George R.R. Martin's WILD CARDS TV series moves from Hulu to Peacock; SANDKINGS in development at Netflix

Thanks to detective work by the team at Westeros.org, it appears that the long-percolating TV version of the Wild Cards shared universe has moved home. Previously in the works as an NBC-Hulu collaboration, it now appears to have found a new home at NBC's Peacock streaming service.

Peacock launched last April in the United States and is heavily reliant on legacy programming such as The Office and Parks & Recreation. It is unsurprising that they would be looking to bolster their lineup with original fare, and the Wild Cards universe gives them a large roster of superhero characters to develop shows around.

The Wild Cards universe was created by George R.R. Martin in the early 1980s as a roleplaying game setting. Starting in 1987, Martin began editing and publishing linked anthologies of stories from numerous writers in the shared world. Melinda Snodgrass has been heavily involved in the creative side of the universe, and writers including Paul Cornell, David Anthony Durham, Pat Cadigan, Emma Newman, Mark Lawrence, Roger Zelazny, Howard Waldrop, Daniel Abraham, Ty Franck and Walter Jon Williams have contributed stories to the setting. The twenty-ninth book in the series is scheduled for release this year.

Martin's other commitments preclude working on the show, so the heavy-lifting on Wild Cards is being done by Melinda Snodgrass (who previously worked on Star Trek: The Next Generation as a writer and script editor, penning one of the show's most beloved episodes, The Measure of a Man) and Michael Cassutt (Z Nation, The Outer Limits).

Meanwhile, the same source reveals that Martin's novella Sandkings is in development as a feature film at Netflix. Sandkings was previously filmed - heavily reworked by Melinda Snodgrass into a contemporary setting - as the opening episode of the second version of The Outer Limits in 1995.

Hulu option WILD CARDS for television, put two series into active development

Streaming service Hulu have optioned the rights to George R.R. Martin's Wild Cards superhero universe and are developing two potential TV series based on the setting.

Martin created the Wild Cards setting in the early 1980s, using the roleplaying game Superworld to develop the world and premise. Martin and his initial group of players, many of whom were drawn from his local Santa Fe and Albuquerque writers' groups, created the basic setting and many of the characters were their player-characters from the game. Following the failure of his 1983 novel The Armageddon Rag, Martin moved away from novel writing to focus on a burgeoning Hollywood scripting career but hit on the idea of turning the roleplaying game into a series of short stories and anthologies, a "shared world" as it was then termed.

The first book in the series, Wild Cards, was released in 1987 and promptly sold over 100,000 copies, making it a wild success. Martin and co-editor Melinda Snodgrass (Star Trek: The Next Generation) continued working on the series, bringing in new writers and soliciting new stories from older ones, throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Martin credits the series and its high sales with keeping his name in the eye of publishers, restoring his commercial reputation after The Armageddon Rag and helped pave the way for the publication of A Game of Thrones in 1996. There was a brief pause in the series in the late 1990s and another in the early 2000s as various publishers cycled through the series (which started with Bantam and moved to Baen and then iBooks). Tor Books picked up the series in 2008 with Inside Straight, the first in a "new generation" of books, and more have followed. As of November 2018, 27 books have been published in the series to date with sales in the low millions.

The premise of the series is that, in an alternative 1946, an alien virus is released over New York City. 90% of these infected by the virus die instantly ("Drawing the Black Queen"). 9% are transformed into deformed freaks ("Jokers"). 1% gain amazing superpowers ("Aces"). Smaller outbreaks spread the virus all over the globe. The bulk of the series takes place contemporary to publication date and explores the ramifications of a world where both superpowers and alien races are known to exist.

SyFy (who are launching their own GRRM adaptation, Nightflyers, next month) optioned the series almost a decade ago. Their parent company Universal re-optioned the rights with a view to both film and TV applications, and have now placed the project with Universal Cable Productions and Hulu. Andrew Miller (The Secret Circle) is to act as showrunner and executive producer, with Snodgrass and Martin to act as executive producers.

Martin has an exclusivity deal with HBO, which will be airing the final season of Game of Thrones in April 2019, so his role on the Wild Cards series will be hands-off, with Snodgrass expected to take more of an active oversight role.

Wild Cards: Jokers Wild, edited by George R.R. Martin

The alien Swarm has been driven back into deep space. The band of villainous aces and jokers who tried to summon the Swarm, led by the Astronomer, have been defeated in battle and the victorious aces are taking some time out to enjoy Wild Cards Day 1986, the fortieth anniversary of the arrival of the alien virus on Earth. Unfortunately, the Astronomer hungers for revenge and sets out to murder all of the aces responsible for his defeat.

