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Wild Cards #23
High Stakes
Perfect for old fans and new readers alike, High Stakes (Wild Cards) delves deeper into the world of aces, jokers, and the hard-boiled men and women of the Fort Freak police precinct in a pulpy, page-turning novel of superheroics and Lovecraftian horror.
After the concluding events of Lowball, Officer Francis Black of Fort Freak, vigilante joker Marcus "The Infamous Black Tongue" Morgan, and ace thief Mollie "Tesseract" Steunenberg get stuck in Talas, Kyrgyzstan. There, the coldblooded Baba Yaga forces jokers into an illegal fighting ring, but her hidden agenda is much her fighters' deaths serve to placate a vicious monster from another dimension. When the last line of defense against this world weakens, all hell breaks loose, literally....
The Committee in New York sends a team of aces to investigate. One by one, each falls victim to evil forces--including the dark impulses within themselves. Only the perseverance of the most unlikely of heroes has a chance of saving the world before utter chaos erupts on Earth.
Edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin, High Stakes features the writing talents of Melinda M. Snodgrass, John Jos. Miller, David Anthony Durham, Caroline Spector, Stephen Leigh, and Ian Tregillis.
After the concluding events of Lowball, Officer Francis Black of Fort Freak, vigilante joker Marcus "The Infamous Black Tongue" Morgan, and ace thief Mollie "Tesseract" Steunenberg get stuck in Talas, Kyrgyzstan. There, the coldblooded Baba Yaga forces jokers into an illegal fighting ring, but her hidden agenda is much her fighters' deaths serve to placate a vicious monster from another dimension. When the last line of defense against this world weakens, all hell breaks loose, literally....
The Committee in New York sends a team of aces to investigate. One by one, each falls victim to evil forces--including the dark impulses within themselves. Only the perseverance of the most unlikely of heroes has a chance of saving the world before utter chaos erupts on Earth.
Edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin, High Stakes features the writing talents of Melinda M. Snodgrass, John Jos. Miller, David Anthony Durham, Caroline Spector, Stephen Leigh, and Ian Tregillis.
556 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 23, 2016
51 people are currently reading
1955 people want to read
About the author
George R.R. Martin
1,506 books118k followersGeorge Raymond Richard "R.R." Martin was born September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father was Raymond Collins Martin, a longshoreman, and his mother was Margaret Brady Martin. He has two sisters, Darleen Martin Lapinski and Janet Martin Patten.
Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. He began writing very young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children for pennies, dramatic readings included. Later he became a comic book fan and collector in high school, and began to write fiction for comic fanzines (amateur fan magazines). Martin's first professional sale was made in 1970 at age 21: The Hero, sold to Galaxy, published in February, 1971 issue. Other sales followed.
In 1970 Martin received a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude. He went on to complete a M.S. in Journalism in 1971, also from Northwestern.
As a conscientious objector, Martin did alternative service 1972-1974 with VISTA, attached to Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation. He also directed chess tournaments for the Continental Chess Association from 1973-1976, and was a Journalism instructor at Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, from 1976-1978. He wrote part-time throughout the 1970s while working as a VISTA Volunteer, chess director, and teacher.
In 1975 he married Gale Burnick. They divorced in 1979, with no children. Martin became a full-time writer in 1979. He was writer-in-residence at Clarke College from 1978-79.
Moving on to Hollywood, Martin signed on as a story editor for Twilight Zone at CBS Television in 1986. In 1987 Martin became an Executive Story Consultant for Beauty and the Beast at CBS. In 1988 he became a Producer for Beauty and the Beast, then in 1989 moved up to Co-Supervising Producer. He was Executive Producer for Doorways, a pilot which he wrote for Columbia Pictures Television, which was filmed during 1992-93.
Martin's present home is Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (he was South-Central Regional Director 1977-1979, and Vice President 1996-1998), and of Writers' Guild of America, West.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/george...
Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. He began writing very young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children for pennies, dramatic readings included. Later he became a comic book fan and collector in high school, and began to write fiction for comic fanzines (amateur fan magazines). Martin's first professional sale was made in 1970 at age 21: The Hero, sold to Galaxy, published in February, 1971 issue. Other sales followed.
In 1970 Martin received a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude. He went on to complete a M.S. in Journalism in 1971, also from Northwestern.
As a conscientious objector, Martin did alternative service 1972-1974 with VISTA, attached to Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation. He also directed chess tournaments for the Continental Chess Association from 1973-1976, and was a Journalism instructor at Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, from 1976-1978. He wrote part-time throughout the 1970s while working as a VISTA Volunteer, chess director, and teacher.
In 1975 he married Gale Burnick. They divorced in 1979, with no children. Martin became a full-time writer in 1979. He was writer-in-residence at Clarke College from 1978-79.
Moving on to Hollywood, Martin signed on as a story editor for Twilight Zone at CBS Television in 1986. In 1987 Martin became an Executive Story Consultant for Beauty and the Beast at CBS. In 1988 he became a Producer for Beauty and the Beast, then in 1989 moved up to Co-Supervising Producer. He was Executive Producer for Doorways, a pilot which he wrote for Columbia Pictures Television, which was filmed during 1992-93.
Martin's present home is Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (he was South-Central Regional Director 1977-1979, and Vice President 1996-1998), and of Writers' Guild of America, West.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/george...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
September 7, 2016
I've been a fan of this series since I was in high school and have read the entire collection, including the latest work, "High Stakes".
It is challenging to create a fair review of such a mosaic novel wherein multiple authors lent their talents to create a single work. I have to confess to enjoying it more than other books in the series which were crafted by a single author.
The tone and feel of "High Stakes" is one of creepy, otherworldly possession - a threat more dire to the world than the initial release of the Wild Card virus in fictional 1946. Conflict runs rampant throughout the pages - vs. others, vs. themselves and vs. the "Threat" which faces them all.
Tension is raised throughout; to be blunt, almost too much in MANY places. The authors have collaborated to create a tense, tight Lovecraftian horror with pulp overtones. I'll confess that, at times, I had difficulty keeping track of ALL the Aces and Jokers. But the attention it demanded was worth it.
And while I'm in a confessional mood, I should admit that at one point, about 3/4 through, I almost put the book down for good. The setbacks and odds against the protags were so great, so disastrous I was left thinking that ANY kind of "un-miserable" ending would be impossible to pull off.
I was wrong.
Don't get me wrong; the climax of this book is heart-rending for several reasons. But ultimately a HUGE payoff. Back in '40's, pulp author Lester Dent was adamant about "sticking it to the hero in the neck" numerous times. This collection of Wild Card writers have done that in spades with "High Stakes". (<-- see what I did there?) ; )
While this is NOT the book to get introduced to the Wild Card universe, it is a complex and demanding work which every fan of the series should dig into.
One other point on craftwork. The authors who contributed to this novel are masters of the art of writing. They routinely make "expert driver on a closed course" writing stunts look easy. I even took notes in the margin of the book!
One last warning. If you're looking for a classic four-color metahuman / "supers" story, move along. This book is written in only two colors - grey and black. Which is what makes it so good.
