RIP Howard Waldrop

News has sadly broken of the passing of Howard Waldrop, a highly-acclaimed author of science fiction and fantasy short fiction, at the age of 77.

Waldrop was born in Houston, Mississippi in 1946. He spent most of his life in Texas, and became a childhood fan of genre fiction and comic books. He began a correspondence with George R.R. Martin via nascent comics fandom in the 1960s and they became lifelong friends.

Waldrop's writing career began in 1972 with the short story "Lunchbox" in Analog. Notably, this was John W. Campbell Jr.'s last discovery before his death. Waldrop was best known for his short fiction, publishing only two full-length novels in his career: The Texas-Israeli War: 1999 (1974) and Them Bones (1984), along with the novella A Dozen Tough Jobs (1989), which some have pondered as an influence on the Coen Brothers O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) (especially as the latter has a character called "Vernon Waldrip").

Waldrop was more at home with short fiction, penning around eighty published stories in his career. "The Ugly Chickens" (1980), about the extinction of the dodo, was probably his most acclaimed work, winning the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards and getting a Hugo nomination. "Night of the Cooters" (1990) was probably his joint-best-known tale. It was adapted for film in 2022 by Vincent D'Onofrio, and produced by Waldrop's friend George R.R. Martin.

His other joint-best-known story also owes something to Martin: in 1987 he contributed "Thirty Minutes Over Broadway!" as the very first Wild Cards story, in the very first collection in the series. The story depicts the adventures of Jetboy as the Wild Card virus is released over New York City and acts as the origin story for the franchise. The story also features the franchise's most-quoted line of dialogue: "I can't die yet! I haven't seen the Jolson Story!" Waldrop was offered the chance to pen more stories but he declined, only allowing that he might return to write the very last story in the series if Martin decided to wrap it up. Alas, that opportunity will now not arise.

His stories were assembled in numerous collections, most notably Things Will Never Be the Same (2007) and Other Worlds, Better Lives (2008). Waldrop's fiction was noted for its sense of humour and he became popular for his lively readings of his stories at conventions, including the annual ArmadilloCon in Austin, Texas. More than once, he was called "the court jester of SF."

A smart and interesting writer of idiosyncratic, lively fiction, Howard Waldrop will be missed.

RIP John Jos Miller

News has sadly broken that science fiction and fantasy author John Jos Miller has passed away at the age of 67. He was best-known for his contributions to the Wild Cards superhero shared universe.

John J. Miller and his wife Gail Gerstner-Miller were science fiction fans living in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the early 1980s. They joined a roleplaying group for a Superworlds campaign hosted by George R.R. Martin, after Victor Milan had bought him the game as a birthday present. The resulting campaign lasted over two years and involved other writers including Melinda Snodgrass (soon to become a writer on Star Trek: The Next Generation) and cyberpunk author Walter Jon Williams (author of Hardwired). Realising the game sessions were efficiently creating material for fiction, Martin floated the idea of turning the campaign into a series of shared world books, with the overall title Wild Cards. Martin was particularly inspired by the shared world fantasy series Thieves' World, co-edited by Robert Asprin and Lynn Abbey.

Miller contributed characters and ideas for most of the books in the series, but he wrote actual stories for Wild Cards (1987), Aces High (1987), Jokers Wild (1987), Aces Abroad (1988), Down and Dirty (1988), Dead Man's Hand (1990), One-Eyed Jacks (1991), Jokertown Shuffle (1991), Dealer's Choice (1992), Black Trump (1995), Deuces Down (2002), Inside Straight (2008), Busted Flush (2008), Fort Freak (2011), High Stakes (2016), Mississippi Roll (2017) and Low Chicago (2018).

His biggest contribution to the series was the 2006 entry Death Draws Five, a novel entirely written by Miller, and the final book before the series was transferred to Tor Books for its 2008 relaunch.

Miller also wrote the Wild Cards supplement for the GURPS roleplaying game and contributed several Wild Cards sourcebooks for the official Wild Cards RPG from Green Ronin.

Miller's work outside the Wild Cards universe comprised the books Dinosaur Samurai (1993) and Dinosaur Empire (1995), with Stephen Leigh; the Twilight Zone book Shades of Night Falling (2003); and the Witchblade books A Terrible Beauty (2002) and Witchblade Combo (2005), the latter with John DeChancie. He also wrote short fiction, most recently for Dreamforge Magazine, and was a Fellow of the Society for American Baseball Research.

