Wild Cards III: Jokers Wild

The Wild Card series is structured as a succession of trilogies--or triads. The first two volumes of each triad are composed of short stories connected by interstitial narrative material provided by the editor. The third is a proper novel, although with different authors writing each point of view character. Joker's Wild concludes the first triad and provides the culmination of the major plot lines started in the first two books.The story takes place over the span of 24-hours in Jokertown on the annual Wild Card Day celebration. The Astronomer has put a plan in motion to kill the Aces who foiled him at the end of the last book; Fortunado is in a race against time to save Water Lily, Howler, Turtle, Dinosaur Kid, Peregrine, and Modular Man. Sewer Jack is looking for his lost niece, while Bagabond is helping Rosemary Gambione take control of her mafioso family. Wraith steals a book from Kien Phuc and soon the entire New York criminal underground is chasing her to get it back.There are many fun surprises in this one:- Jennifer Maloy (aka Wraith) returns. I thought she was a new character invented by Carrie Vaughn for the expanded edition of Wild Cards I ("Ghost Girl Takes Manhattan"), but this was actually her original appearance.- Roulette is a new favorite joker with the power to secrete poison through her nether regions, killing her lovers instantly- Several minor characters from the other books like Popinjay, Hiram, and Peregine get expanded roles- Several important characters die- Yeoman finally gets the upper hand against his enemy Kien, in a storyline that feels like it may still be inching towards a final conclusionThe Astronomer comes off as a much more interesting villain than he was in Aces High, although I thought the writers struggled a bit to write themselves out of his silly parts in that book.The writing styles of the various authors do not always match, and so some of the point of view shifts felt jarring. Melissa Snodgrass (writing Roulette) and George R.R. Martin (writing Hiram) wrote the best sections of the book. Lewis Shiner (writing Fortunado and Astronomer) often felt clunky and half-baked.Another issue with the book was that important objects (the books Wraith stole) and some non-POV characters (Sewer Jack's niece Cordelia) kept popping up in the various narratives; each time having to explain where they had been and what had happened to them. They felt like plot devices passed hand to hand simply to tie the narratives together. One important scene in which a minor character retrieves Wraith's books from a hiding place was omitted altogether and never really explained, presumably because no point of view character was on-hand to witness it.Despite the shortcomings, the book was actually quite fun and the characters engaging. I plan to continue with the series.

Dull story. Amazingly poor narration, with one of the Audible readers seemingly going out of her way to mimic a poor Shatner impression, continually......pausing and emphasizing the WRONG words to the point where it really grated. She's also speaking in a rasp that perhaps is meant to be sexy (she's reading a female character that can murder sex partners through her vaginal excretions!), but comes out more like someone recovering from laryngeal cancer surgery.