It is challenging to create a fair review of such a mosaic novel wherein multiple authors lent their talents to create a single work. I have to confess to enjoying it more than other books in the series which were crafted by a single author.
The tone and feel of "High Stakes" is one of creepy, otherworldly possession - a threat more dire to the world than the initial release of the Wild Card virus in fictional 1946. Conflict runs rampant throughout the pages - vs. others, vs. themselves and vs. the "Threat" which faces them all.
Tension is raised throughout; to be blunt, almost too much in MANY places. The authors have collaborated to create a tense, tight Lovecraftian horror with pulp overtones. I'll confess that, at times, I had difficulty keeping track of ALL the Aces and Jokers. But the attention it demanded was worth it.
And while I'm in a confessional mood, I should admit that at one point, about 3/4 through, I almost put the book down for good. The setbacks and odds against the protags were so great, so disastrous I was left thinking that ANY kind of "un-miserable" ending would be impossible to pull off.
I was wrong.
Don't get me wrong; the climax of this book is heart-rending for several reasons. But ultimately a HUGE payoff. Back in '40's, pulp author Lester Dent was adamant about "sticking it to the hero in the neck" numerous times. This collection of Wild Card writers have done that in spades with "High Stakes". (<-- see what I did there?) ; )
While this is NOT the book to get introduced to the Wild Card universe, it is a complex and demanding work which every fan of the series should dig into.
One other point on craftwork. The authors who contributed to this novel are masters of the art of writing. They routinely make "expert driver on a closed course" writing stunts look easy. I even took notes in the margin of the book!
One last warning. If you're looking for a classic four-color metahuman / "supers" story, move along. This book is written in only two colors - grey and black. Which is what makes it so good.
December 22, 2016
Sorry, no—the blurb on the front cover flap of High Stakes may start out saying it's "Perfect for old fans and new readers alike," but neither of those assertions is actually true. This is the third book in the so-called "Fort Freak Triad" (beginning with Fort Freak, which I read and reviewed back in 2014... though somehow I missed Lowball, the installment in between), and this one is the 23rd in the seemingly-unstoppable Wild Cards series of "mosaic novels" as a whole, if my count is correct. At any rate, this is not the one with which new readers should start, not at all, and even old fans may recoil, as I did, at the depths to which this series has dived.
I hate to say this (not least because it will have no effect on the juggernaut whatsoever), but it may be time to give up on this franchise. High Stakes doubles down (hey, they haven't used "Double Down" yet!) on pretty much everything that I disliked about Fort Freak, and deals at least one deeply disturbing new card onto the green baize table.
To start with, the book shows many signs of being hastily written and indifferently copy-edited. I had assumed (naïvely, it would appear) with Fort Freak that the sloppiness was due to my having acquired an advance uncorrected proof, but there were so many errors in High Stakes that I can no longer assume any such thing. From simple mistakes that any automated spell-checker would normally catch, like using "chantreuse" instead of "chanteuse" for a female singer, to homophone confusions like "teaming with vermin" and "Thunder peeled," solecisms abounded in this installment.
More seriously, the sexism that was already glaringly apparent in Fort Freak is perpetuated unchecked. I'm not sure what happened to feminism in the alternative Wild Cards universe—perhaps it was overwhelmed by the appearance of so many supernaturally-attractive aces, like some sort of malign superstimulus—but there are very few scenes in High Stakes where any woman appears without a mention of her breasts and how they are clothed, or not clothed. Now, I like breasts, I do... but even I recognize that they aren't always a female character's defining characteristic.
Most damning of all... High Stakes just isn't all that much fun. The situation in this one is grimmer and darker than in any previous installment. The evil that jokers, aces and nats are facing in High Stakes is growing inexorably, seemingly unstoppable, and there's not even a hint of comic relief. The body count keeps rising, chapter after chapter, and this book just keeps on doubling down on its detailed, lingering, even loving descriptions of mayhem and perversion, of cannibalism and body horror at which even David Cronenberg might begin retching.
And yet...
And yet, High Stakes does keep going, despite every dire development. I did keep turning pages, wanting to know what happened next, just what sort of corruption, devastation and disaster would be visited upon the characters we've been following, sometimes since the very beginning of the series.
High Stakes was a fast read, and it ends about as well as it could, given the setup it had to work with, but I've got to admit that, this time, I was more glad than ever before when the nightmare through which series editor George R.R. Martin's minions were putting us seemed to be over.
At least for now.
I hate to say this (not least because it will have no effect on the juggernaut whatsoever), but it may be time to give up on this franchise. High Stakes doubles down (hey, they haven't used "Double Down" yet!) on pretty much everything that I disliked about Fort Freak, and deals at least one deeply disturbing new card onto the green baize table.
To start with, the book shows many signs of being hastily written and indifferently copy-edited. I had assumed (naïvely, it would appear) with Fort Freak that the sloppiness was due to my having acquired an advance uncorrected proof, but there were so many errors in High Stakes that I can no longer assume any such thing. From simple mistakes that any automated spell-checker would normally catch, like using "chantreuse" instead of "chanteuse" for a female singer, to homophone confusions like "teaming with vermin" and "Thunder peeled," solecisms abounded in this installment.
More seriously, the sexism that was already glaringly apparent in Fort Freak is perpetuated unchecked. I'm not sure what happened to feminism in the alternative Wild Cards universe—perhaps it was overwhelmed by the appearance of so many supernaturally-attractive aces, like some sort of malign superstimulus—but there are very few scenes in High Stakes where any woman appears without a mention of her breasts and how they are clothed, or not clothed. Now, I like breasts, I do... but even I recognize that they aren't always a female character's defining characteristic.
Most damning of all... High Stakes just isn't all that much fun. The situation in this one is grimmer and darker than in any previous installment. The evil that jokers, aces and nats are facing in High Stakes is growing inexorably, seemingly unstoppable, and there's not even a hint of comic relief. The body count keeps rising, chapter after chapter, and this book just keeps on doubling down on its detailed, lingering, even loving descriptions of mayhem and perversion, of cannibalism and body horror at which even David Cronenberg might begin retching.
And yet...
And yet, High Stakes does keep going, despite every dire development. I did keep turning pages, wanting to know what happened next, just what sort of corruption, devastation and disaster would be visited upon the characters we've been following, sometimes since the very beginning of the series.
High Stakes was a fast read, and it ends about as well as it could, given the setup it had to work with, but I've got to admit that, this time, I was more glad than ever before when the nightmare through which series editor George R.R. Martin's minions were putting us seemed to be over.
At least for now.
August 27, 2016
Received an advanced readers copy from Tor.
This was my first time reading a novel from the Wild Cards series. I must say this was a fun and entertaining read. Although I was a bit lost in the beginning (felt like tuning into a TV show for the first time after a commercial break). But after a few pages the characters and plot made a lot more sense.
The story is broken into days of the week. Starting on Sunday and ending on Sunday. And revolves around a situation in Talas, Kazakhstan. This was my first reading a Mosaic novel written by so many authors (I currently love the Expanse series which is written by two authors). I must say the novel doesn't feel like it is written by multiple hands. It feels like it was written as one story.