John Jos Miller was a familiar sight at SFF conventions and was well-known as a friendly fan up for a discussion about science fiction in general or his work on Wild Cards in particular. He will be missed.

A Potted History of Cyberpunk: Part 2

Part 1.

Neo-Tokyo is About to Explode

The backstory to Akira has Tokyo destroyed by an unknown phenomenon in 1992. Hours later, World War III begins and devastates the world, leading to the annihilation of most of the world’s major cities. Thirty-eight years later, the city of Neo-Tokyo has arisen out of the ashes of the old world, a city of gleaming mega-skyscrapers surrounded by the desolate ruins of the old city. The story follows a biker gang led by the charismatic Kaneda and backed up by his best friend Tetsuo. Tetsuo becomes afflicted by strange abilities, the result of a government experiment into psychokinetic energy, and loses control, going on a murderous rampage that attracts the attention of the government. Kaneda’s attempts to help his friend are complicated by the growing danger that Tetsuo presents to his friends and to innocents, and by a government conspiracy to cover up their culpability for these events.

Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira was a cyberpunk epic, more than 2,000 pages long, (both drawn and written by Otomo) serialised in Young Magazine over eight years. It began in 1982, attracting immediate critical acclaim and attention, with Otomo soon being courted to develop a film adaptation. Otomo rejected initial overtures, insisting on having full creative control and being allowed to use a fluid animation style far beyond that seen in most anime productions, which necessitated a massive budget. The rising fame and acclaim of the manga saw his requirements eventually met and the feature film version of Akira (featuring a hugely compressed version of the manga’s storyline, with many subplots and characters omitted) was released in 1988, more than two years before the manga itself concluded. A phenomenon at home and in the West, Akira played a key role in the rise in popularity of anime outside Japan and also the rise of the cyberpunk genre in Japan.

The manga even improved real-life technology: a colourised version of the comic was the first comic to ever use digital colouring techniques, which would later become standardised in the industry.

Akira was hugely influential and important in the development of cyberpunk, but its influence was not felt outside of Japan for some years.

The Cyberpunk Visionaries at…Disney?

Disney were an unlikely choice to produce the second movie to expand on cyberpunk’s visual identity. As it happened, the development happened almost by accident. Animator-director Steven Lisberger had grown fascinated by computer graphics in the late 1970s and had become intrigued at the idea of creating a film completely based around them. Computer graphics were increasingly used in films – such as the targeting computers and simulation of the Death Star trench run in Star Wars (1977) – but the hardware was simply not up to the task of rendering an entire movie in anything like a reasonable time frame, or at an acceptable level of detail.

Lisberger was frustrated, but decided that traditional forms of animation could be used to simulate computer-generated imagery, in particular the use of backlit animation, which was seen as a bridge between the disco aesthetics of the late 1970s and the computer-driven effects that started coming into more widespread use in the 1980s. He took the idea to several studios, but none bit apart from Disney. Disney wanted to make more daring and interesting films, and took a chance on the idea after being impressed by test footage. However, Lisberger quickly discovered that Disney was incredibly cliquey. The animation division was less-than-friendly to outsiders and he was unable to recruit any Disney animators to work on the project, having to outsource to a Taiwan studio instead.

The resulting film, released in 1982, was TRON. An oddball film, it features a man who is literally teleported into a computer system controlled by a hostile AI. Inside the computer system he finds programmes trying to “rebel” against the dictatorial control of the AI and helps them in their struggle, eventually succeeding despite incredible odds. The film was a modest success and its dazzling visuals – particularly the lightcycles and tanks – were acclaimed. The story wasn’t entirely coherent and perhaps a tad too fantastical to be hugely influential on the nascent subgenre, but it did overcome the perception that cyberpunk could be more cerebral than visually spectacular.

In the meantime, it fell to a batch of American literary authors to bring the idea to a wider audience…and give it a name.

Enter Cyberpunk!

In 1980, American SF author Bruce Bethke wrote a story about a young man, Mikey, who is a troublemaking computer hacker who has online friendships and interfering parents. Mikey uses his skills to overcome interference from his parents in his life. Bethke pondered various titles for the story but settled on “Cyberpunk” – or, in the novel-length version, Cyberpunk! – as a name to sum up his rebellious protagonist.