Jokers Wild is the third novel in the Wild Cards series and follows on directly from the events of Aces High. Having lost the battle in that book, the Astronomer is now out for revenge and begins cutting his way through the ranks of aces in New York City. Jokers Wild is interesting in that the entire book takes place across one day, so it's pretty unrelenting in pace, and also that it's the first "mosaic novel" in the series. Earlier books were collections of short stories which shared some events and characters, but mosaic novels actually intertwine around one another. The book reads as a regular novel, but each chapter is written by a different author and sometimes even sections and paragraphs within each chapter are written by different authors, who handle different characters and subplots.

This is a pretty noticeable phenomenon and for the first half or so of the book I found it seriously distracting, with sometimes jarring shifts in tone, atmosphere and prose style taking place. The somewhat relaxed and even jovial Hiram Worcester storyline (written by George R.R. Martin) and the adventurous Wraith plot (written by John J. Miller) didn't feel like it was really taking place in the same world as the sleazy, sexually explicit Fortunato stuff (written by Lewis Shiner) and the traumatising Roulette/Tachyon material (written by Melinda Snodgrass), despite the storylines all interacting with one another. This, combined with the disparate and wildly disconnected nature of the plots, made the first half of the book very tough going.

Fortunately, things gelled into place in the second half. The storylines start coming together and the way the heroes are working at cross-purposes without realising it becomes is quite cleverly structured. Eventually all of the scattered storylines come together in a massive, explosive and reasonably satisfying finale, even if the willingness of major characters to walk away and leave villains (who've just killed several of their friends) alive rather than either finishing them off or putting them in jail seems a bit implausible.

Still, if Jokers Wild (***½) is an experimental novel in structure and writing style, it is ultimately a successful one but takes quite a long time to get there. Accordingly, this is the weakest of the first three Wild Card books, but still a worthwhile read. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

Wild Cards: Aces High, edited by George R.R. Martin

The world has been divided by the wild card virus: the unaffected, the deformed "jokers" and the super-powered "aces". All have their own agendas, some darker than others, but all are threatened by the arrival of the alien Swarm. As Earth comes under concerted attack by the creatures, several of Earth's own alien allies (such as Dr. Tachyon) help lead a defence. But destroying the Swarm Mother may be impossible as a cult of sympathisers leap to her defence...

After the original Wild Cards focused on forty years of alternate history with the jokers and aces facing discrimination, political manipulation and questions over their loyalties, it's a bit of a tonal shift to follow that up with a full-scale alien invasion of Earth. Yet this kind of variety is what has kept the Wild Cards series fun and why it's still going thirty years after its creation. We know aliens exist in the setting - the wild card virus itself came from Takis - so it's fairly logical to see the aces and jokers joining forces to take on the menace.

There are of course complications. Unlike most superhero settings, Wild Cards doesn't hold much truck with big superteams. Aces tend to do their own thing, only joining forces when absolutely necessary. For most of its length, Aces High deals with several prominent aces and jokers (Tachyon, the Turtle, Jube the Walrus, Kid Dinosaur, Modular Man and Fortunato, with a few appearances by Croyd the Sleeper) tackling apparently unrelated issues relating to the Swarm and a Masonic cult before they realise how their individual threads link up, and there is the inevitable big showdown.


The stories that make up the book come from some of the bigger names in 1980s science fiction and fantasy: George R.R. Martin, Pat Cadigan, Walter Jon Williams, Melinda Snodgrass and Roger Zelazny are the big-hitters, but the rest are no slouches either. The stories vary from big, epic war stories as the Swarm invades in force to smaller-scaled tales of back-alley hustlings in Jokertown to things inbetween. They are all excellent, although it sometimes feels like you're only getting snapshots of the action. The Turtle gets a big, interesting storyline and then disappears off-page for a hundred-off page, during which time clearly some other stuff goes down, and suddenly he shows up for the big finale.

This is a recurring issue with these kind of shared worlds, the nagging sense that you are not getting the full story and having to infer that some big story-critical moments have taken place off-page. But it's not too distracting and is made up for the fact that each writer is clearly having immense fun creating and crafting their characters and taking their storylines forwards. The framing stories, "Jube" and "Unto the Sixth Generation", do a good job of keeping the larger over-arcing story on track.