I really enjoyed Frank (Franny) Black arc and Mollies character arc the most. Joey was also a colorful character that I enjoyed. The one thing that gave me a little pause with High Stakes was the detail of violence. It seemed to be graphic for graphics sake (describing everything to the Ichor detail) with not leaving much for the imagination. Which seems to be a common thing with this series. But it didn't bug me too much, and didn't distract from the story. The Barn comes to mind......
I would say that if you are looking to get into this series (is daunting as there are 23 books currently in the series). I would have probably started with Fort Freak or Lowball. But I had no problem following the characters and their abilities. High Stakes also does a great job at trickling in some of the characters backstories to further flesh out these characters.
I am super excited to be done with this novel, so that I can now start from the beginning and further flesh out this universe. I just hope Tor continues to release new novels and re-release the earlier books (as they are quite expensive to find in stores). Also cannot wait to tune into the TV series when it comes out.
This was my first time reading a novel from the Wild Cards series. I must say this was a fun and entertaining read. Although I was a bit lost in the beginning (felt like tuning into a TV show for the first time after a commercial break). But after a few pages the characters and plot made a lot more sense.
The story is broken into days of the week. Starting on Sunday and ending on Sunday. And revolves around a situation in Talas, Kazakhstan. This was my first reading a Mosaic novel written by so many authors (I currently love the Expanse series which is written by two authors). I must say the novel doesn't feel like it is written by multiple hands. It feels like it was written as one story.
I really enjoyed Frank (Franny) Black arc and Mollies character arc the most. Joey was also a colorful character that I enjoyed. The one thing that gave me a little pause with High Stakes was the detail of violence. It seemed to be graphic for graphics sake (describing everything to the Ichor detail) with not leaving much for the imagination. Which seems to be a common thing with this series. But it didn't bug me too much, and didn't distract from the story. The Barn comes to mind......
I would say that if you are looking to get into this series (is daunting as there are 23 books currently in the series). I would have probably started with Fort Freak or Lowball. But I had no problem following the characters and their abilities. High Stakes also does a great job at trickling in some of the characters backstories to further flesh out these characters.
I am super excited to be done with this novel, so that I can now start from the beginning and further flesh out this universe. I just hope Tor continues to release new novels and re-release the earlier books (as they are quite expensive to find in stores). Also cannot wait to tune into the TV series when it comes out.
Read
August 4, 2016I refuse to read anything from Martin until SOIAF is done. If you have time to write all this other stuff, you have time for that. Boycott!!
July 22, 2018
Eep! I am sure you will think I have lost my mind if I tell you just how exciting High Stakes was. If you have ever wanted to OD on superhero action this may be the book for you-it clocks in at well over five hundred pages and is an amazing read. I ended up reading the later parts of this series before I picked this one up-now I wish I hadn't but beggars cant be choosers I am just grateful to my library and the beautiful phenomenon of inter-library loan. In this volume the Wild Carders face the ultimate threat-an Evil (with a capital E) extra-dimensional being who may be unbeatable. (No spoilers here this information is literally to be found on the back cover of the book.) This novel is very Lovecraftian in nature, and the mixture of fantasy, SF, and horror making it really arresting.
October 15, 2016
The elevator pitch: People with superpowers are called upon to battle a mysterious force straight out of H.P. Lovecraft, a malevolent evil that gets into the mind and makes people do crazy, violent things while thinking they're totally normal. Many great heroes succumb to the madness. An unlikely crew of misfits must save all of creation.
That is a recipe for pure, fun, nerdy cheese. And there is indeed a lot of fun, nerdy cheese in the volume, wherein the various Wild Card virus-granted superpowers are turned against demonic, tentacled invaders from another realm, or where the madness takes hold and said powers are instead turned against one another or, occasionally, gruesomely against innocents. Feel-good heroism will not be found here.
I like all of the Wild Cards books that I have read, but many of them have problems. High Stakes is no exception. It is a mosaic novel, meaning that, instead of the series of connected short stories that you will get in a typical volume - some all in one chunk, one or two ongoing in parts throughout the novel - it's all blended together.
Each author, six in this case (and no, GRRM is not one of them, despite his name taking up a third of the cover,) has one POV character he or she contributes and the story is continually bouncing between all of them, everything happening simultaneously over a small number of days rather than going along over weeks or months. Some are great. Kleptomaniac and former reality show contestant Mollie "Tesseract" Steunenberg goes through quite a journey. The Amazing Bubbles is back, always a treat. And I'm fond of The Infamous Black Tongue if only because he is from Baltimore. Others, not so much. Not all of them are equally up to the task of writing the purely insane madness that is going on in the world at this point in time.
A more enjoyable version of this book may have had a cast entirely consisting of characters the modern Wild Cards reader has had reason to get attached to over either the Committee Triad or the Fort Freak Triad. I guess that was never really in the cards (heh) because it seems like for the most part the authors in the consortium stick primarily to their own creations. So, no Daniel Abraham writing here means no Jonathan Hive except as a sideshow, and so on.
I don't know how deep into the Wild Cards catalog one would have to read to get invested in the character of Babel, or if that would even happen, but she is easily the weakest link here - and yet, as the Committee's prime ace/bureaucrat, somehow one of the most important, even though her chapters consist chiefly of her pining after Lohengrin (a creation of GRRM, who is obviously not writing in this volume), which makes it even worse because why is there any reason to be invested in Babel and Lohengrin's relationship? There isn't! It's snooze territory every time she shows up. At least there is no inexplicable weird sex in this volume because everybody is too busy trying to not die.
Also, there is just like... really poor editing sometimes. By that I mean, there are a few occasions where it seems like parts of the novel were placed in the wrong order, like something happens that contradicts something that happens two pages earlier. It's really jarring. Certain characters are also wildly different in how they act between two different authors in a way that really seems like it ought to have been smoothed out.
Oh well, it was still fun. But I would have liked it more if it was better.
That is a recipe for pure, fun, nerdy cheese. And there is indeed a lot of fun, nerdy cheese in the volume, wherein the various Wild Card virus-granted superpowers are turned against demonic, tentacled invaders from another realm, or where the madness takes hold and said powers are instead turned against one another or, occasionally, gruesomely against innocents. Feel-good heroism will not be found here.
I like all of the Wild Cards books that I have read, but many of them have problems. High Stakes is no exception. It is a mosaic novel, meaning that, instead of the series of connected short stories that you will get in a typical volume - some all in one chunk, one or two ongoing in parts throughout the novel - it's all blended together.
Each author, six in this case (and no, GRRM is not one of them, despite his name taking up a third of the cover,) has one POV character he or she contributes and the story is continually bouncing between all of them, everything happening simultaneously over a small number of days rather than going along over weeks or months. Some are great. Kleptomaniac and former reality show contestant Mollie "Tesseract" Steunenberg goes through quite a journey. The Amazing Bubbles is back, always a treat. And I'm fond of The Infamous Black Tongue if only because he is from Baltimore. Others, not so much. Not all of them are equally up to the task of writing the purely insane madness that is going on in the world at this point in time.
