From archive (archive) Subject: Re: Wild Cards (aka Superheroes) From: mcm2434@ritcv.UUCP (Martin Maenza) Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY Date: 6 May 87 13:02:56 GMT I too have read Wild Cards and the second book, Aces High. Its a very very enjoyable series for anyone who enjoys reading comic books and superhero exploits. The relative concept behind the project was that during World War II, something happened (I won't say what as to spoil it for those who haven't read the series) that would cause the developement of super-powered beings. Those with no powers and no deformaties are known as Aces, those with deformaties are known as Jokers. (Note: The third book in the series is called "Jokers Wild" and is due late summer or early fall.) Although each book contains eight to ten short stories by various authors, they all are tied in some way or form. Authors refer to events in other authors' stories and other author's characters. Roger Zelazny used his character Croyd in both books, so there is a sense of continuity between books as well as stories. Sometimes it is evident that you are reading a different author (due to writing styles and such), but most of the time it reads like a well continued story line. Once again, I would recommend the series whole heartedly (as would other friends of mine who have read it). Check it out. From archive (archive) Subject: Re: Claremont and Wild Cards Keywords: Did he write one? From: das1417@ultb.UUCP (D.A. Stumme) Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Information Systems Date: 22 Sep 89 02:33:05 GMT In article <15839@brunix.UUCP> peg@cs.brown.edu () writes: >Way back when I first started net.ing (July '87), I remember some talk >either here or in rec.arts.sf-lovers which stated that Chris Claremont >was going to write for future volumes of George R.R. Martin's "Wild >Cards" series. This was supported by the fact that he'd had by-sitters >in X-Men reading the series, referring to the mutants as "aces," and >that sort of thing. I've seen Claremont at several conventions and he said that his plotlines are set for the seventh book. (Too bad #6 has yet to be released). Anyway, the cop in #5 (whose name eludes me) is a Claremont creation. Also, please note that there have been several Wild Cards allusions in Excalibur and X-Men. References have included "Peregrine's Perch," and several other Wild Cards writers turning up as mutant hunters in some X-men issues. -- "Ever dance with the -David Stumme devil in the pale das1417@ritvax.bitnet moonlight?" das1417@ultb.UUCP -JOKER Grenadier @ QuantumLink From archive (archive) Subject: Re: Claremont and Wild Cards Keywords: Did he write one? From: pgs@brunix (Peter Sarrett) Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science Date: 22 Sep 89 18:53:03 GMT In article <15839@brunix.UUCP> peg@cs.brown.edu () writes: >Way back when I first started net.ing (July '87), I remember some talk >either here or in rec.arts.sf-lovers which stated that Chris Claremont >was going to write for future volumes of George R.R. Martin's "Wild >Cards" series. >Is it possible that John J. Miller is a pseudonym for Chris Claremont? At Noreason Three (Worldcon) a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a Kaffeklatch (sp?) with Mr. Claremont and six other fans. Chris was smarmy, but affable and very willing to answer even stupid questions (even though he must have bristled inside). He talked about Wild Cards. He was originally supposed to have a story in Wild Cards... 3 or 5, I don't remember which. But things happened and it got pushed back. Instead, Books 7, 8, and 9 will rely heavily on the story he wrote. Warning: Possible spoilers follow! The concept revolves around a group of people called "Jumpers." Someone comes along who has the ability to "jump" into someone's body, switching his mind with that of the body he jumps into. He can then trot around in the new body for a while (presumably, the person he jumps into either gains control of the Jumper's body, or is dormant within his own body). Later, it is discovered that there are a whole bunch of people with this same ability. These are dubbed Jumpers. The explanation for this is that the Wild Card has somehow mutated, infecting people in precisely the same way. Tachyon et.al. search for a key to the mutated virus. More spoilers follow! It turns out that the Jumpers aren't created by a mutated Wild Card. Rather, they are created by an Ace whose Wild Card ability is to create Jumpers-- much like Typhoid Croyd's ability to infect people with the virus. He didn't say any more about the Jumpers, but he did say that a lot of story lines from other authors will be springing from his initial Jumpers story. And no, Chris Claremont is not Jon M. Miller. Miller was at a Wild Cards panel at Worldcon, along with Martin, Melinda Snodgrass, Walter Jon Williams, and (ack!) three other authors whose names escape me at the moment. They were the authors of the Bagabond/Sewer Jack/C.C. Ryder stories, the Peregrine segments, and the Fortunato