The book builds to a big climax which is satisfying from an action and character perspective. But it's clear that although the aces have won a major victory over the Swarm Mother, they have neglected to account for her human minions. That's going to come back to bite them, quite hard, in the third book in the series.

Aces High (****) is a fine addition to the Wild Cards universe and a compelling follow-up to the original book. It is available now in the UK and USA.

Playing the Wild Card: A Reading Order to George R.R. Martin & Melinda Snodgrass's Superhero Universe

The news last week that Universal had taken out an option on the Wild Cards shared world superhero series seems to have awoken some renewed interest in the franchise. Wild Cards has been an ongoing project since 1987, now encompassing twenty-three books and contributed to by thirty-one authors, so it may be helpful to arrange this into some kind of structure suitable for newcomers.

 
The Premise

In 1946 Earth was nearly destroyed by an alien race known as the Takisians. Genetically identical to humans, a rogue Takisian house decided to field-test a new virus on the planet to assess the effects on a large population before deploying it against its enemies. Prince Tisianne, one of the creators of the virus, had second thoughts on moral grounds and pursued the test ship to Earth to destroy it. He successfully halted the release of the virus into Earth's atmosphere, but was detained by American military personnel. During his detention, a human criminal named Dr. Tod recovered the virus and used to it to blackmail the American government, threatening to release it over New York City unless he was paid $20 million.

Dr. Tod's bluff was called and he attacked New York in a massive dirigible on 15 September 1946: Wild Card Day. World War II flying ace Robert Tomlin - popularly known as "Jetboy" - helped destroy the airship at the cost of his own life, but the virus was still released. Fortunately, thanks to Jetboy's efforts, the virus landed in pockets across the city, reducing the death toll from the millions to ten thousand.

The virus had the following effects:

• 90% of those infected died instantly.
• 9% of those infected survived, but were mutated and deformed, becoming known as Jokers.
• 1% of those infected survived and were granted amazing powers, becoming known as Aces.

Unfortunately, the impact of the virus was not confined to New York City. Wind currents carried the virus across much of the eastern seaboard, whilst some of the virus spores actually survived intact and were carried unwittingly in cargo planes and ships across the globe. Major outbreaks followed in Rio de Janeiro, Mombasa, Port Said, Hong Kong and Auckland, with smaller outbreaks in many parts of the world.

The virus was also genetically transmittable, most commonly from parents to children. As a result of propagation, the number of people affected by the wild card virus, although still a minuscule minority of the human race, was still rising in the early 21st Century, seventy years after its arrival.

Prince Tisianne elected to remain on Earth and help make amends for the impact of the virus. Dubbed Dr. Tachyon by the press (for his spacecraft's FTL drive) and possessing immense telepathic powers, Tisianne is counted as an Ace although his powers are innate to his species rather than drawn from exposure to the virus. In the 1980s Tisianne returned to Takis and learned that the Takisian faction that had tried to test the virus on Earth had fallen from power, and there was no further threat to Earth from his people.

The first Wild Card book (and several stories in later volumes) spans the period 1946-86, showing how the existence of the Jokers and Aces alters the course of history. These reveal that a chunk of Manhattan has been turned into "Jokertown" where Jokers (and some Aces) are forced to live in a ghetto by a population fearful of their horrible appearances, and that a civil rights movement for Jokers later gets underway. Meanwhile, some Aces are employed by the American government, some go solo as vigilantes and some become villains. These stories also expand on the impact of the virus: we get to meet Deuces, Aces whose powers are useless or seem so, and Joker-Aces, Aces who have amazing powers but also the deformed and unpleasant appearance of Jokers.

From the second volume onwards, the stories proceed roughly in real-time, taking place approximately analogous with the year the book was released.

In 2008 the series was "rebooted" with the eighteenth volume in the series, Inside Straight, which picks up five years after the previous volume with a "Next Generation" approach, focusing mainly on new characters (although older ones are referenced or show up in smaller roles). This was done to create a second, easy entry point to the series for new readers.