“Cyberpunk” did the rounds of various magazines and collections before being finally published in 1983 in Amazing Stories. Though the story was delayed before being published, the title became known in editorial circles and started being used more widely; editor Gardner Dozois is credited with helping spread and normalise the term in discussing an increase number of stories utilising the same approach: near future, computer-heavy, usually involving an interface between human and machine and featuring rebellious protagonists. A key moment came in 1984 when Dozois wrote an article for The Washington Post which popularised the movement to the masses for the first time.

Cyberpunk had a visual and audio aesthetic, thanks to Blade Runner. It had a name, thanks to Bruce Bethke. But what it was still lacking was a work that codified and summarised the movement, a Lord of the Rings which everyone could point to and say, “Yes, that’s what this is all about.”

Dead Televisions

William Ford Gibson was born in Conway, South Carolina, in 1948. Mostly raised in Virginia, his family moved around a lot when he was young. After the abrupt death of his father, he found his home town confining and small-minded, and escaped by reading a mixture of science fiction and Beat literature. He moved to Canada in 1967, ostensibly to avoid the draft for the Vietnam War, but he later noted he wasn’t in much danger of being drafted after he spent an interview with the draft board talking about an ambition to imbibe every “mind-altering substance in existence.”

In 1977 Gibson published his first story: “Fragments of a Hologram Rose.” The story relates the experiences of a jilted lover who relies on artificial dreams to sleep in a polluted, enigmatic story. Gibson’s output was limited and his discontinued writing for several years, until he attended an SF convention and met author John Shirley, who shared his interest in punk music. Shirley introduced Gibson to Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner. All four were interested in the idea of fusing science fiction with postmodernism to bring more contemporary ideas to the genre, a furthering of the “New Wave” of the preceding decade but on a greater scale. Inspired and fired up, Gibson wrote a short story called “Burning Chrome,” a story of two freelance hackers who fall in love with the same woman. They undertake various crimes using advanced software called “icebreakers” to operate in “cyberspace” – the first time the term ever appeared in print – against the backdrop of the Sprawl, a massive mega-city that has accumulated out of the Eastern Seaboard metropolises. Gibson had preceded that story with “Johnny Mnemonic,” a story about a man with a cybernetically-enhanced brain carrying password-protected information, the contents of which he has absolutely no idea.

A key moment came at ArmadilloCon, a science fiction convention held in Austin, Texas in late 1982, when Gibson, Shiner, Sterling and Shirley appeared on a panel called “Behind the Mirrorshades: A Look at Punk SF.” On the panel and in discussions in rooms and in bars afterwards, the foursome and assorted other writers and fans thrashed out the idea of a new form of SF which mixed fashion, drugs and politics, whilst embracing some of the new, cool aesthetics of the time: Japan, MTV and early experiments in CGI.

The development of Gibson’s writing abruptly curved upwards in 1982 when editor Terry Carr of Ace Books offered to publish Gibson’s first novel, an offer which Gibson was both awed and slightly confused by, as he didn’t have a novel in development. In fact, he considered himself to be at least five years away from being capable of writing a novel, but scrambled to meet Carr’s request, recognising that the opportunity was not to be squandered. Gibson continued to develop ideas from his short fiction, setting the novel in the Sprawl which both “Johnny Mnemonic” and “Burning Chrome” had inhabited, but expanding a story across a grander scale. Gibson suffered reversals of confidence during the writing process – panicking after a viewing of Blade Runner that he’d be accused of ripping the film off – but ultimately completed the novel after rewriting it a dozen times.

The novel, published in July 1984, was entitled Neuromancer, the title being a play on “necromancer,” a term for someone able to raise the dead. The novel follows computer hacker Henry Case, a washed-out computer hacker hired for one last case – heavy shades of noir fiction – and encounters mysteries and events culminating in the discovery of a powerful AI straining to overcome the limitations placed upon it by humanity.

Neuromancer was an immediate critical success, winning the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards on publication, and Gibson was encouraged to write a sequel (despite trying to sabotage the prospect during the writing of Neuromancer itself by closing down narrative avenues for the story to continue). Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive(1988) were almost as well-received as Neuromancer itself, the three books becoming collectively known as The Sprawl Trilogy. A collection of Gibson’s short fiction, Burning Chrome, was published in 1986 as an addendum to the trilogy.

