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A review by topdragon
Wild Cards I: Expanded Edition by George R.R. Martin, Wild Cards Trust
4.0
Imagine a world where an alien virus has impacted our planet shortly after World War II, endowing a small percentage of humans with extraordinary powers. Some of those special people use their new gifts for the good of their fellow man and others use them selfishly. OK, actually, that’s pretty easy to imagine because it sounds similar in many ways to the X-Men or other comic book-style concepts. As such, it took me a long time to finally take the plunge and enter this multi-volume shared world of Aces and Jokers…but I’m happy I finally did so.
This is a shared world with highly talented authors contributing individual pieces of the puzzle to form a coherent whole story. I’ve tried other similar shared-world projects and always come away a little disappointed because it seems they always deteriorate into individual, stand-alone stories that might as well be in their own stand-alone universes. They tend to lose their connectivity over time. But this book was different. Each story included in this volume is part of a larger story that is well connected and obviously thought out beforehand. Events from one story impact characters from another story. I really hope this continues through the other 22 (at this point) books in the series.
So a shared world project of science fiction superheroes edited by George R.R. Martin is enough to get me interested, and the well-executed plot interconnectivity keeps me reading. But what really gets my juices flowing is the setting and style. Every one of the stories in this volume is clearly written with a love for the comics of the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. I can’t really describe it other than it harkens back to a day when superheroes weren’t so common in literature and movies and we mere mortals were actually in awe of what they could do. It reminds me a lot of the feeling I got when I read [b:The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay|3985|The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay|Michael Chabon|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1355094690s/3985.jpg|2693329]. I’m sure for me, it is part nostalgia but it’s also a fascination and appreciation for well-written pulp-style adventure.
This book is a re-release of the original which was published in 1986. As such, nine stories within it are original and three additional stories from 2010 (one by Carrie Vaughn, one by Michael Cassutt and one by David D. Levine) were added in. Since these newer stories maintain that all-important continuity and connectivity with the larger story lines, I have high hopes for the rest of the series.
This is a shared world with highly talented authors contributing individual pieces of the puzzle to form a coherent whole story. I’ve tried other similar shared-world projects and always come away a little disappointed because it seems they always deteriorate into individual, stand-alone stories that might as well be in their own stand-alone universes. They tend to lose their connectivity over time. But this book was different. Each story included in this volume is part of a larger story that is well connected and obviously thought out beforehand. Events from one story impact characters from another story. I really hope this continues through the other 22 (at this point) books in the series.
So a shared world project of science fiction superheroes edited by George R.R. Martin is enough to get me interested, and the well-executed plot interconnectivity keeps me reading. But what really gets my juices flowing is the setting and style. Every one of the stories in this volume is clearly written with a love for the comics of the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. I can’t really describe it other than it harkens back to a day when superheroes weren’t so common in literature and movies and we mere mortals were actually in awe of what they could do. It reminds me a lot of the feeling I got when I read [b:The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay|3985|The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay|Michael Chabon|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1355094690s/3985.jpg|2693329]. I’m sure for me, it is part nostalgia but it’s also a fascination and appreciation for well-written pulp-style adventure.
This book is a re-release of the original which was published in 1986. As such, nine stories within it are original and three additional stories from 2010 (one by Carrie Vaughn, one by Michael Cassutt and one by David D. Levine) were added in. Since these newer stories maintain that all-important continuity and connectivity with the larger story lines, I have high hopes for the rest of the series.