A more enjoyable version of this book may have had a cast entirely consisting of characters the modern Wild Cards reader has had reason to get attached to over either the Committee Triad or the Fort Freak Triad. I guess that was never really in the cards (heh) because it seems like for the most part the authors in the consortium stick primarily to their own creations. So, no Daniel Abraham writing here means no Jonathan Hive except as a sideshow, and so on.
I don't know how deep into the Wild Cards catalog one would have to read to get invested in the character of Babel, or if that would even happen, but she is easily the weakest link here - and yet, as the Committee's prime ace/bureaucrat, somehow one of the most important, even though her chapters consist chiefly of her pining after Lohengrin (a creation of GRRM, who is obviously not writing in this volume), which makes it even worse because why is there any reason to be invested in Babel and Lohengrin's relationship? There isn't! It's snooze territory every time she shows up. At least there is no inexplicable weird sex in this volume because everybody is too busy trying to not die.
Also, there is just like... really poor editing sometimes. By that I mean, there are a few occasions where it seems like parts of the novel were placed in the wrong order, like something happens that contradicts something that happens two pages earlier. It's really jarring. Certain characters are also wildly different in how they act between two different authors in a way that really seems like it ought to have been smoothed out.
Oh well, it was still fun. But I would have liked it more if it was better.
May 7, 2017
Disappointing. Here are the problems:
1. Despite the years between books, there was absolutely no effort to artfully recap events leading into this finale. As a result, many of the characters and their situations were hazy and hard to care about.
2. The amount of wall-to-wall casual profanity in this book was really depressing and unnecessary. I realize many people equate "adult-oriented novels" with "naughty words", but I'm not one of them. Using it all the time removes any of the emotional power it's supposed to convey, while simultaneously making every character seem the same. Believe it or not, there are people who don't use profanity in every other sentence.
3. The book was far, far longer than it really had to be. 100 to 150 pages could have easily been cut to make this a much more taut, fast-moving story. Did we REALLY need that many pages devoted to the depravity of Horrorshow and all of the accompanying "Hieronymous Bosch meets H.R. Giger" acid trips? In fact, the obvious glee and weirdly competitive one-upmanship these scenes brought out in the writers and editors made experiencing them all the more disgusting and irritating. The admiration I once felt for many of the writers involved is clearly diminished by their participation in this orgy of horrific excess.
4. If I ever read another Wild Cards novel with Hoodoo Mama in it, it will be too soon. This vile "modern minstrel show" of a character has no redeeming qualities, even though her "alternate lifestyle" qualities are supposed to endear us to her (somehow). Everything between her and Michelle (aka "Bubbles") was a chore to read, and utterly unconvincing by every emotional metric. These two characters should go away for a long time. If you think that's "homophobic", then so be it.
5. Some clever uses of powers and occasional bright spots, to be sure, but overall....what a slog to get through this. Please bring these books back to something more evenhanded and not "Hard R-rating All The Time" type stuff. If everything is hard-edged shock-value stuff, then nothing is. Dark seems darker when there's a little light nearby.
It might be time to hand over the editorial reigns to the next generations, George R.R. Martin. Plus, you've got the Song of Ice and Fire to finish, so get going on that instead.
1. Despite the years between books, there was absolutely no effort to artfully recap events leading into this finale. As a result, many of the characters and their situations were hazy and hard to care about.
2. The amount of wall-to-wall casual profanity in this book was really depressing and unnecessary. I realize many people equate "adult-oriented novels" with "naughty words", but I'm not one of them. Using it all the time removes any of the emotional power it's supposed to convey, while simultaneously making every character seem the same. Believe it or not, there are people who don't use profanity in every other sentence.
3. The book was far, far longer than it really had to be. 100 to 150 pages could have easily been cut to make this a much more taut, fast-moving story. Did we REALLY need that many pages devoted to the depravity of Horrorshow and all of the accompanying "Hieronymous Bosch meets H.R. Giger" acid trips? In fact, the obvious glee and weirdly competitive one-upmanship these scenes brought out in the writers and editors made experiencing them all the more disgusting and irritating. The admiration I once felt for many of the writers involved is clearly diminished by their participation in this orgy of horrific excess.
4. If I ever read another Wild Cards novel with Hoodoo Mama in it, it will be too soon. This vile "modern minstrel show" of a character has no redeeming qualities, even though her "alternate lifestyle" qualities are supposed to endear us to her (somehow). Everything between her and Michelle (aka "Bubbles") was a chore to read, and utterly unconvincing by every emotional metric. These two characters should go away for a long time. If you think that's "homophobic", then so be it.
5. Some clever uses of powers and occasional bright spots, to be sure, but overall....what a slog to get through this. Please bring these books back to something more evenhanded and not "Hard R-rating All The Time" type stuff. If everything is hard-edged shock-value stuff, then nothing is. Dark seems darker when there's a little light nearby.
It might be time to hand over the editorial reigns to the next generations, George R.R. Martin. Plus, you've got the Song of Ice and Fire to finish, so get going on that instead.
November 16, 2017
This is an absolutely embarrassing mess of numerous continuity errors (sometimes even within a few pages, and several of them significant and plot-centric), contradictory characterizations, and frequent casual sexism (even the sections focusing on strong female characters are nearly always accompanied by descriptions of their attractiveness to men and the relative sizes of their bodies and breasts). It's an inexcusably badly written and amateurishly edited installment in what otherwise had been one of my favorite series.
October 7, 2018
This book is basically horror. When you have lots of tentacles and gibbering, maggot-infested corpses, "grotesque scenes of self-mutilation," phrases like "Psycho Cannibal Flashmob Evil Insanity Zone" and "squamous rugose incarnations of malignant madness" (in the same paragraph!), and when the zombies are the good guys, that's horror. (Yes, with a sense of humor, but horror.) Not my genre, not fun for me to read. Yet I already liked the characters and had to read the whole 552 pages to find out what happened. Well written (but with numerous typos or actual misspellings), and everything comes together nicely at the end, but it took me places I didn't enjoy going.
April 18, 2018
Argh!
I'm not even going to bother marking this as urban fantasy because it's not. This is a dramatic turn of genre from 'Fort Freak' and frankly it pissed me off that this was meant to be the third novel in the Fort Freak triad. 'Fort Freak' was solid crime noir hybridised with urban-fantasy. It was engaging and charming. Lowball moved away from that into a more rushed and mashed up novel that was effectively bridging the way to Horrorshow.
It really was a horror show too. I've read some classy and thoughtful novels set in the Lovecraftian universe. This was more akin to a redneck cannibal chainsaw massacre film crossed with something like Saw. There are also eldritch horrors but there's no carefully crafted gothic unease in the toxic miasma leaking across from the Plateau of Leng (or other such dimension). Nope, nope, nope, this is babies impaled on fenceposts and severed fingers used as lollipops and page after page after page of horror-pr0n. Frustratingly, other reviewers are correct that many of the characters feel shallow and there is a definite disproportionate focus on boobs. I also hated the Melissa-Joey plot. If you want to do a lesbian couple then great, if you want to have them into consensual S&M then that's also fine, but instead it keeps being depicted as an unhealthy relationship with hints of abuse and then randomly Joey is trying to seduce IBT; it doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than a crap attempt to throw in some girl-on-girl sex.
