Inside Straight
Ratings4
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings4
Average rating3.8
Soon to be a show on Hulu! Rights to develop Wild Cards for TV have been acquired by Universal Cable Productions, the team that brought you The Magicians and Mr. Robot, with the co-editor of Wild Cards, Melinda Snodgrass as executive producer. In 1946, an alien virus that rewrites human DNA was accidentally unleashed in the skies over New York City. It killed ninety percent of those it infected. Nine percent of those who survived mutated into tragically deformed creatures. And one percent gained superpowers. The Wild Cards shared-universe series, created and edited since 1987 by New York Times #1 bestseller George R. R. Martin along with Melinda Snodgrass, is the tale of the history of the world since then—and of the heroes among that one percent. Originally begun in 1986, long before George R. R. Martin became a household name among fantasy readers ("The American Tolkien" --Time magazine), the Wild Cards series earned a reputation among connoisseurs for its smart reimagining of the superhero idea. Now, with Inside Straight, the Wild Cards continuity jumps forward to a new generation of major characters, entirely accessible to Martin's hundreds of thousands of new readers, with all-original stories by Martin himself, along with Daniel Abraham, Michael Cassutt, and Stephen Leigh, among others. The Wild Cards Universe The Original Triad #1 Wild Cards #2 Aces High #3 Jokers Wild The Puppetman Quartet #4: Aces Abroad #5: Down and Dirty #6: Ace in the Hole #7: Dead Man’s Hand The Rox Triad #8: One-Eyed Jacks #9: Jokertown Shuffle #10: Dealer’s Choice #11: Double Solitaire #12: Turn of the Cards The Card Sharks Triad #13: Card Sharks #14: Marked Cards #15: Black Trump #16: Deuces Down #17: Death Draws Five The Committee Triad #18: Inside Straight #19: Busted Flush #20: Suicide Kings The Fort Freak Triad #21: Fort Freak #22: Lowball #23: High Stakes The American Triad #24: Mississippi Roll #25: Low Chicago #26: Texas Hold 'Em At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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Full review:
http://fantasycafe.blogspot.com/2009/02/review-of-inside-straight.html
Good to see the Wild Cards books back on form again, after a fairly long hiatus. This new volume brings the world fully into the 21st century (not, of course, the first volume to do that, but perhaps the first where it's truly obvious), with reality TV shows and Middle Eastern conflicts both taking a rather topical share of the centre stage.
Although the previous book. Death Draws Five, introduces one of the key characters in this one, for the most part its a metaphorical passing of the baton to a new generation of aces, and there's a whole slew of new characters in here, who presumably will be the focus of the new two books in the series as well. Mostly, they are interesting and well-rounded, although there's a few we still need to see more fleshed out (Curveball, for example). Also somewhat amusing to see a character from the original RPG campaign the books are based on, but that George RR Martin had, back in the '90s, described as too silly to make it into the novels, now actually making his debut. As a minor character, to be sure, but not an entirely incidental one.
Oddly, the cover blurb, at least of my edition, actually seems to describe the later books in the series, and has nothing to do with this one. Even though it, in a way, a follow-on to Death Draws Five, it's also a pretty good entry point into the series, with all but one of the viewpoint characters being new, and the plot not heavily relying on the back-story.
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Featured Series
30 primary books49 released booksWild Cards is a 49-book series with 30 primary works first released in 1986 with contributions by George R.R. Martin, Melinda M. Snodgrass, and 23 others.