No sooner had Gibson completed the work, then he distanced himself – somewhat – from the subgenre he’d helped popularise and moved into the realm of alternate history, joining forces with Bruce Sterling to write a novel set in an alternative, more advanced Victorian setting. The result was The Difference Engine, which helped give rise to the “steampunk” genre.

Dicing on the Edge

In 1986, Walter Jon Williams released the novel Hardwired. Williams was an author in the right place at the right time: he was halfway through writing his novel about futuristic rebels equipped with neural interfaces fighting corporations based in Earth orbit when Gibson dropped Neuromancer, and the book was well-placed to capitalise on the booming interest in cyberpunk that followed. Whilst cash-in books in the wake of cyberpunk of were not uncommon, Williams found that Hardwired garnered a much more positive reception, with strong sales and critical praise.

Williams was also a tabletop gamer, and for some years had been playing in a postmodern superhero roleplaying game run by his friend George R.R. Martin and also including members of an informal Albuquerque-Santa Fe SFF author collective: Melinda Snodgrass (who was about to start work on Star Trek: The Next Generation), Victor Milan, and John J. and Gail Gerstner-Miller. Martin had the brainwave of turning the roleplaying game into an anthology series, resulting in the Wild Cards series, with a number of authors from the nascent cyberpunk movement getting involved, including Pat Cadigan and Lewis Shiner. Wild Cards wasn’t cyberpunk, but used some of the same literary languages and weaponry to invigorate the superhero genre (across the Atlantic, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons had the same idea in a new comic series they were writing for DC, Watchmen) in the same way that cyberpunk had done for science fiction.

Influences extend backwards and forwards, and even as Williams took part in the direction of moving from a tabletop game to writing fiction, another group of writers took the ideas he had put forwards in Hardwired and translated them into a tabletop roleplaying game. Most notable in this group was Mike Pondsmith, who had worked in board games and tabletop roleplaying games for many ears. Pondsmith had played Dungeons and Dragons (1974), which he was cool on, and Traveller (1977), a space opera roleplaying game which he was much more enthusiastic about, going as far as rewriting the rules to his own specifications as a game called Imperial Star (which he kept to himself for legal purposes).

Pondsmith’s first solo-developed game was Mekton (1984), which replicated anime-style mech combat in an original setting (albeit one based, in aesthetics at least, on Mobile Suit Gundam). The game was a success and he founded his own company, R. Talsorian Games, to exploit it further.

Pondsmith had heard news about the growing cyberpunk movement but had not read any of the work coming out of it. As well as working on his own games, he was providing support to TSR on their Forgotten Realms adventure line and was also consulting with West End Games on their Star Wars licence. However, a group of friends and co-designers (including Mike Blum, Colin Fisk, Dave Friedland, Will Moss and Scott Ruggels) suggested they work on a cyberpunk game and encouraged Pondsmith to read Hardwired. Impressed by the novel, Pondsmith and his friends set about re-engineering it into an original setting: a futuristic Californian metropolis called Night City in the improbably distant future of 2013. Perhaps a tad cheekily, they realised the genre name “cyberpunk” had not been trademarked and snatched it up for their game.

Released in 1988, Cyberpunk: The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future (the first edition of the Cyberpunk RPG line) was an immediate smash hit success in the world of roleplaying games. Whilst tabletop roleplaying games had expanded from their fantasy origins to incorporate a number of different genres and ideas, Cyberpunk’s emphasis on a near-future setting, complete with familiar (if enhanced) weapons and politics was refreshing. The rules for hacking and cyberspace also added a different feel to the game.

Cyberpunk was a hit and numerous expansions and supplements followed. Pondsmith repaid Walter Jon Williams for the original idea by licensing Hardwired for a series of supplements incorporating its setting and ideas into the game. The second and arguably definitive edition of the game, Cyberpunk 2020, was published in 1990. The fourth and more recent edition, Cyberpunk Red, was published in (appropriately) 2020.

Cyberpunk’s success inspired other games to dive into the same genre. The popular universal rules system GURPS (1986) developed several cyberpunk spin-offs, but arguably the biggest and most successful derived game was Shadowrun (1989), which somewhat bizarrely fused Cyberpunk with Dungeons & Dragons.