Characters

There is no central character in the Wild Cards universe, with instead the stories moving between a rotating cast of characters at different periods of time and in different locations. That said, several of the most notable characters are as follows:



Thomas Tudby, aka "The Great and Powerful Turtle"

Tudby is a powerful telekinetic who can move vast amounts of matter with his mind: he once lifted a 45,000 ton American warship. However, his powers falter if he becomes scared or nervous. To render himself immune to attack, he used his powers to create a shell out of old motor car bodies, which he can then levitate and fly around. This led to the nickname of "the Turtle". The Turtle played a major role in several incidents of the late 1980s and early 1990s before revealing his identity to the world and effectively retiring. Formerly respected by Aces and Jokers alike for his bravery, his later writing of his memoirs and authorising of a film based on his life led to accusations of him "selling out".

The Turtle is regarded as George R.R. Martin's signature character, as well as the one most closely based on the author himself, also being from New Jersey and a massive comic book fan. Whether George R.R. Martin also has monstrous powers of telekinesis has not yet been confirmed, although it is known that he can get tens of thousands of people to freak out by simply mentioning words like "Winter" on his blog.


Croyd Crenson, aka "The Sleeper"

Croyd has arguably the weirdest ace power of them all. Every few months he goes into a deep sleep, lasting anywhere from weeks to months. When he wakes up, he is not only still alive but he will have attained a completely new appearance and set of powers. Two-thirds of the time he wakes up as an Ace or Joker-Ace, but one-third of the time he will take the form of a Joker with no powers and a disturbing appearance. He retains his memories over transformations but loses all other identifying marks, including fingerprints. His next appearance can be of any age, so it is unclear if he is immortal or if his body is still ageing normally (in which case he would be almost ninety years old).

Created by the late Roger Zelazny, but used by other writers with his blessing, the Sleeper is arguably the most popular Wild Cards character and the most versatile.


Jack Braun, aka "Golden Boy"

Braun became one of the most recognisable and famous Aces after the virus was released. His powers grant him immortality (he looks the same now that he did in 1946), super-strength and virtual invulnerability. He is not completely indestructible (a large enough explosion could kill him and he is vulnerable to poison) but he is pretty close. Braun fought as part of a superhero team known as the Four Aces after the virus, but in 1950 betrayed his comrades during the McCarthy witch hunts. After a stint as a Hollywood actor, he felt guilty about his actions and went into seclusion, emerging rarely thereafter. In 2008 he uncharacteristically agreed to take part in a reality TV show, serving as a "boss" the contestants had to defeat. Despite his shunning of the limelight, he liked the fact that no-one cared who he was any more.


Prince Tisianne, aka "Dr. Tachyon"

Dr. Tachyon is one of the Takisian scientists who helped create the wild card virus. Later repenting his actions, he tried to stop the deployment of the virus on Earth. He failed. Riven by guilt, he decided to stay and make amends by helping with Earth's technological development, the treatment of those infected by the virus and cataloguing the powers of the Aces. As Takisians are genetically identical to humans, he can pass as human with no problem. He is quite short and enjoys dressing in eccentric clothing. He has tremendous telepathic powers.

Dr. Tachyon was a character of primary importance in the first ten books in the series. However, he was then written out when he returned to his homeworld and stayed there. It is unknown if he will appear again.



Novels or Short Stories?

Wild Cards has been described as a series of novels and as a series of short story anthologies, although neither description is entirely accurate. It is fairer to say that Wild Cards is, taken as a whole, an alternate history of the world (but predominantly the United States) from 1946 to the present day. Single-author novels, multiple-author novels (known as mosaic novels), stand-alone short stories and short stories linked by chronology, location or thematic elements all combine to fill in this history. The Wild Cards series is also not defined by a single over-arcing narrative. This is no single story with a beginning, middle and end, but a whole series of stories set in a shared world. It is perfectly possible to read and enjoy books from the middle and even more recent period of the series without having read the rest first.


In-Print or Out of Print?

The problem of catching up with the series is also exacerbated by many of the middle books in the series being long out of print. Both Tor Books (in the USA) and Gollancz (in the UK) have embarked on ambitious plans to reprint the entire series, but both are proceeding incredibly slowly: Tor, slightly ludicrously, is only releasing the books at a rate of one a year and has only reached the fifth book (the sixth is out in February). This means they should complete the reprinting of the series in 2028. Meanwhile, Gollancz seem to have stalled after the publication of the seventh volume last October, with no more releases scheduled at present.


Why Not Omnibi*?