The only tenuous link to Fort Freak is really Franny whose ongoing involvement in everything seems a bit dubious. I suppose there's at least an attempt to show some character development in him from 'good young man' to 'somewhat tortured'.
Sadly, this book also seems to largely focus on Aces whereas I really liked the jokers in (with a few aces thrown in) of Fort Freak.
I'm not even going to bother marking this as urban fantasy because it's not. This is a dramatic turn of genre from 'Fort Freak' and frankly it pissed me off that this was meant to be the third novel in the Fort Freak triad. 'Fort Freak' was solid crime noir hybridised with urban-fantasy. It was engaging and charming. Lowball moved away from that into a more rushed and mashed up novel that was effectively bridging the way to Horrorshow.
It really was a horror show too. I've read some classy and thoughtful novels set in the Lovecraftian universe. This was more akin to a redneck cannibal chainsaw massacre film crossed with something like Saw. There are also eldritch horrors but there's no carefully crafted gothic unease in the toxic miasma leaking across from the Plateau of Leng (or other such dimension). Nope, nope, nope, this is babies impaled on fenceposts and severed fingers used as lollipops and page after page after page of horror-pr0n. Frustratingly, other reviewers are correct that many of the characters feel shallow and there is a definite disproportionate focus on boobs. I also hated the Melissa-Joey plot. If you want to do a lesbian couple then great, if you want to have them into consensual S&M then that's also fine, but instead it keeps being depicted as an unhealthy relationship with hints of abuse and then randomly Joey is trying to seduce IBT; it doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than a crap attempt to throw in some girl-on-girl sex.
The only tenuous link to Fort Freak is really Franny whose ongoing involvement in everything seems a bit dubious. I suppose there's at least an attempt to show some character development in him from 'good young man' to 'somewhat tortured'.
Sadly, this book also seems to largely focus on Aces whereas I really liked the jokers in (with a few aces thrown in) of Fort Freak.
May 25, 2018
Definitely the worst of the lot. So many errors and time skips that make no sense. So many characters that were just kind of there after so much backstory in the previous 2 books. I've always described the entire series as reality with superheroes, but this killed all of that. There was so much boring cliche fantasy/sci-fi that it might as well be a crappy standalone novel.
September 24, 2025
“He knew now why the faces inside these cells had looked so utterly desolate. It wasn’t just the agony of life being sucked out of them. It was because this world thrived on the misery of unending suffering. It had begun, he understood now, ages ago, and would continue forever onward. Never ending. He would die, yes, but the misery would go on. Misery triumphant. Every noble ideal or belief, every notion of love and right and good… all of it defeated by the world that now was and always would be.”
"I didn’t come all the way back into the Psycho Cannibal Flashmob Evil Insanity Zone just to bail out."
The 23rd volume of Wild Cards picks up in the immediate aftermath of the closing scenes of Lowball. Stuntman and Father Squid are dead. Franny Black is a prisoner. Infamous Black Tongue has smashed the underground fight club in Talas, Kazakhstan…
The lingering unanswered question is: Why would an ace of Baba Yaga's influence and wealth waste time on a small-bit kidnapping ring in Asia? Answer: The fight club is providing sacrifices to Horrorshow to prevent the Elder Ones from encroaching into our reality…
"Over the years I refined and perfected the formula. Just enough blood and death to keep it sleeping. Too little and it would awaken. Too much and it would awaken. Then you blundered in. The big hero… The monsters are coming."
Tesseract (written by Ian Tregillis) uses her portal abilities to heist Baba Yaga's casino in the confusion, but too much time in the insanity zone leads to a homicidal mental breakdown…
IBT (written by David Anthony Durham) runs to a mountain joker village, with Olena in tow…
Babel (written by Stephen Leigh) hastily assembles the Committee to quell the disturbance in Talas, and she organizes a jailbreak to spring a war-criminal ace out of Saint-Gilles prison in Brussels…
The Midnight Angel (written by John Jos. Miller) is sent by her boss--and husband--Billy Ray to find Stuntman. Instead, she finds herself the Queen of a dark kingdom…
Bubbles' (written by Caroline Spector) adopted daughter Adesina wraps herself in a cocoon to escape the coming destruction. Will she emerge, and when, and what will she metamorphose into?...
Franny (written by Melinda Snodgrass) turns the tables on Baba Yaga when IBT poisons her. He amputates her arm and flees back to Fort Freak to interrogate her…
For the first time since Death Draws Five, readers are returned to the murky alternate Lovecraftian dimension where Ti Malice was banished and through which only The Highwayman can safely travel…
Despite a slow start for the first 150 pages, this book finally cranks up and, in doing so, contains some of the best Lovecraft pastiche I have read. (One of these days I really need to find the time to read old H.P. himself.)
Memorable minor characters from earlier books are given meatier roles. Tinker can assemble any gadget from household items but they hardly ever work as expected. Jayewardene is revealed to be a precog. Cocomama has grown up to become the head of a drug cartel; she still sheds tears of cocaine.
Newcomer ace Vasel Davydenko carries gold coins that can be flung at any enemy to vanquish it instantly. Recycler fortifies himself with armor built from scrap and trash. Nurrasyl is a tentacled joker-ace with curative powers.
4 stars.
Next up: Mississippi Roll
"I didn’t come all the way back into the Psycho Cannibal Flashmob Evil Insanity Zone just to bail out."
The 23rd volume of Wild Cards picks up in the immediate aftermath of the closing scenes of Lowball. Stuntman and Father Squid are dead. Franny Black is a prisoner. Infamous Black Tongue has smashed the underground fight club in Talas, Kazakhstan…
The lingering unanswered question is: Why would an ace of Baba Yaga's influence and wealth waste time on a small-bit kidnapping ring in Asia? Answer: The fight club is providing sacrifices to Horrorshow to prevent the Elder Ones from encroaching into our reality…
"Over the years I refined and perfected the formula. Just enough blood and death to keep it sleeping. Too little and it would awaken. Too much and it would awaken. Then you blundered in. The big hero… The monsters are coming."
Tesseract (written by Ian Tregillis) uses her portal abilities to heist Baba Yaga's casino in the confusion, but too much time in the insanity zone leads to a homicidal mental breakdown…
IBT (written by David Anthony Durham) runs to a mountain joker village, with Olena in tow…
Babel (written by Stephen Leigh) hastily assembles the Committee to quell the disturbance in Talas, and she organizes a jailbreak to spring a war-criminal ace out of Saint-Gilles prison in Brussels…
The Midnight Angel (written by John Jos. Miller) is sent by her boss--and husband--Billy Ray to find Stuntman. Instead, she finds herself the Queen of a dark kingdom…
Bubbles' (written by Caroline Spector) adopted daughter Adesina wraps herself in a cocoon to escape the coming destruction. Will she emerge, and when, and what will she metamorphose into?...
Franny (written by Melinda Snodgrass) turns the tables on Baba Yaga when IBT poisons her. He amputates her arm and flees back to Fort Freak to interrogate her…
For the first time since Death Draws Five, readers are returned to the murky alternate Lovecraftian dimension where Ti Malice was banished and through which only The Highwayman can safely travel…
Despite a slow start for the first 150 pages, this book finally cranks up and, in doing so, contains some of the best Lovecraft pastiche I have read. (One of these days I really need to find the time to read old H.P. himself.)