segments. =============================================================================== Peter Sarrett | PO Box 439 | "Exxon is pulling out of Alaska pgs@cs.brown.edu | Brown University | on Sept. 15. Considering what uunet!brunix!pgs | Providence, RI 02912 | they did to Alaska, 'pulling pgs@browncs.bitnet | (401)831-4215 | out' is an appropriate term." From archive (archive) Subject: Re: Claremont and Wild Cards Summary: Not out yet. Keywords: Did he write one? From: kathyli@serene.UUCP (Kathy Li aka the Rev. Mom) Organization: Serenity BBS, Del Mar, California Date: 22 Sep 89 21:43:28 GMT In article <15839@brunix.UUCP> peg@cs.brown.edu () writes: >Way back when I first started net.ing (July '87), I remember some talk >either here or in rec.arts.sf-lovers which stated that Chris Claremont >was going to write for future volumes of George R.R. Martin's "Wild >Cards" series. ... >I've just finished reading the fifth (latest) >volume, and thus far haven't seen anything with his name on it. Claremont's stories and/or plotting won't materialize in the series until the seventh novel. They were originally planning his plotline to run through 6-7-8, but it's been delayed by one, and will be running in 7-8-9 at last report. (I don't suppose anybody here can get their hands on the WILD CARDS newsletter, CUT AND SHUFFLE? :-) >..."Wraith" is a virtual clone of Shadowcat, and her stories are >written by "John J. Miller," a name that I don't recognize. >... Is it possible that JJM is >a pseudonym for CC? Or did he never write his stories? It seems unlikely >that he would bother to use a pseudonym, having written "First Flight" >under his own name. I'm not sure if Claremont was serious, but he said that he was planning on having Kitty writing a fan letter full of continuity nitpicks to George R. R. Martin about the Wraith's powers. At any rate, Claremont's character is (surprise) a woman named Cody. Physically, the description runs like a Silvestri drawing of Callisto. She's a doctor, and I forget what her powers are. From the snatches that Claremont was reading at the '88 SDCC, he's already got two stories tucked away somewhere. One involved Cody being jumped by a body-snatcher, the other, Chrysalis needing Cody's diagnosis (Look, ma! No x-rays!). >Also, is there any truth to the rumor that "Walton Simons" is really >Walt Simonson? Nope. Peter David says this one's been asked a lot, and the answer is no, they are two different people. --Kathy Li aka the Rev. Mom From archive (archive) Subject: George R. R. Martin's FEVRE DREAM review Summary: A great book! Keywords: Vampires From: rawdon@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Michael Rawdon) Organization: Computer Science Dept., Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA Date: 30 Nov 89 19:38:21 GMT FEVRE DREAM by George R. R. Martin (NIGHTFLYERS, SANDKINGS, TUF VOYAGING, etc.) is an excellent book, probably an even better vampire tale than the Anne Rice stories (INTERVIEW, LESTAT, et. al.). It concerns a riverboat captain (one Abner Marsh) in the 1850s who allies himself with a "vampire" (Martin's interpretation) to run the grandest riverboat ever built and fulfill his dreams. The vampire, Joshua York, has his own agenda, however. He wishes to find other members of his dying race to unite them and ally with humanity to their mutual benefit. The book has some really interesting views on vampires, including a genetic hierarchical structure of their society, and it deals with vampire society (such as it is) in much the same straightforward way that the Rice books do. What really endeared it to me, however, was the interplay between Marsh and the vampires. Marsh is a truly driven man, but he's also a truly noble character who gives his all for his partner when things go bad. The characterization of Marsh and his supporting characters, and even the vampires (who are generally displayed as an emotionless lot, but not entirely) is what really makes the book great. The end of the book is damned depressing; it affected me like no other book since Martin's TUF VOYAGING has, only more intensely. The bottom line is that it is an enjoyable and very intriguing read, giving the reader lots to think about, and is highly recommended to all lovers of SF/fantasy vampire lore out there. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Rawdon | Caught in the crossfire on Prince's Gate Avenue Tulane University | In got the windows, out go the lights New Orleans, Louisiana | So call me a doctor, fetch me a policeman rawdon@rex.cs.tulane.edu | I'm down on the floor in one hell of a fight ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- These opinions belong to me, not to any individual, group or organization which does not freely choose to adopt them. From archive (archive) From: mehawk@reed.UUCP (Michael Sandy) Organization: Reed College, Portland OR Subject: Wild Cards Date: 14 Nov 88 22:30:32 GMT Spoiler warning for those who haven't read Wild Cards V >My final solution was the character who is to be the GMPC of my new Champions >campaign, Chrysalis. Chrysalis was inspired by Roger