More than once it has been suggested that reprinting the series one-by-one has been inefficient, with a better way forwards being to reprint the books as omnibuses with three or four books per omnibus. This strategy was pursued by the Black Library with great success when it reprinted most of its Warhammer 40,000 output as massive, economically-priced omnibus and saw them sell over a million books in a short period of time. This method would be even more appropriate for Wild Cards, with narrative arcs often unfolding over three or four volumes. For their ebook editions, Gollancz has experimented with this process by collecting Books 1-3 as an omnibus called The Epic Beginning and Books 4-7 as The Puppetmaster Quartet. It would be interesting to see this expanded to the print editions as well (and yes, this would mean some very big books, but it worked brilliantly for the Black Library and for other publishers putting out big omnibuses), but no doubt this will depend on sales.


The Publishers

The Wild Cards series has been published by four distinct publishers to date: Bantam Spectra released Books 1-12, whilst Baen Books released Books 13-15. iBooks picked up Books 16 and 17 before spectacularly going bust. Tor Books have published Books 18-22 and will be publishing Book 23 later this year, and will remain the primary publisher of the series going forwards (three more books are under contract). The series has had several UK publishers but Gollancz are currently handling the series in Britain.


The Books

As previously mentioned, there are twenty-three books in the series. They are generally organised into "triads", arcs spanning three volumes but this name is something of a misnomer: Books 6 and 7 were supposed to be one book split into two for length, whilst Book 10 is something of a side-story  to the events of 8-9 and 11 (which form the triad proper and can be read in that order). There aren't really official titles for each triad, so they are more descriptive than formal:

The Beginning Triad
1. Wild Cards (1987)
2. Aces High (1987)
3. Jokers Wild (1987)

These first three volumes in the series introduce the wild card virus and chronicle the way it reshapes the history of the 20th Century. By the end of the second volume the series has already caught up with the then-present day (1987) and events in the series then unfold in real time (more or less). Book 1 introduces the premise and the original cast of characters, whilst Books 2 and 3 see the Aces learning of a potential alien invasion.

The Puppermaster Triad
4. Aces Abroad (1988)
5. Down and Dirty (1988)
6. Ace in the Hole (1990)
7. Dead Man's Hand (1990)

These four novels chronicle the machinations of the mysterious "Puppetmaster" and his eventual downfall, whilst numerous other events take place. Most notably, Book 4 explores the impact the wild card virus has had in other parts of the world beyond the United States.

The Jumper Triad
8. One-Eyed Jacks (1991)
9. Jokertown Shuffle (1991)
10. Double Solitaire (1992)
11. Dealer's Choice  (1992)

These four novels deal with the activities of a gang of body-swapping villains known as jumpers. Double Solitaire is notable for being a single novel written by Melinda Snodgrass rather than the usual rotating team of writers and stands apart in the continuity, being set on Dr. Tachyon's homeworld of Takis simultaneously with the events of Dealer's Choice.

As a note of trivia, George R.R. Martin started writing A Game of Thrones either whilst writing and editing work was proceeding on Jokertown Shuffle or just after it had been completed.

12. Turn of the Cards (1993)

This is a single stand-alone novel written by Victor Milan. The previous volume had finished off the jumper storyline and there was one book left on the contract with Bantam. Rather than start a new storyline, the editors decided to write a stand-alone book to fulfil the contract and retain the freedom to move to a new publisher if necessary.

The Card Sharks Triad

13. Card Sharks (1993)
14. Marked Cards (1994)
15. Black Trump (1995)

The series moved to Baen Books for this trilogy, which revolves around a protagonist who is neither an Ace nor a Joker. Although Baen offered a larger advance, they lacked the marketing muscle of Bantam. With no new books coming out, Bantam also let the older books go out of print, which effected both backlist sales and also meant that newcomers did not have an easy jumping-on point for the series.

16. Deuces Down (2002)
17. Death Draws Five (2006)

With sales for Baen being disappointing, the series moved again to iBooks for these two volumes. Deuces Down is unusual in being a true anthology, consisting of short stories from all over the Wild Cards history, unified only by the theme of focusing on Deuces, Aces with powers which are of only apparently marginal utility. Death Draws Five is a single novel written by John J. Miller with a stand-alone storyline, although it does feature the final appearance of original Wild Cards character Fortunato. Death Draws Five is the rarest Wild Cards book, as only a few hundred copies were published before iBooks went bust. These two books were recently reissued as ebooks from Brick Tower Press, who bought out the iBooks stock.

The American Heroes Triad (aka The Committee Triad)
18. Inside Straight (2008)
19. Busted Flush (2008)
20. Suicide Kings (2009)

The series moved to Tor Books for this triad, which works as a "Next Generation"-style entry point for new readers to the series and mostly focuses on new characters. The series initially focuses on a reality TV show revolving around Aces but then moves onto the formation of a new superhero organisation called the Committee.