Memorable minor characters from earlier books are given meatier roles. Tinker can assemble any gadget from household items but they hardly ever work as expected. Jayewardene is revealed to be a precog. Cocomama has grown up to become the head of a drug cartel; she still sheds tears of cocaine.
Newcomer ace Vasel Davydenko carries gold coins that can be flung at any enemy to vanquish it instantly. Recycler fortifies himself with armor built from scrap and trash. Nurrasyl is a tentacled joker-ace with curative powers.
4 stars.
Next up: Mississippi Roll
June 21, 2017
This is the most I've enjoyed a Wild Cards book in sometime, and a large reason for that (well all right two) is that the writing team got me more invested in the characters while not forsaking moving the the story forward to end this trilogy.
The second reason, and more important in today's current politically correct climate, is that the misogyny that I have accused writer and co-editor George R.R. Martin is largely absent in this volume. I say largely because horrible, emotionally devastating, things happen to the female characters in this installment. But, the same happens to the male characters this time around too. At the end it is likely none of the major characters are left unscarred emotionally and/or physically.
Picking up from where the prior volume ended, the city of Talas is becoming enveloped by madness and physical mutations of its citizens. The madness and the actual physical acts take the revulsion level to that of Garth Ennis' comic Crossed (which I personally find offensive and yes, it's fine if you don't-I'm a believer that you don't have to have the same tastes and beliefs that I do unless you are harming people).
This time Wild Cards has really crossed into horror. Contributor Ian Tregillis arguably dabbled with the Lovecraft mythos is his solo work, so I wondered if some of this was his influence. If it was him it was certainly effective.
Mollie, a petty thief in prior appearances become a well fleshed out character here. Klaus gets some much needed depth. The writers address the various relationships, and like real life, the relationships are messy (Barbara/Klaus, Michelle/Joey, Marcus/Olena). Frankly despite the damage she suffers The Midnight Angel and Billy Ray might be the most stable after the events of this book.
Rarely does this series go for comic book level world ending scenarios, but his time the writers do and they make it work. They also make the solution to ending the crisis plausible enough for it make sense to me (sorry Christopher Reeve in Superman 1 and every Russell T. Davis ending of Dr. Who seasons).
This is not a good place to start this series, but if you do not want to go back to the very beginning then go to Fort Freak the first installment of this trilogy within the series.
The second reason, and more important in today's current politically correct climate, is that the misogyny that I have accused writer and co-editor George R.R. Martin is largely absent in this volume. I say largely because horrible, emotionally devastating, things happen to the female characters in this installment. But, the same happens to the male characters this time around too. At the end it is likely none of the major characters are left unscarred emotionally and/or physically.
Picking up from where the prior volume ended, the city of Talas is becoming enveloped by madness and physical mutations of its citizens. The madness and the actual physical acts take the revulsion level to that of Garth Ennis' comic Crossed (which I personally find offensive and yes, it's fine if you don't-I'm a believer that you don't have to have the same tastes and beliefs that I do unless you are harming people).
This time Wild Cards has really crossed into horror. Contributor Ian Tregillis arguably dabbled with the Lovecraft mythos is his solo work, so I wondered if some of this was his influence. If it was him it was certainly effective.
Mollie, a petty thief in prior appearances become a well fleshed out character here. Klaus gets some much needed depth. The writers address the various relationships, and like real life, the relationships are messy (Barbara/Klaus, Michelle/Joey, Marcus/Olena). Frankly despite the damage she suffers The Midnight Angel and Billy Ray might be the most stable after the events of this book.
Rarely does this series go for comic book level world ending scenarios, but his time the writers do and they make it work. They also make the solution to ending the crisis plausible enough for it make sense to me (sorry Christopher Reeve in Superman 1 and every Russell T. Davis ending of Dr. Who seasons).
This is not a good place to start this series, but if you do not want to go back to the very beginning then go to Fort Freak the first installment of this trilogy within the series.
March 2, 2018
To be honest, based on Melinda Snodgrass' efforts before on this anthology series, I expected better.
Three-fifths of this book is primarily setup for the last few chapters, and it drags heavily during the setup. Once you get TO the climax, it begins to pay off, but honestly, most of the previous WildCards novels and collections I tore through, devoured, and then went back and read again, carefully, to absorb the real details. That includes her previous solo work for the series, Double Solitaire. Her contributions to the various Star Trek episodes were always quality, as well.
This one was a slog through a swamp, comparatively. It feels like she really didn't have any enthusiasm for the project. Maybe she was feeling particularly depressed. It's certainly apropos to the subject of the book, The End of the World Which Seems Unavoidable. But it makes for exceedingly slow reading. Where I usually finish a similar-sized novel within a week or so (mostly I read at night), this took me more than a month.
I don't recommend anyone to avoid it... far from it. Especially not if you are already a WildCards fan. But objectively it *is* a very slow-paced book. Don't expect the thrilling heroics of previous books, or much of the moral convolutions inherent to the series. Snodgrass is still a very good writer. It's just that this book is about what the characters see as resisting the unavoidable, and I think it shows.
Three-fifths of this book is primarily setup for the last few chapters, and it drags heavily during the setup. Once you get TO the climax, it begins to pay off, but honestly, most of the previous WildCards novels and collections I tore through, devoured, and then went back and read again, carefully, to absorb the real details. That includes her previous solo work for the series, Double Solitaire. Her contributions to the various Star Trek episodes were always quality, as well.
This one was a slog through a swamp, comparatively. It feels like she really didn't have any enthusiasm for the project. Maybe she was feeling particularly depressed. It's certainly apropos to the subject of the book, The End of the World Which Seems Unavoidable. But it makes for exceedingly slow reading. Where I usually finish a similar-sized novel within a week or so (mostly I read at night), this took me more than a month.
I don't recommend anyone to avoid it... far from it. Especially not if you are already a WildCards fan. But objectively it *is* a very slow-paced book. Don't expect the thrilling heroics of previous books, or much of the moral convolutions inherent to the series. Snodgrass is still a very good writer. It's just that this book is about what the characters see as resisting the unavoidable, and I think it shows.
November 15, 2018
Not, to my mind, one of the strongest entries in the normally high quality Wild Cards series. It's the third part of the 'Fort Freak' triad, following on directly from the end of the second volume in that set and, as usual for the third volume in a WC triad, a tightly woven mosaic novel, rather than a collection of short stories. At any rate, it won't make sense without the preceding book, Lowball.
That's not really the problem, though, especially since the preceding two books were quite good. Rather, there are two issues. For one, the editing is weaker than usual, with a number of contradictions in the book that don't seem to have been caught, despite some of them being quite glaring. This really doesn't help, and, if you're going to do a mosaic novel, it's the sort of thing you really need to get right (and WC normally does).
Then there's the tone. This is horror, as the Committee, among other characters, face off against Lovecraftian monsters. But, unlike Lovecraft, we get gore and plenty of it, much of it seemingly for the sake of it, until long after it loses any ability to shock or horrify. It's quite simply overdone, and, while the book does pick up at the end and build to a dramatic climax, it drags a bit on the way there.