Zelazny's Sleeper in >the Wild Cards series. In my world superpowers appeared because of an event >similar to Marvel's white event that occured 25 years ago. Due to certain >circumstances (which I won't go into here since some of my players read the >net) Chrysalis gained the potential for superpowers but was not locked into >any particular set as most people were. The net result is that every so often >Chrysalis goes into a trance-like state during which he somehow forms a >cocoon around himself and undergoes physical changes that will alter his >powers and, occasionally, his personality. The question becomes how do you I have seen a lot of campaigns where a character had almost regular "Radiation" accidents, and whose powers got restructured within the framework of the original concept. A character like the Sleeper could become _ANY_ type of character, male, female, joker, alien, contagious superbeing, with any special effects to his powers. >There are characters out there with this kind of power as I've pointed out. >I have already mentioned the Sleeper. There is another Wild Cards character, >Captain Tripps, who is similar and I'm sure I could find even more examples >if I sat down and worked at it. I wouldn't rule out this ability but I would >make sure there is an extremely good justification for it and I'd be sure to >keep it from being designed so as to be just another form of Cosmic VPP. Unfortunately, a lot of really good villains in the comic books have Cosmic VPP's, even if they have severe limitations on them. Take the Astronomer and Fortunato in Wild Cards. Both have some form of power transfer going to a VPP, with lots of minor limitations and advantages that probably even out in champions terms. Spoiler for Wild Cards V: Croyd Crenson, a.k.a. the Sleeper wake up with a contagious version of the Wild Card virus about half way thru the book. Water Lily becomes the second Wild Cards character to possess a Trump virus, ie can cure Wild Card victims. As some of you may remember, Brennan's friend, Mai, you know, the one in Wild Cards II, Aces High, becomes one with the Swarm Mother, could cure Jokers of the wild card. There are a few references to Aces Powers being blocked, a very similar power to blocking the physical manifestation of the virus. All in all, unless a few Black Queens showed up with the power, the Trump virus, and similar powers are far more common than a contagious, continually mutating or mutatable form. Considering the nature of the virus, the Trump would be much more common than an unstable Takisian Xenovirus A victim. Doctor Tachyon made a major logical mistake he should not have made at one point. He said, refering to an event in Wild Cards IV where a French Doctor thought Doctor Tachyon's grandson was a case of a mutated virus, (more on this later), "... as I told doctor Corvisart, (sp?), there is only one case on record of a continually mutating virus, Croyd Crenson." When he should know perfectly well that Captain Trips power is to use drugs to alter his virus! His studies should show a lot of cases where either the virus nullified itself, continually mutated until a Black Queen was reached or some other version of a power that has been shown to appear quite frequently, (relatively speaking), in Aces! Oh well, Tachyon has always had a bit of a blind spot to certain apsects of Jokers and Balck Queens. The Croyd Crenson version of the Virus had the same Joker/Ace/no effect/dead as the original. Captain Tripps should be built along standard Multiform lines. He has at a given time a finite number of possible forms, his Tripps human form, where he is a kick butt Biochemist with DNPC's and pacifistic psych lims, Jumping Jack Flash, Starshine, Cosmic Traveller, Aquarius, Moonchild and Radical who he can't change into anymore. He has a limited number of changes actually available, and only has multiform in his human persona!!!!!!!! Each form has everything bought, "can only be in this form for one hour", making Tripps a character that might actually be buyable for ~250-300 points. If, that is, you allow such limitations on a Multiform. Captain Tripps seems to follow other Wild Cards characters like gadgeteers in that the pills/gadgets are only makeable by them, follow Wild Card physics Laws and in order to make a new pill/gadget, the Ace has to take apart the old one. Ie, an anti-gravity device can't be duplicated, and the creator of it might not be able to make anything else work unless the device is dismantled. Oh yeah. Modular Man is back, but his creator was hit by Croyd's virus, and mutated so Mod Man II is going to be the last one. >--- >Keith "Badger" Vaglienti >Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 >...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!pyr.gatech.EDU!ccastkv Michael Sandy mehawk@reed.uucp From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ Subject: WILD CARDS V edited by George R. R. Martin Date: 9 Dec 88 22:07:04 GMT WILD CARDS V: Down and Dirty edited by George R. R. Martin Bantam, 1988, 0-553-27463-5, $4.50. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Well, much as I hate to say it, the "Wild Cards" series is wearing thin. There was so much I found dissatisfying about this book--none of it devastating, but added together, it makes me wonder if I'll buy the next one. And that is one of the problems. This book, more than any of the previous books in the series, screams out, "A SEQUEL IS COMING!" Yeah, after each of the others you realized there was more to tell, but in this case, it's a lot of what THIS book is about that's unresolved. Add to this that (at least in my opinion) there is a lot more graphic violence in this book that previously. And then I get a vague feeling that perhaps the "Wild Cards" series has reached the end of its inventiveness--there doesn't seem to be anything really original or fresh here. The technical details of the mosaic novel are well-handled, but technical proficiency does not a great novel make. Evelyn C. Leeper | +01 201-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com Copyright 1988 Evelyn C. Leeper From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. Subject: Re: WILD CARDS V edited by George R. R. Martin Date: 17 Dec 88 20:38:34 GMT In article <4506@mtgzy.att.com> ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes: > > WILD CARDS V: Down and Dirty edited by George R. R. Martin > Bantam, 1988, 0-553-27463-5, $4.50. > A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper > > Well, much as I hate to say it, the "Wild Cards" series is wearing >thin. I was going to post a review, but the same week I picked up this, I'd picked up about 10 other books (and, fast reader though I be, it takes me awhile to read them 8-)). My basic feeling about WCV was that it isn't as hopeful as the other, that parts of it are just, well, *nasty* and unnecessarily unpleasant. For example, one of the potentially promising threads from the previous book is just thrown asunder, and a large portion of that story from WCIV is made useless. Writing wise, I think I'm more impressed by this one than the previous one. Remember that book 1 was a collection of stories, each (except for Croyd's) complete and seperate. Book 2 interwove them a bit, and showed some good editing on the part of Marting. Book 3 was the *best* collaboration from so many authors I'd ever seen (it literally could be read as a single novel with multiple main characters). Book 4 went back to the Book 2 style, and now book 5 is closer to 3, although it still can't really be read as a single novel. All in all, I think I enjoyed it more than Evelyn did, and I'd give it a +3 on the Infamous Modified Leeper Scale of -5 to +5. -- Sean Eric Fagan seanf@sco.UUCP (408) 458-1422 From rec.arts.sf.written Thu Oct 8 10:41:44 1992 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!csus.edu!netcom.com!dani From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) Subject: Wild Cards #11: Dealer's Choice Message-ID: <1992Oct8.054200.5265@netcom.com> Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 05:42:00 GMT Lines: 49 I've just read Wild Cards #11, and I'm giving up on Wild Cards. Okay, so I'm slow. Number ten wasn't bad, but it was a single-author novel. The current "mosaic" novel reveals the bankruptcy of the Wild Cards series. The series is now about where "Thieves World" was around issue nine: It's lost most of its better authors, and the authors that are left seem to be on autopilot, churning out depressing and dirty ways for their characters to die. The story? The government has gotten fed up with the idea of an independent Joker homeland on Ellis Island, and concluded that it's nothing a sufficiently sustained barage of missiles and bombs can't cure. Eventually the authors run out of either pages or corpses, and the battle is ended. The writing is mind-numbingly pedestrian. The book's subplots were farmed out to a number of authors and then cut and pasted to form a chronologically coherent narrative. It's competent work, but who needs to spend six dollars and three hours on 'competent'? And how could it rise above 'competent'? A good novel is more than the sum of its subplots. So what's left as a reason for reading Wild Cards? Wanting to know what happens next? There are some engaging characters in the Wild Cards universe, but they're not the ones being written about. (It's largely a matter of turf: The authors who are writing here concentrate on the characters they created.) It's hard to care much what happens to Bloat and to Carnifex and to Hartmann and to Modular Man. Worst of all, there's a sense of boredom. Not that the book is boring (though it is) but, worse, that the authors seem bored. There's no sense that the book was written by people who cared. The writing is sometimes clever, but never profound; there is sometimes brain, but never heart. Wild Cards started out with some wonderful ideas. Somewhere along the line it turned into a cynically packaged semiannual product sold under a false pretense. The pretense is that, because it still says "Wild Cards" on the cover, it is still the product readers remember from the early issues -- and that it might go back to being as good. It won't, of course. It's more practical to grind out "The Further Adventures of Blood in the Gutter." Okay, I'll admit it, this book disappointed me. ----- Dani Zweig dani@netcom.com 'T is with our judgements as our watches, none Go alike, yet each believes his own --Alexander Pope From rec.arts.sf.written Tue Feb 16 20:10:07 1993 Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!enterpoop.