By the start of the 1990s, cyberpunk had become more widespread and popular, but also seemed to be running out of steam. Gibson had moved on to other genres, and space opera was making a resurgence. Articles and thinkpieces asking if cyberpunk was dead started appearing. It was clear that cyberpunk was not dead, but it was going to have to evolve to survive.

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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.

More WILD CARDS

Tor.com has started a reread of the Wild Cards book series created by George R.R. Martin. The reread is being handled and written by a friend of mine and long-term fan of the series, Katie, and promises to be an excellent recap of the series and a way for new readers to jump on board. Some of the Wild Cards writing team, such as Walter Jon Williams and Jon J. Miller, are also jumping on board in the comments.

Meanwhile, Martin has confirmed that Tor Books have picked up the rights for additional books in the series. The next three books in the series proper, Mississippi Roll, Low Chicago and Texas Hold 'Em, will be released over the next year or two. At the same time Tor Books will re-release Books 8 through 12 of the original series (One-Eyed Jacks, Jokertown Shuffle, Double Solitaire, Dealer's Choice and Turn of the Cards). Significantly, this will bring the entire twelve-volume Bantam Books stretch of the series back in publication for the first time in almost thirty years.

There will be also be four brand-new books. Full House will be a full-on short story collection, collecting together short fiction that has been published on the Tor website over the previous few years along with some original stories. Following on from this will be three new books, comprising an original full-length novel, a new book set in space and another set in Britain.

Unfortunately, it appears that British fans may be out of luck in hoping for a complete reprint of the series. Gollancz have apparently declined to buy the rights to any of the new books or reprint any more of the original series, leaving it incomplete after the first seven volumes and then the later six (18-23). HarperCollins Voyager (who publish A Song of Ice and Fire) will instead publish the six new books (and perhaps Full House). The fate of the intervening volumes of the series in the UK remains unclear.

But back to the good news, Wild Cards co-editor Melinda Snodgrass has provided a detailed update on where she and the team at Universal are at with their planned TV adaptation of the franchise. Good progress has been made and hopefully we'll see a greenlight on that soon.

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.
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* 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.

What will HBO's next big show be?

HBO have a problem, they've had it for a couple of years and it's getting more of a pressing issue as time goes on. In 2018, Game of Thrones will end and HBO will be left, for the very first time since 1998, without a big hit show that everyone is talking about.

Way back in 1998 HBO, still new to the original scripted drama game, debuted Sex and the City. It was a massive success, got lots of people talking and won HBO a huge number of subscriptions. HBO doubled down on this a year later when it began airing The Sopranos, a violent crime series about the life of mob boss who tries to keep his business running under constant surveillance. Over the next decade HBO aired many critically-acclaimed and popular dramas (including Six Feet Under, Carnivale, Deadwood, Big Love, Rome and The Wire, as well as mini-series like Band of Brothers, The Corner and John Adams) but The Sopranos and Sex in the City were the jewels in the network's crown.

Sex and the City ended in 2004. The Sopranos followed suit in 2007 and it looked like HBO might have to survive without a big, successful show on the air. However, by luck the following season they debuted a TV drama series about vampires. True Blood would go on to almost match the success and buzz of The Sopranos (although not quite the same level of critical acclaim). And just at the point that True Blood's critical and commercial success began waning in 2011, they debuted Game of Thrones, which would go on to become the most successful show in the network's history.

According to HBO, they've never "needed" a massive, genre-defining show to lead with. They get a lot of subscriptions for their sports and movie channels, and their original drama and comedy programming has really been an added bonus on top of that. Their top executives seem relatively sanguine about the possibility that they may end up in a situation where they have no massive, subscription-encouraging series on the air for a few years. How the reality of that feels after twenty years of being the top dogs will likely be a different story, however. More of an issue for HBO has been that original scripted cable drama used to be very much the field they owned exclusively, but now other channels such as Starz (Black Sails and Outlander), AMC (The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad) and Showtime (the new Twin Peaks) are fighting for that space, not to mention the competition posed by Netflix and Amazon with their original programming. HBO isn't the automatic "go-to" network any more for talented creators who want to get a pet project on the air any more.