It's not terrible, and there are a number of good points within it, but neither does it live up to the promise of its predecessors.
That's not really the problem, though, especially since the preceding two books were quite good. Rather, there are two issues. For one, the editing is weaker than usual, with a number of contradictions in the book that don't seem to have been caught, despite some of them being quite glaring. This really doesn't help, and, if you're going to do a mosaic novel, it's the sort of thing you really need to get right (and WC normally does).
Then there's the tone. This is horror, as the Committee, among other characters, face off against Lovecraftian monsters. But, unlike Lovecraft, we get gore and plenty of it, much of it seemingly for the sake of it, until long after it loses any ability to shock or horrify. It's quite simply overdone, and, while the book does pick up at the end and build to a dramatic climax, it drags a bit on the way there.
It's not terrible, and there are a number of good points within it, but neither does it live up to the promise of its predecessors.
September 11, 2022
The Wild Cards series has taken a lot of twists and turns, but I have to say I didn't see this coming. They've been building up to something for a while, and a new major challenge is here.
We've seen hints of other planes and creatures from them in assorted past books. Now, the series takes a turn for something out of the Cthulu mythos as hell comes to Earth through the mechanism of a Wild Card power not working right. It turns out, there was a reason Baba Yaga was running the horrible death-matches involving jokers, and it wasn't just about profit and cruelty. Now, her mission has failed, and the entire world might pay the price.
A team of aces, jokers, and a nat or two have an apparently impossible task, and a lot of ugly challenges ahead of them. What they find in the darkness will leave some of them dead and others changed in different ways. We have some new characters getting a lot of screen time, like Tesseract, and some old favorites back, like Billy Ray from the much earlier books.
This one is brutal, even by Wild Cards and GRRM standards. I don't know where they're going to go from here, but there should be some repercussions with the characters and the world at large. It'll be interesting to see how the characters recover from what they've seen and done in this story.
We've seen hints of other planes and creatures from them in assorted past books. Now, the series takes a turn for something out of the Cthulu mythos as hell comes to Earth through the mechanism of a Wild Card power not working right. It turns out, there was a reason Baba Yaga was running the horrible death-matches involving jokers, and it wasn't just about profit and cruelty. Now, her mission has failed, and the entire world might pay the price.
A team of aces, jokers, and a nat or two have an apparently impossible task, and a lot of ugly challenges ahead of them. What they find in the darkness will leave some of them dead and others changed in different ways. We have some new characters getting a lot of screen time, like Tesseract, and some old favorites back, like Billy Ray from the much earlier books.
This one is brutal, even by Wild Cards and GRRM standards. I don't know where they're going to go from here, but there should be some repercussions with the characters and the world at large. It'll be interesting to see how the characters recover from what they've seen and done in this story.
July 2, 2017
This was an impulse buy when I was between books and walked past a book store.
Part of a series where a virus has turned some people into super heroes and others into mutants.
The background/characters are pretty much X-Men/Doom Patrol, but given super swearing powers on top of everything else.
What I didn't know is that the books are written as story arcs, and this was the final installment for this particular arc.
Based on that, the start of the story was confusing as different heroes/mutants popped up with a lot of stuff already going on around them. Once you get used to names then the back story is explained to show how people got to where they are.
When the main part of the story gets going, and you've got a handle of who is who, and what their powers are, then it turns into some Horror from beyond the Stars novel.
As there are multiple characters, all written by different authors and then stuck into some semblance of order by the editors, the story can be a bit choppy in places and differences in writing style are apparent.
Overall it's a fast paced novel with a lot going on, but probably not the best book to read as a starting point to this franchise.
Part of a series where a virus has turned some people into super heroes and others into mutants.
The background/characters are pretty much X-Men/Doom Patrol, but given super swearing powers on top of everything else.
What I didn't know is that the books are written as story arcs, and this was the final installment for this particular arc.
Based on that, the start of the story was confusing as different heroes/mutants popped up with a lot of stuff already going on around them. Once you get used to names then the back story is explained to show how people got to where they are.
When the main part of the story gets going, and you've got a handle of who is who, and what their powers are, then it turns into some Horror from beyond the Stars novel.
As there are multiple characters, all written by different authors and then stuck into some semblance of order by the editors, the story can be a bit choppy in places and differences in writing style are apparent.
Overall it's a fast paced novel with a lot going on, but probably not the best book to read as a starting point to this franchise.
March 1, 2019
High Stakes is so full of interesting and delicious horror that I am willing to forgive the bland and boring setup in the previous Wild Cards book, Lowball. A mosaic book like many others in the series, where different characters are written by different authors, it describes the coming of a supernatural horror that can change reality itself. People (normal, joker and ace alike) get turned physically and psychologically into rage filled monsters that want to eat babies and kill everything for the glory of their dark god. Even if some sections were reminiscent of the bore in Lowball, with love between people and worry and relationship issues, the bigger problem of the end of the world took precedence and made this into one of the best books in the series.
In many ways it reminded me of the early Wild Card books, when the virus was still a thing of awe and fascination, horror and fear, but with even more oomph. I think this particular volume washes the sins of many of the recent others that kind of forgot what the Wild Card was all about. I do hope this becomes a trend and the next books are at the same level.
In many ways it reminded me of the early Wild Card books, when the virus was still a thing of awe and fascination, horror and fear, but with even more oomph. I think this particular volume washes the sins of many of the recent others that kind of forgot what the Wild Card was all about. I do hope this becomes a trend and the next books are at the same level.
May 13, 2019
I’m of two minds about this book. Yes I did finish it in two days. Once you get past the introduction of characters, it is an engrossing adventure/horror tale and it flies by. I would give it 5 stars for that. It’s rare that I take time to read a 500+ page book in 2 days. However, I would give it 3 stars for characterization. They are all distinct but few of them feel well rounded. There isn’t time and there are so many of them. I suspect that part of the problem may be that it’s been ages since I started the Wild Cards books. I do vaguely remember when some of them were introduced in older books but I don’t have the emotional attachment to them that I once had. And this book doesn’t have time; the world is ending in one week. Mollie is the only character that I found intriguing and I was always happy when the scene shifted back to her. Still...I finished the book in a little over 24 hours. I have to give the writers that. So I bumped this up to 4 stars.
Just a note that I forgotten that I had this book signed at Worldcon. It was a pleasure to see so many of the authors’ names, including the late Ed Bryant.
Just a note that I forgotten that I had this book signed at Worldcon. It was a pleasure to see so many of the authors’ names, including the late Ed Bryant.
March 7, 2017
High Stakes is another good volume in the long running Wild Cards franchise, tying up the events left hanging from the previous couple of volumes and closing out the Fort Freak arc. This one is one of the mosaic novels, with the stories braided and quilted together to make a story vaster than the sum of its parts. I don't think this one would be a good one to start the series with because a lot of the necessary groundwork would be missing to figure out just what all of it was about, and because it's much darker in tone than I remember any of the previous books being. It takes it's theme from Lovecraft rather than from comics or science fiction. (You can tell it's Lovecraft because there are tentacles on the cover and because they use the word "squamous" a lot.) I can't think of any other series that's lasted as long at such a high level of craftsmanship; the books just keep getting better without being repetitive.