The Jokertown Triad
21. Fort Freak (2011)
22. Lowball (2014)
23. High Stakes (2016)

This triad adopts a back-to-basics approach, focusing on the "Fort Freak" police department which has to handle cases in and around Jokertown in New York City.

The USA Triad
24. Texas Hold 'Em (tbc)
25. Mississippi Roll (tbc)
26. Low Chicago (tbc)

This forthcoming triad is under contract to Tor Books. According to George R.R. Martin, although it's unofficially called the USA Triad it's actually going to be three self-contained books linked more by location (presumably Texas, Mississippi and Chicago) than anything else. There are also potentially two more triads, which will have more traditional linking stories, under discussion.


Writers

Wild Cards evolved out of a roleplaying campaign run by George R.R. Martin using the Superworld rules from Chaosium. As the original games master, Martin is counted as the creator of the Wild Cards universe and the primary editor-in-chief, although all of the writers have a say in the future direction of stories and the series. Martin is a bit busy with his own fantasy side-project, so he no longer writes for the series (his last story was in Inside Straight almost a decade ago, and before that in Black Trump a decade earlier) but is still the main editor. Melinda Snodgrass, a respected science fiction and fantasy author and scriptwriter in her own right, has acted as co-editor on many volumes in the series and regularly contributes stories.

The other Wild Cards authors have been, or still are: Daniel Abraham, Edward Bryant, Pat Cadigan, Michael Cassutt, Chris Claremont, Paul Cornell, Arthur Byron Cover, David Anthony Durham, Ty Franck, Gail Gerstner-Miller, Leanne C. Harper, Stephen Leigh, David D. Levine, Victor Milan, John J. Miller, Laura J. Mixon, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Cherie Priest, Lewis Shiner, Walter Simons, Caroline Spector, Ian Tregillis, Carrie Vaughn, Howard Waldrop, Sage Walker, Walter Jon Williams, William F. Wu and Roger Zelazny. The next triad will feature stories from new writers Saladin Ahmed, Max Gladstone, Marko Kloos and Diana Rowland.



Where to Start?

This is pretty straightforward. The most obvious answer is simply Wild Cards, the original 1987 book that started the whole thing rolling. It is easily available now, having been reprinted many times. However, you can also start with Book 18, Inside Straight (2008), the first novel from Tor Books which was deliberately written as a fresh entry point to the series for new readers, taking a "Next Generation" approach.
____
* Technically this is incorrect usage, but what the hell. It rhymes.

George R.R. Martin's WILD CARDS optioned for television

Wild Cards, the second-most-well-known book series developed by George R.R. Martin, has been optioned for television with Universal. Up until a few months ago SyFy held the film rights to the book series but they have since lapsed. It looks like SyFy are still involved with the project, but are now coming at it from a different angle.

It is unknown if these superpowered cats will be in the TV show.

Universal Cable Productions has had a hand in a lot of recent successful SFTV shows, including Mr. Robot, 12 Monkeys, Killjoys, The Magicians and Colony, and has partnered with networks and providers including SyFy, USA and Amazon.

Wild Cards is the story of an alternate history of the world, starting in 1946 when an alien virus is released over New York City and the Eastern Seaboard of the United States (although the airborne virus eventually spreads across the globe). Most people are fortunately unaffected, but of the people it does infect, 90% die, 9% turn into mutated freaks and 1% turn into super-powered individuals: heroes...or villains.

The original Wild Cards book was published in 1987. There are now twenty-two books in the series, with a twenty-third to be published later this year. As an anthology series, each Wild Cards book consists of stories written by different authors. Some of the stories are stand-alone, whilst some books are "mosaic" novels, with several stories combining to form one longer narrative, and in some cases several mosaic novels in a row form a trilogy featuring a much larger story. Two of the books in the series are also full-length novels from single authors. George R.R. Martin wrote stories for many of the earlier books in the series but has not done for some time now as he focuses work on A Song of Ice and Fire. Instead, he edits most of the books alongside Melinda Snodgrass.

