are obviously arranged to allow people to peruse the shared Wild Cards universe in an easier manner. So we have little subsections like The Puppetman Quartet, The Rox Triad, The Card Sharks Triad etc. This new novel, High Stakes, is apparently the final part of The Fort Freak Triad but, I really couldn’t care, truth be told. After the cliffhanger ending of Lowball (reviewed here), I couldn’t wait to find out if the apocalypse had been ushered in and the world was about to end for the collective of characters in this particular literary universe.

I put a pretty high profile 'spoiler warning' in that last review where I predicted that the old enemy The Astrologer would be back and that the streets would be running red with blood. Well, I have to say, I got it dead wrong about the return of the astrologer but the absolute carnage in this particular tome is certainly on a level with some of the blood baths of the very early days. This one is a battle royale like no other in the series and I was almost surprised, whenever I looked away from the words on the pages, that the leaves of the book themselves weren’t running crimson with the blood of lost souls. It’s an apocalyptic battle, to be sure.

This novel carries on directly from the end of the last book, with Marcus the snake man (aka The Infamous Black Tongue) fleeing the botched rescue showdown of the last volume with his new girlfriend, after the death of a very much loved character in the last novel who he does return for... at some point. The Wild Cards writers have never been shy at killing off their characters and the last novel was no different. You get a sense of finality and closure here, to some of the characters that were lost in the last novel. So we have Marcus trying to get out of Talos, as does Franny (Detective Francis Xavier Black) who had travelled to Talos to stop one abomination only to find, once he stopped it, that in doing so he automatically unleashed the ensuing apocalypse. And he has to get out of Talos too... but this time as the puppet-pet of the lead villainess of the last book, Baba Yaga, who he slowly builds a certain bond of understanding with. Kind of.

High Stakes pretty much focusses on the relatively new characters of the recent Wild Cards volumes, although there are still some old timers ‘in the mess’, so to speak, as key players in this novel. There’s even an uncredited Croyd (aka The Sleeper) sighting in this one again, although this story has nothing to do with his character this time and he’s not even mentioned in the ‘end credits’ of the book (I believe he was originally created and written by late great sci-fi writer Roger Zelazny in the earliest Wild Cards books). However, readers still know this generation of characters well and it’s completetly suspenseful to read about some much loved fictional people being pushed and ripped asunder, both mentally and physically, as they try to stop the sheer dread of an advancing army of a surrealistic terror realm slowly creeping across the world.

Early on in the novel, the writers drop in an almost Mothra-like incident which is something they could call on to save the day in the final battle as it plays out here. All the way through I was waiting for a certain character to ‘pop’ out into the world in a new form and drop back into the plot all 'deus ex machina' in the last act. To their credit, the writers didn’t actually use that strand at all and, in the end, a different resolution.... or a different kind of resolution (take your pick)... is introduced into the text. I’m not going to say whether it’s a good or bad resolution but... yeah, there is at least a sense of closure to the unspeakable evil that is slowly destroying the world.

The book doesn’t let up in the pacing department from the get go... which is not actually that surprising since we are basically dropped back into the middle of a story which we’d already started but, I have to say, just keeps speeding up and getting more ugly and darker as it carries on towards its conclusion... which is just what I would expect from a team of writers who have woven together such special characters and situations over the years. And, as usual, interjected into all this mayhem are some great little concepts and some nice explorations of the machinations of the unique powers of some of the characters which, sometimes, may have you laughing out loud, just like me when I was reading this. For all its grotesque insanity and high stakes bedlam, the book still manages to find time for a lot of humour within its pages and, all I can say is that the writers, as always, do a fantastic job.

There is also an epilogue section in the novel, which shows some of the characters once their ‘final solution’ has been played out. Now I don’t want to put any spoilers in here for anybody but I will say that one of my favourite characters out of the last few books definitely has a slight shift in personality here. There is a certain vengeful part of the epilogue which, almost, signals a loss of innocence or, at the very least, an unwillingness to stick to a more heroic code from one of the main players of the last two books. I felt sad about this scene but, if the writers of this series know anything, it’s how to write drama and I can only imagine, ten years from now, how this fictional person’s arc will play out. After all, I remember when Mark Meadows was one of the heroes of the books, for people who can recall back to the early novels and how his character turned out 40 or so years later in the shared chronology of the Wild Cards universe. No, Mark Meadows is not in this one... I was just using it as an example for long time fans of the series but... yeah... the point is that there’s a shift in tone towards the end and one wonders how this will play out for a certain character in the future of the series.

For almost thirty years now I’ve been saying that the Wild Cards stories should be made into a high budget TV show. Not a movie because, frankly, that wouldn’t have the scope and breadth required in a mere two or three hours to even begin to cover the contents of the first novel. Well, fairly recently it looks like Hollywoodland have finally agreed with me and, after the success of a certain other George R. R. Martin property on the airwaves, it looks like a Wild Cards TV show is finally...well... on the cards, if you’ll forgive the pun. This fills me with both hope and trepidation. Hope because, well, modern CGI special effects are finally at a point where they might be able to cope with something of this nature. Trepidation, however, because I hope they’ll give the earlier novels a fair crack and, when all is said and done, they really are going to have to throw a huge amount of money at each and every episode to make this thing work properly, methinks.

Either way, getting back to the subject at hand, High Stakes - A Wild Cards Novel is certainly going to keep fans of this long running literary sensation happy. For people who aren’t long running fans, however, it might not make the most sense and I can only urge you to start at the very beginning if you want to get into these amazing adventures. Either way... excellent book and bravo, once again, to all the writers who are able to magically juggle all these character strands without getting lost in the fray. I applaud you all.