June 21, 2017
I'm such a sucker for Wild Cards. I've read them for years. This one doesn't let me down.
December 5, 2022
When I returned from Afghanistan in 2014, I found a copy of Fort Freak on my cot in Kyrgyzstan. It sounded interesting, so I kept it. I read it and loved it. Later finding out it was book 21 in a (now) 30-book series. I got excited to read the first books. After books 1-3, that enthusiasm evaporated. I forgot they existed with a sour taste in my mouth. A few weeks ago, I remembered liking Fort Freak and decided to read the "Fort Freak Trilogy" which needed the next two books. Fort Freak was still fabulous. Lowball was middle of the road. High Stakes was Hot Garbage. I hated it. The second and third book had nothing to do with the plot of Fort Freak, so a bait and switch already had me incensed. The Armageddon setting sounded intriguing but fell flat on its face. I now know I don't need to bother with any Wild Card books. Fort Freak was aptly named. It was a freakishly entertaining book in a series filled with cliches and misogyny.
March 24, 2025
The 'that escalated quickly' sub-series ends in a big, sloppy, pustulent mess. The first book, which I enjoyed, was largely about a murder mystery, and some sub-stories that were lighter and non-serious. The second book pulled our characters into a continent-hopping adventure involving kidnapping and fight clubs and kind of went off the rails. This book has a world-ending cosmic horror threat that warps our heroes into monsters and gleefully revels in the body count and body horror, and was maybe 25% longer than either of the previous two books, in order for us truly to wallow.
I enjoy cosmic horror, and this series has leaned into some aspects of horror since the beginning. However, this really didn't work for me. First off cosmic horror isn't something you beat at the end of the story and ride off into the sunset, that's just antithetical to the entire idea. Secondly, the book leaned a little too hard into the gore. Maybe 18 year old me would have thought differently, but old me was turned off. Thirdly the additional length did not help.
I would guess somebody has already written this, but a story about superheroes encountering a threat where their powers were unable to do anything against it might make a good short story or novella.
I enjoy cosmic horror, and this series has leaned into some aspects of horror since the beginning. However, this really didn't work for me. First off cosmic horror isn't something you beat at the end of the story and ride off into the sunset, that's just antithetical to the entire idea. Secondly, the book leaned a little too hard into the gore. Maybe 18 year old me would have thought differently, but old me was turned off. Thirdly the additional length did not help.
I would guess somebody has already written this, but a story about superheroes encountering a threat where their powers were unable to do anything against it might make a good short story or novella.
November 9, 2024
Something I'd never thought I'd say: There's such a thing as too much carnage.
It's the end of another Wild Cards story arc, and our heroes end up battling a Lovecraftian cosmic horror. It kind of works... but the story is the size of an elephant, and at around 300 pages you start to become numb from all the terrible things going on. There's only so much blood, pus, gristle and insanity a reader can handle before they all start to melt together.
There were bright spots -- Mollie's insanity was truly horrifying, and Billy Ray keeps on being so very awesome. Still, I was ultimately kind of unmoved by it all. It's a shame, as I still love the world and the turns it's taken (been a fan since 1989 I think), but this one is probably not going to get a re-read.
It's the end of another Wild Cards story arc, and our heroes end up battling a Lovecraftian cosmic horror. It kind of works... but the story is the size of an elephant, and at around 300 pages you start to become numb from all the terrible things going on. There's only so much blood, pus, gristle and insanity a reader can handle before they all start to melt together.
There were bright spots -- Mollie's insanity was truly horrifying, and Billy Ray keeps on being so very awesome. Still, I was ultimately kind of unmoved by it all. It's a shame, as I still love the world and the turns it's taken (been a fan since 1989 I think), but this one is probably not going to get a re-read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 8, 2019
Fort Freak was great, things got a little side-tracked in Lowball, and this one is just gone. It was tiring to get through, and got so far afield from where it stated. The superheroes are often some of the most bland and boring characters in the series. They're the 1% of this world, their struggles are ALWAYS tempered against the fact that they essentially won a lottery. So many of these stories don't seem to get that. If books 22 and 23 had just stayed in Fort Freak and kept things grounded in that sort of procedural style, I would've loved every second. Instead we're treated to another tale of "Bubbles does it all". Yawn.
October 22, 2017
Superheroes vs Cthulhu
When the Fort Freak trilogy began I thought it would keep to down and dirty tales of keeping the peace in Jokertown. It took an unexpected turn at the end of Lowball and turned into something where Aces are overwhelmed by a post-Lovecraftian-apocalyptic hellscape. Once all hell breaks lose (almost literally) it becomes a classic Wild Cards page turner. There appears to be some sloppy editing towards the end which makes some scenes overly confusing but that doesn't really detract from the enjoyment of the story. Another strong triad from the team.
When the Fort Freak trilogy began I thought it would keep to down and dirty tales of keeping the peace in Jokertown. It took an unexpected turn at the end of Lowball and turned into something where Aces are overwhelmed by a post-Lovecraftian-apocalyptic hellscape. Once all hell breaks lose (almost literally) it becomes a classic Wild Cards page turner. There appears to be some sloppy editing towards the end which makes some scenes overly confusing but that doesn't really detract from the enjoyment of the story. Another strong triad from the team.
November 1, 2017
This is darker than most of the other books in the Wildcard series (although Wildcards in general is darker than most superhero stories). In this book, the villain of the previous book, Baba Yaga, turns out to have been getting aces and jokers to fight in order to use their energy to keep an extra-dimensional evil force imprisoned. With her casino smashed, the evil force is slowly taken over. When the Committee sends a team of aces to investigate, they fall under the evil being's influence and their dark sides gain control. There's lots of interesting characterization here.
July 23, 2018
This was not my favorite Wild Cards book, though it was stronger toward the end. The story contained a lot of familiar characters who were put in some really tough situations and forced to make no-win decisions. This book definitely had some of the moral ambiguity that Martin pumps into GoT. After so much struggle, the ending was wrapped up pretty neatly, though I didn't really mind after the meat grinder that the characters had gone through. Recommended for fans of super heroes, fantasy, and certainly fans of this series.
December 15, 2017
It's time to acknowledge that I couldn't finish the book. There's nothing really wrong with it... except that I couldn't make myself read it. Anytime I had a book done, I would be picking up something... anything... instead of plunging back into it.
Maybe my subconscious is trying to punish GRRM for giving me this instead of Winds of Winter, even though he doesn't really write any of it. Don't know. Still, it was a good run of 22 books that I loved all (and still owns). So long, Wildcards.
Maybe my subconscious is trying to punish GRRM for giving me this instead of Winds of Winter, even though he doesn't really write any of it. Don't know. Still, it was a good run of 22 books that I loved all (and still owns). So long, Wildcards.
March 4, 2017
A very different book in the ongoing Wild Cards franchise with a far more supernatural bent than the usual science fiction superheroes of the series. High Stakes continues to push the boundaries of the series in new and interesting ways, proving why it is one of the best franchises in modern fiction.
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