I actually started reading the Wild Cards series in the 1990's, but I misplaced some of my copies of the paperbacks. I was quite happy to see the earlier books in the series begin to re-surface for Kindle.The premise of Wild Cards creates a unique excuse for super powered heroes, villains and people in general. In 1949, a ship containing an alien virus explodes over New York -- while most of the virus affects New York, some of it hits air currents to spread all over the world. 90% of the people exposed die a horrible, disfiguring death in all kinds of bizarre ways. 9% become disfigured in some way, often reflecting each person's personality. The last 1% gain powers, again often reflecting each person's personality. Disfigured people are called "Jokers," people with major powers are "Aces," and a few people with minor powers are sometimes called "Deuces." A few Jokers also have powers as well. This leads to a world where prejudice can be explored with the poor Jokers. There are also Sci-Fi elements to the stories as well.The other thing that makes the Wild Cards world unique is that it was one of the earlier "shared world" projects, where a bunch of authors write stories and create characters in the world while advancing an overriding story line. (A similar project created the "Thieves' World" books.) As a result, there are a wide range of characters and writing styles, with lots of little sub plots that add to the larger story. It also means that the writing is often inconsistent, but George R. R. Martin edits it all together. Some books, like this one, have chapters from the points of view of different characters that intertwine, where each of those individual stories were written by a different author.This is NOT a book series for kids, as there are a number of adult elements, from moderately graphic sex to fairly graphic violence. For example, one of the characters in this volume has a power to kill men when she has sex with them by infecting them with a rather nasty poison.This is the third book in the series, and volumes 1 and 2 are available in Kindle format -- read them first if you can. This is not my favorite book in the series, but it finishes out an important storyline started in Volume 2 and has lots of great characters that go on to other books in the series.Some characters are unique and creative, while a few are kind of standard superhero archtypes. This book has a typical Archer-with-no-super-powers-but-with-a-score-to-settle, just like DC's Green Arrow and Marvel's Hawkeye, and a cute-girl-who-can-phase-through-matter, like Shadowcat of the X-Men. Most characters have a weakness (often psychological) to go along with their powers. The Turtle is a powerful telekinetic who only uses his powers while in his tank-like "shell" -- out of his shell, he's a normal middle-aged guy from New Jersey. Mark Meadows is a hippy reject who was once a brilliant scientist -- he uses his own concoctions of drug combinations to turn into one of four "friends" for a one-hour period. One of my favorite characters is Croyd Crensen, a/k/a "The Sleeper." He sleeps for a few weeks at a time, and has a complete transformation of his appearance and powers every time he wakes up. He has to experiment for a while to see what he can do each time. He has an understandable fear of sleep, so uses stimulants to try to stay awake for as long as possible but eventually becomes paranoid and delusional. He definitely has dubious morals and is often stealing stuff, but has certain lines he won't cross.This Volume III involves two main plots that intertwine; the sicko bad guy "Astronomer" from Volume 2 wants to kill all the people who attacked him, betrayed him or simply pissed him off before he tries to escape in a space ship he intends to steal, and stolen books from the safe of a crime lord are chased after by the Archer who is "out to get him" and rival crime groups. It is all going on during the annual "Wild Card Day" remembrance of the day the virus hit Earth. There are several sub-plots that affect everything else.If you like the idea of Super Hero stories with a gritty, realistic tone, you will love the Wild Card Series.

I bought this as a gift for my nephew, but read it myself when it was first published (years ago). If you're considering buying this because George R. R. Martin's name is attached to it, keep in mind that he didn't write it. It's an anthology of short stories which he edited. He's written at least one shorty story in at least one of the books in this long series, and maybe more; I can't recall. The book itself is excellent if you like the genre which is essentially adult comic-book (prose, no drawings). Due to the success of this series there are currently a number of similar works out there, but, if I'm not mistake, Wild Cards is the first of its kind. A number of the authors who write the stories are quite accomplished and there isn't a poorly written story in the bunch. It's a great idea for a series and the authors run pretty wild with it. Most of them stick with the characters they've created, but there is sharing of a lot of the secondary characters and some main ones as well. Times passes with each book in the Wild Cards world, so the characters in the early books are old men or dead in recent releases. The plots are usually tied to the culture and news of the time period covered which enhances the read.Highly recommend this one and the whole series.

By now, most of you have heard about GRRM, most likely through his epic Fire&Ice-books and even more likely the TV-adaption 'Game of Thrones'. But Martin is more than the Game of Thrones-guy. For years, he is editor of the Wirld Card-series, a series about a world that has been forever changed by an alien virus, that struck Earth some time after World War II. Many people were killed, some gained extra-human powers. The so-called 'Aces' received mental and/or physical powers that could make them superheroes or highly dangerous terrorists. The other infected became 'Jokers' and are mentally and/or physically disfigured. A threat, that has slowly build up over the last two books is now, forty years after the Wild Card-virus has struck, about to endanger the unstable society and is a threat to Aces, Jokers and Normals alike. But who will be able to stop it?The series contains short stories by different authors (GRRM among them) who are following events around different characters and thus giving the reader some kind of world history of the Wild Card-world. I love it and the third collection might be the best one so far. Kudos to the authors!

Excellent livre pour les amateurs de la série; développe/maintient les connaissances an anglais

Complex storyline, heroes scattered around New-York on joker's day and the Astronomer on a killing spree...Fun and intense reading