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!jefft From: jefft@athena.mit.edu (Jeff Tang) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Wild Card I: Card Sharks Date: 15 Feb 1993 21:36:34 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 43 Distribution: rec Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: shim-sham.mit.edu I just finished the latest Wild Cards book. It's the first entry into a new series. I guess rather than continue on to Wild Cards: XXVI or something, they've decided to make a fresh start of things. Though, I'm not sure, how, besides the titles we're supposed to distinguish the first series from the second. It's another "mosaic novel". This time, that means that it's made up of a number of distinct short stories each told in one part. There's a surrounding story which thematically binds them all together. I really liked this novel. The stories had a feel a lot like some of the earlier Wild Card novels. A lot of the stories are set back in the early days of the wild card. I especially enjoyed the Marilyn Monroe story, though I've never been a big fan of hers. Recommended to those who like the the series, especially the earlier books. Mild Spoilers The story focuses on an arson investigation of a fire at the Jokertown church. The investigator turns up evidence of a conspiracy, called Card Sharks, against those infected with the wild card. Each story tells of one encounter up against this conspiracy: a plot just like the movie Jokertown (same as chinatown, I guess), marilyn monroe and her role in Orson Welles' Blythe, the Iranian hostage rescue debacle, a Sleeper story, and others. Major Spoilers In the end, after the investigator has gathered all this evidence, she turns it over the the major public figure who has always been sympathetic to the Wild Card, Gregg Hartmann. Now with Tachyon gone, perhaps this is his chance to let loose. Even with Puppetman gone, the story from the Rox may not have spread far, and he still has a lot of influence. It's never been clear to me whether or not he actually cared at all for the cause, or if that was just another one of his tools. -- Jeff Tang jefft@athena.mit.edu From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Jun 8 16:51:42 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:113 rec.arts.books:17552 Path: lysator.liu.se!kth.se!sunic!psinntp!psinntp!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: Evelyn.Leeper@att.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books,alt.book.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: WILD CARDS: CARD SHARKS edited by George R. R. Martin Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-Id: <9306031525.AA16237@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Date: 07 Jun 93 22:34:04 GMT WILD CARDS: CARD SHARKS edited by George R. R. Martin A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper For this "Wild Cards" book, Martin has changed publishers from Bantam to Baen and returned to the format of multiple stories, each written by a single identified author, rather than a single narrative with each author doing a separate character. There is a framing story, though: someone has set fire to a church in Jokertown and Hannah Davis is assigned to investigate. This investigation brings her into contact with eight very different characters, each with his or her own story to tell, each with a piece of the puzzle (reminiscent of CITIZEN KANE). (Without having read the initial "Wild Cards" book, however, none of them will make a lot of sense, so be warned.) Though the authors all bring their own individual strengths to their sections, "The Crooked Man" by Melinda M. Snodgrass is the stand-out story, a realistically drawn picture even if a trifle obvious. The parallels to bigotry towards gays and lesbians, and towards people with AIDS, is much more heavy-handed than in previous volumes I had read and worked better, I think, with the lighter touch. I had stopped reading the "Wild Cards" books for a while, in part because I thought they were moving too much away from science fiction and into horror, and in part because I didn't think the single-narrative formula worked as well as the short stories. (But then, I'm an inveterate short story fan!) With this new book, Martin seems to be returning to the style of the earlier books, and I recommend it to fans of those books. %B Wild Cards: Card Sharks %E George R. R. Martin %C Riverdale NY %D March 1993 %I Baen %O paperback, US$5.99 %G ISBN 0-671-72159-3 %P 452pp %S Wild Cards %V 12 Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgpfs1.att.com / Evelyn.Leeper@att.com