Snodgrass, a respected SF and fantasy author with more than thirty years in the field and numerous television credits, including a run as a writer and producer on Star Trek: The Next Generation, will be spearheading the new TV project as a producer, alongside SyFy's Gregory Noveck. Martin will not be directly involved in the new TV project (it is rumoured he is working on a top-secret novel, reportedly involving chilly flatulence) due to his exclusive HBO development deal. I'm actually surprised this didn't go to HBO, but their bizarrely risk-averse decisions over the last couple of years may explain that.

Universal re-optioning the franchise as a TV show is a good idea. The series is too big to have worked as a series of films and on TV they will have the flexibility to adapt the whole series, or just certain stories, or even just create a whole new set of stories involving new and established characters. It's also interesting that Universal, SyFy's parent company, has optioned the series themselves. It means that it could end up at SyFy (which, in the wake of The Expanse, isn't as worrying as it would have been a couple of years ago) but it also means it could end up on a cable network or Amazon, who would likely be interested in a hard-edged, unorthodox "superhero" series.

Wild Cards, edited by George R.R. Martin

An alien species decides to use Earth to test a new bioweapon. An airborne criminal seizes the weapon and tries to use it to blackmail the city of New York. A former WWII flying ace tries to stop him. And, on 15 September 1946, the world is forever changed when the wild card virus is unleashed in the skies over Manhattan.

Ninety percent of those infected by the virus die instantly. A further nine percent develop crippling deformities or abnormalities, becoming known as 'jokers'. And one in a hundred of those infected develops a wondrous superpower. They become the 'aces'. As an alternative history of the 20th Century unfolds, the American government first tries to use the aces for their own ends and then, in a paranoid frenzy, turns against them, before they finally win some recognition for themselves. But for the jokers, forced to live in a ghetto in Manhattan, their road to recognition and respect will be much harder.

Wild Cards is the first book in the series of the same name, which of this time of writing spans twenty-one volumes with two more planned. This isn't a series of novels, but collections of stories written by many different authors. George R.R. Martin (of A Song of Ice and Fire fame) and Melinda Snodgrass provide editorial control, ensuring that each volume has its own narrative drive and point beyond just collecting random short stories together. The stories are set in their own milieu, with authors sharing ideas, using each other's characters and building up a consistent, coherent shared world.

The first Wild Cards book opens with a bang, with Howard Waldrop giving us the origin story for the entire setting in 'Thirty Minutes Over Broadway'. This is a terrific slice of fiction, with Waldrop fusing pulp energy with his own idiosyncratic style to give us something weird, resolutely entertaining and rather tragic in its own right. Roger Zelazny - yes, that one, the author of the Amber series and Lord of Light - then provides the origin story for Croyd Crenson, the Sleeper, one of the original aces whose powers shift every time he goes to sleep. Crenson's periods of hibernation provide a handy way of fast-forwarding through the immediate aftermath of the crisis, showing how New York, the USA and the world adapt to the arrival of the virus. Walter Jon Williams and Melinda Snodgrass then show us two sides of the same tale through 'Witness' and 'Degradation Rites', the story of the Four Aces and their betrayal by the American government. These opening four stories provide a quadruple-whammy of setting up this alternate history and doing so whilst telling stories that are well-written (superbly so in both Waldrop and Zelazny's cases, though the others are not far behind), finely characterised and as gut-wrenchingly unpredictable as anything in the editor's fantasy stories.

Later stories remain highly readable, though perhaps not quite on a par with this opening salvo. Martin's own 'Shell Games' is, perhaps unexpectedly, the most uplifting story in the book, the story of the bullied boy who becomes a superhero. Michael Cassut's 'Captain Cathode and the Secret Ace' and David Levine's 'Powers', two new additions for the 2010 edition of the book, are both decent, filling in gaps in the history. Lewis Shiner's 'Long Dark Night of Fortunato' introduces one of the setting's less salubrious characters and makes for effective, if uneasy, reading. Victor Milan's 'Transfigurations' shows how the anti-Vietnam rallies of the late 1960s and early 1970s are changed by the presence of the wild card virus (and gives us an ace-on-ace rumble that is particularly impressive). 'Down Deep' by Edward Bryant and Leanne Harper is probably the weirdest story in the collection (which in this collection is saying something), a moody trawl through the underbelly of New York (figurative and literal). It's probably a little bit too weird, with an ending that is risks being unintentionally comical, but is still reasonably effective.

