Ripple Effects

Wild Cards #28.2

by Laura J. Mixon

Nine years after the ace John “The Candle” Montaño first wielded his fire powers as a teenager on the reality TV show “American Hero”, he’s landed a job as the lead investigator for a prestigious arts insurer. His latest assignment, providing security for a traveling art show featuring Satchmo’s golden trumpet, threatens to be a disaster when some of John’s long-buried secrets come calling with a vengeance.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Science Fiction, Superheroes, Novella, Fiction

102 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 19, 2021

About the author

Laura J. Mixon is a chemical and environmental engineer better known as a science fiction writer. She writes about the impact of technology and environmental changes on personal identity and social structures. Her work has been the focus of academic studies on the intersection of technology, feminism, and gender. She has also experimented with interactive storytelling, in collaboration with renowned game designer Chris Crawford. She is married to SF writer Steven Gould (Jumper), with whom she collaborated on the novel Greenwar. In 2011, she began publishing under the pen name Morgan J. Locke. Under that name, she is one of the writers for the group blog Eat Our Brains.

Reviews

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A plan to steal a priceless Wild Card artefact must be stopped by a determined investigator and his team.

Mixon's deceptive heist thriller contains many twists and turns to keep readers guessing until the clever conclusion.

[Alex Sarll]

Especially early on, this is a perfect illustration of the stuff Wild Cards does so well. Even when its superhumans use their powers to cause or thwart crimes, they do so by plotting heists or working as specialist security, not wearing spandex and fighting outside banks. The powers are weird ones that might not sustain a regular series, but definitely sustain interest for the length of a single story, like a curious cocktail of transformation and psychometry, or the Mirror Master with a precog twist. Even in the case of the point of view character, affable slag the Candle, who has a power set not a million miles from that of a Green Lantern, Mixon really delves into the way using those powers feels for him, the experience of gathering and using otherworldly energies - something for which prose is always going to be more readily fitted than comics or films. Simply for rarity value, this makes interesting reading; fundamentally, there is a sense in which I often take classic superhero stories as an approximation of what I'm after, when really this is the bit I really want.

Also, I love the supporting character who as well as being a ruddy great minotaur, is a no-nonsense mum, meaning she's as adept at de-escalation as simply marmalising people.

In the debit column...well, for one, the editing is a fright; at least when I read it, Ripple Effects was riddled with garbled text, stuff like "They’d decided move the horn move the horn into place by going around the outside". Possibly the editor, some guy called George RR Martin, was distracted by something else he'd been meaning to get finished? The plot, once it steps up a gear, feels a little less novel than the earlier, tentative stages – and yet at the same time as if it might have better suited a novel rather than a novella, where the nature of Ripple Effect's chaos powers, the many strings he has available for the pulling, could have played out with more of a sinister, insidious build. The bit that bothered me most, though, was the backstory to the Macguffin, Louis Armstrong's golden trumpet. Now, it's established Wild Cards practice that some famous people from our world were both famous and superpowered in this divergent timeline, and that's fair enough, but normally it comes out as a gimmick more than anything else – so Jim Morrison, for instance, really was the Lizard King. Whereas here, Satchmo's powers directly affected his playing, are credited with making him sound remarkable, not like anyone else. And that can't help but devalue the fact that the human Louis Armstrong already didn't sound like anyone else. As for then having him use those powers to affect events on the Selma to Montgomery marches...well, that same unease at the implicit cheat regarding real-world human achievements, but more so. Which I don't for a minute think was the intention, but it makes me feel uncomfortable all the same.

[Emilie Guan · Rating 4 out of 5]

oops so i started reading this thinking i was getting a stand-alone short story so imagine my surprise when i check goodreads and turns out i’d chosen the 28.2 book out of a 29 book series ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

too late to back out now

ok barring the i’m assuming unintentionally uncapitalized “i” (this is not irony, no), this was a super fun read! Despite knowing nothing about “Aces” or the entire magic system, the action-packed plot was easy to follow and become invested in. Our characters are multidimensional with— get this— actual realistic motivations and goals and weaknesses.

The premise: guy who plays with colored fire on security team for protecting priceless trumpet (i don’t make the rules here) when he encounters diamond actress and twisted, time-seeing billionaire with a secret past. As I said, lots of fun.

also oops just putting out there, there is some discussion about certain portrayals of inspired-by-real-life characters detracting a bit from the actual people (in this case louis armstrong) and their accomplishments through the imbuing of magic, which in hindsight i can definitely see.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ripple Effects (ebook)
by Laura J. Mixon
The personal battle of Wild Card powers between the Candle and Ripple Effect, is a remarkably deep story showing the results of circumstance and consequence. The brief connection of the two Wild Card Aces has created a conjunction of power, manipulation, and death. The Wild Card virus has a great effect on the lives of the people in this universe. Two Aces, both faced with similar past, result in two different mental states. One the Candle, although begins his life as a criminal after his fathers death, has changed his life for the better and to support law and order. The Ripple Effect, uses his power to manipulate the world around him to his own benefit. Is he a villain or just egotistical? This is a story that not only brings a modern twist to the Wild Card world, but also shows the human dynamic in this world. A great read.

[Jamieb · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this had been a full length novel, or even a short novel or one of the multi part short stories from a wild cards book then it would have been a lot better. The author tried to cram two characters entire life stories into 100 pages with; multiple explanations to the exact ways in which there powers work, a cast of characters who each got multiple paragraphs expanding on their appearance and personality as well as about 6 paragraphs on the history of this worlds Louis Armstrong and his trumpet, which was only tangentially important to the story.

Effectively this was like reading someone's novel that they've been told to edit down into a short story and which they haven't been able to remove any of their favourite characters, long speeches or descriptions from which ultimately makes it unlikeable in the format of a short story.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the descriptions, the pace, the dialogue, some of the plot, and most of the characters in this Kindle eBook. John was a private investigator in this Kindle eBook. John had a badge isn’t realistic because a private investigator doesn’t have a badge. Nine of the sentences in this novelette aren’t grammatically correct. The author misspelled two words in in this novelette. I rate this Kindle eBook four out of five stars.

[Roger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ripple Effects features a towering villain, which I liked, plus there is a nice twist at the end. But I did not care much for the main character, so the negative and positive aspects essentially cancelled each other out, leaving me with a sort of neutral reading experience. If you're an action junkie you will probably like this story.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good Wild Cards novella, with a well rounded set of characters, and an interesting heist plot. I think that Mixon's background as a chemical engineer definitely seemed to influence the main Ace in this story. The best Wild Cards stories are the ones where you don't have to know a ton of the lore to enjoy them, and this does a good job with that.

[Chuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, I can't believe I missed this one. Catches up with a couple of the American Hero aces and gets a lot more into one of their backstories, which has some tragedy in it. Plus there's an evil mastermind/figure from the character's past.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was really cute, in that cops-action-superhero kind of way. Spectacular dip into an existing world that wasn't confusing to pick up at all, distinct characters with clear but varied motivations, and all around just some cool magical powers to read about.

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the better Wildcards entries

[Anna Marie]

Story at https://www.tor.com/2021/05/19/ripple...

[Eugenio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool powers, interesting story, it dropped off at the end and the action got confusing. Still a fun read.

[Fatima · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

I had a blast - see what I did there - with how action-adventure this was. I enjoyed the powers, the betrayals, the love-hate ex-lovers-to-enemies...all good stuff!