Paradoxically, despite HBO making quite staggering amounts of money, they have also become more risk-averse. They have cancelled shows after producing pilots and canned projects that should appear to be slam-dunk successes. Embarrassingly, some of these projects have gone on to great success on other networks and in other venues (most famously Mad Men, which HBO turned down and went to air with AMC).

More impressive is the fact that HBO turned down no less than three absolutely killer shows based on books which would have been a perfect fit for them and perfect follow-ups for Game of Thrones, being fantasy shows but "different" kinds of fantasy to Thrones. The first of these was The Dark Tower, based on the Stephen King novels. HBO developed this both as a joint TV-film cross-media project and then just as a TV show. However, HBO got cold feet and dropped it. It's been picked up by Sony Pictures as a major film project and shooting starts in a few weeks with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey starring. The second was Preacher, based on the violent but critically-acclaimed graphic novel series by Garth Ennis. The series was in an advanced state of development when HBO apparently (and uncharacteristically) got cold feet over the show's controversial stance on religion and dropped it. AMC picked it up and shooting has wrapped on the first season, which should debut in a few months. Early buzz on pilot screenings is extremely positive, and the show should make an excellent companion series for The Walking Dead. Finally, there was American Gods. HBO had developed multiple pilot scripts with Neil Gaiman, the writer of the novel, and had looked virtually certain to greenlight it when they very abruptly dropped it, to the puzzlement of just about everybody. Starz has since picked up the series and production is currently underway in Toronto.

So, we have to ask, what does HBO have on its development plate right now, what is available and what could they do to produce a follow-up hit show to Thrones? Let's take a look.

Westworld

Westworld is based on Michael Crichton's 1973 film of the same name and is set in a futuristic theme park where the robot exhibits start to break free and take control. This has an absolutely stellar cast, with Sir Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden and Thandie Newton starring and Jonathan Nolan writing and directing. The series is in the final stages of filming right now for a debut airdate expected at the end of this year. However, the show has experienced major production problems including a four-month filming shutdown amidst rumours over writing problems and controversy over some of the actors' contracts. In addition, the show seems to be mainly a cerebral affair about the future of artificial intelligence and consciousness, which will make for a stirring SF series (and this is HBO's first-ever outright science fiction show) but is unlikely to win over a mass audience.

Watchmen

Director Zack Snyder (The 300, Man of Steel, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice) actually made a movie of Watchmen in 2009, to a mixed critical reception (I liked it). However, even the most ardent admirers would have to admit that the film had to rush a lot of Alan Moore's material from the seminal 1985 graphic novel to fit into just two hours, so Snyder has gone to HBO with the intention of re-staging the story as a TV show (possibly drawing on some of the materials published since, such as the Beyond Watchmen project). HBO seem to be interested, but have not formally greenlit the project yet. With Snyder committed to Superman and Justice League movies for some time, this would likely be handled by other writers. To be honest, this could be a really good series, but I suspect it would only work as a mini-series rather than an ongoing, multi-year project.

Foundation

Jonathan Nolan has proposed a TV adaptation of Isaac Asimov's seven Foundation novels to HBO, who have optioned the book rights ahead of further discussions and seeing a script. HBO took the step of buying the rights whilst they were already held by Roland Emmerich (who was developing a film before the buy-off), so seem to be pretty serious about this project. However, Nolan is now working on Westworld so this project has likely been kicked down the curb a fair ways.

Foundation is one of science fiction's most famous series. Set 22,000 years in the future, it chronicles the collapse of the vast Galactic Empire and the attempt by a scientific thinktank, the Foundation, to preserve scientific knowledge and wisdom through an estimated thousand years of barbarism to follow. The novels span roughly the first half of this period, culminating in the rediscovery of the long-forgotten homeworld of humanity, Earth.

This could make for an interesting series, especially if HBO adopt an anthology approach and jump forward decades or centuries between seasons a la True Detective. However, there will have to be a lot of invention for the series as Asimov's view of the future is seriously outdated by this time.