Stephen Leigh's 'Strings' and Carrie Vaughn's 'Ghost Girl Takes Manhattan' (the latter being another new addition in this edition) return to the quality of the opening quartet. The former depicts the jokers' battle for civil rights, resulting in riots and chaos in Jokertown and New York that a shadowy figure is manipulating for his own ends. 'Ghost Girl' is a straight-up adventure with the titular character teaming up with Croyd Crenson to find her missing friend. 'Ghost Girl' could be a novel in its own right, with the battling criminal gangs and dodgy drug-taking rock bands providing a canvas that's almost too big for the story, but Vaughn's method of keeping the story under control and resolving it is most effective. Finally, John J. Miller's 'Comes a Hunter', in which a 'nat' sets out to avenge the death of his friend by going up against some criminal aces, is a superbly-written thriller which examines how 'normal' people can stand up against aces and jokers.

The book as a whole is excellent, with the stories entwining around real history and changing it in a way that is mostly organic and convincing. There are a few issues with plausibility here - most notably the way no-one seems particularly bothered about the proven existence of an alien race that has just tried to poison the entire planet - but for the most part the writers use the premise to tell stories about the changed history of the USA (from McCarthyism to civil rights to Vietnam) in an intelligent, passionate manner.

Wild Cards (*****) introduces the world, setting and many of its memorable characters through a series of well-written, smart stories. There isn't a weak card in the deck, and the best stories (those by Waldrop, Williams, Snodgrass and especially Zelazny) are up there with the best of their original work. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

WILD CARDS optioned for a movie

The Wild Cards superhero anthology series - co-created by George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass in 1987 and featuring numerous talented SFF writers - has been optioned as a 'modest-budgeted' film project by SyFy Movies, the newly-established film arm of the SyFy Channel.


In the Wild Cards universe, an alien virus infects Earth in 1946. 90% of humans are unaffected, 9% are turned into mutated monsters and cretins (known as Jokers) and 1% become superhumans, capable of amazing feats (Aces). The Wild Cards series - currently consisting of 22 books - charts an alternate history of the world over the course of decades, reflecting the appearance of the Jokers and Aces.

The movie project will feature a contemporary setting, though whether the film will feature a modern origin story for the Wild Cards mileu or will simply slot into the pre-existing continuity is unclear. So far, only the option has been announced and the project faces many hurdles before it gets to the big screen.

The Edge of Reason by Melinda Snodgrass

Melinda Snodgrass is another of the excellent coterie of SF&F authors hailing from New Mexico, along with the likes of Daniel Abraham, George RR Martin and Walter Jon Williams. Snodgrass' background credentials are solid: she wrote a number of notable Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes in the first few seasons (most notably the early classic, The Measure of a Man) and was co-editor and a contributor to the Wild Cards series for many years. Although she has written many short stories over the years, The Edge of Reason is her first novel in over fifteen years.

The story opens in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Officer Richard Oort finds two strange creatures attacking a young woman and intervenes. This is the start of a path that leads him to a secretive organisation known as the Lumina. The Lumina represent the forces of progress, science and technology, opposed to the Old Ones, creatures from other universes who have broken into this one and, through the creation and manipulation of magic and religion, feed off the fear and doubts of humankind. This is the ultimate war of science versus faith, made manifest and fighting for very high stakes.

The novel opens in a faltering manner. Whilst the writing is good, the age-old problem of how the protagonist reacts when told reality as he knows it is a lie and magic and demons and other supernatural forces are real rears its head. The reaction of Oort and several other characters when faced with the truth is somewhat underplayed: after a few minutes of the traditional, "But that's impossible!" reaction (although Oort doesn't even get that) they're ready to sign up and fight the 'bad guys'. This is preferable to the Thomas Covenant extreme of going the other way, and once you get past it the book picks up the pace tremendously, weaving Oort's mysterious past and his troubled family life into the narrative with some skill. One point that I thought was a weakness - the character of Rhiana, the young woman who leads Oort into the story in the first place, fades into the background for the middle third of the novel - turns out to be an important plot point as well.

The story twists and turns entertainingly towards the end, although I don't think anyone who's read Neil Gaiman's American Gods or the works of Stephen King are going to be too shocked by the way events unfold. But it's all done in an engrossing manner, the characters are sympathetic and well-defined and the last fifty pages or so roar past at a furious pace. Given that this was marketed as a single novel, the sequel-baiting ending is slightly disappointing, but at the same time I would welcome a return to this setting and characters.

The Edge of Reason (***½) is an enjoyable and at times thought-provoking novel which, after a slightly faltering start, gets going and is fun to read. Recommended.

The book is available in the UK and USA from Tor Books.