I, Claudius

As has been said a few times, Game of Thrones feels very much like a spiritual successor to Bruno Heller's excellent historical drama series Rome, which aired for two seasons and 23 episodes between 2005 and 2007. Rome was cancelled due to budgetary concerns, something HBO later regretted when they checked the DVD and foreign screening sales. However, HBO left the elaborate outdoor set in Italy standing as a tourist attraction and a filming location for other series and documentaries. In 2011 HBO announced that they were developing a fresh adaptation of Robert Graves's classic novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God, previously filmed by the BBC in 1976. Given that the original plan was for Rome to jump forward to this story in its fourth or fifth season had it stayed on the air anyway, this could be very much a clever way of getting Rome back on the air, potentially using the same sets but sadly (due to a time-skip forward of several decades) not the same actors. However, HBO have not commented on the project in some years, so the enthusiasm for it may have fizzled out, which would be a shame as a new series set in Ancient Rome would be very welcome.

The Warlord Chronicles

HBO don't have the rights to this book trilogy, but Bad Wolf Productions do, having optioned it a few months ago. Bad Wolf also have a co-development deal with both HBO and the BBC, but the BBC are likely too busy with Bad Wolf's His Dark Materials series to take this on as well. Hopefully, HBO will give this a look. Written by Bernard Cornwell (The Last Kingdom, Sharpe), The Warlord Chronicles are a "realistic" take on the legend of King Arthur, set during the 5th and 6th Centuries in a Britain riven by religious and political turmoil. The Roman Empire has collapsed, but some of the Roman settlers and armies remain. The native Britons are trying to re-establish themselves, but the first waves of Saxons are starting to invade from the east. Roman religious cults and the newly-arrived religion of Christianity are struggling against the native pagan druids and other old faiths. It's a time of great danger, enhanced when King Uther Pendragon dies and the protection of his infant son and heir Mordred falls to Uther's bastard child Arthur. Unable to ever become king, Arthur instead takes on the mantle of Warlord.

It's a rich and atmospheric take on the legend of King Arthur, noted for its much greater focus on realism. There were no knights (in the medieval sense), massive stone fortresses or armies in the tens of thousands at this time, so the focus is on fighting with spears and shields, holdfasts are mostly made of wood and a formidable army might only consist of a few hundred - or even a few dozen! - men. Merlin is a randy priest of the old faith, Guinevere is a warrior chief and Lancelot a warrior with tremendous PR skills. The whole story is being related in exacting detail by a warrior of the Round Table, Derfel Cadarn, to some monks. To his horror, they start "sexing up" the stories with magic swords and ladies in lakes, forming the legend as we currently know it.

This would make for a great follow-up to Game of Thrones, especially if handled by a good writer. It might only be a three-season project (the books are quite slim) but there's still plenty of excellent material to get onto the screen.

Wild Cards

This would be a very different kind of story to Thrones, but potentially one with broad appeal. This series of short story collections and "mosaic novels" began in 1987 with Wild Cards and now extends across 23 books and several comics. George R.R. Martin created the universe, edits all of the books and has written several stories for the series, but the stories are the actual creation of many other writers. It seems likely, especially if HBO decides not to proceed with Watchmen, that they'll want to dip their toes into the superhero genre at some point and this story of flawed people who are more likely to be broken or corrupted by their powers than turned into paragons is right up HBO's alley. It would also tie in with HBO's development deal with Martin and give them lots of stories to adapt as well as the freedom to create their own material. The rights were until recently held by SyFy, but are due to lapse imminently.

The premise of the series is that in 1946 an alien virus is released on Earth. Thousands of people are affected: 90% are killed, 9% turn into malformed "Jokers" with useless powers and abilities and 1% into "Aces" or outright superheroes. An alternative history of the 20th Century unfolds as the Aces and Jokers take part in historical events, face discrimination and try to make their own lives in a changed world.

Temeraire

This is a bit more of a stretch because HBO's name has not come up in relation to it. However, it would be a good fit. Years ago, Peter Jackson eyed Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels with the intention of turning them into films. However, first the Tintin trilogy and then the Hobbit movies got in the way. With two Tintin movies still to make and other projects on the fire, Jackson is likely years away from even getting close to making this as a film. A few years back he acknowledged this, combined with the problem of adapting nine books, and confirmed he was repurposing it as a TV series with him only taking a producer's credit.

HBO joining forces with Weta Workshop to make a TV show about dragons fighting for both sides during the Napoleonic Wars? That's a high concept that I think would be up HBO's street and I think could make for an entertaining (if highly-budgeted) show.

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.