Wild Cards
30 primary works • 32 total works
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Book 1
The return of the famous shared-world superhero books created and edited by George R. R. Martin, author of A GAME OF THRONES
There is a secret history of the world - a history in which an alien virus struck the Earth in the aftermath of World War II, endowing a handful of survivors with extraordinary powers. Some were called Aces - those with superhuman mental and physical abilities. Others became Jokers - cursed with bizarre mental or physical disabilities. Some turned their talents to the service of humanity. Others used their powers for evil. Wild Cards is their story.
Return to the beginning of the long running shared-world series edited by George R. R. Martin, featuring stories and characters who would go on to become legends. Super-heroes have never been more real.
Originally published in 1987, Wild Cards includes powerful tales by Roger Zelazny, Walter Jon Williams, Howard Waldrop, Lewis Shiner, and George R. R. Martin himself. And this expanded edition contains further original tales set at the beginning of the Wild Cards universe, by eminent new writers like Hugo-winner David Levine, noted screenwriter and novelist Michael Cassutt, and New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn.
Book 2
Book 3
The first trilogy of the WILD CARDS series comes to a shocking conclusion in this superhero epic edited by bestselling author of GAME OF THRONES George R. R. Martin
Amidst the fun and festivities of Wild Card Day there is an evil mind lurking, who hopes that the celebrations will go off with more than a band. The streets of New York have erupted in celebration of Wild Card Day - the annual event held every September 15th to remember the dead and cherish the living. It is a day for fireworks, street fairs and parades, for political rallies and memorial banquets, for drinking and fighting in the alleys. With each passing year, the festivities become larger and more fevered. And this year - 1986, the fortieth anniversary - promises to be the biggest and best Wild Card Day ever. The media and tourists have discovered the celebration, and taverns and restaurants expect record-setting. But lurking in the background is a twisted genius who cares nothing for the fun and festivity. The Astronomer has only one concern: destruction ...
Featuring plotlines and writing from George R. R. Martin, John J. Miller, Lewis Shiner, Melinda Snodgrass and more, this novel wraps up the opening WILD CARDS series, while also setting the stage for future adventures.
Book 4
Book 5
The return of the famous shared-world superhero books created and edited by George R. R. Martin, author of A GAME OF THRONES
When an alien virus struck the Earth decades ago, it spawned a new breed of superhuman men and women. Those with useful mutations were known as Aces, those with deformities as Jokers.
Now, in New York's Jokertown, a savage street war has broken out between the Mafia and a gang known as the Shadow Fists. A courageous band of Aces must go underground to wage a war against the powers of the criminal netherworld.
Edited by George R.R. Martin and including a story by him, this volume also features stories from Roger Zelazny, Pat Cadigan, Melinda M. Snodgrass and many more.
Book 6
The return of the famous shared-world superhero books created and edited by George R. R. Martin, author of A GAME OF THRONES
Decades have passed since the first victims of the Wild Card virus appeared in public life. Transformed into Aces - with useful and remarkable powers - or Jokers - deformed and twisted - the virus has changed lives. But not all mutations are easily identified.
As campaigners converge on Atlanta for the Democratic Party Convention, one man sets his final plan into motion. Gregg Hartmann, outwardly normal, polite and serious, is in fact secretly a sadistic murderer with terrible psychic abilities. He also has an insatiable lust for power.
And what better hiding place is there than being in the race for the most protected, public and powerful role in the world? If Hartmann can secure the Democratic nomination, he may well become the President of the United States. But there are those who would stop him ...
Edited by George R. R. Martin with assistance from Melinda M. Snodgrass, this mosaic novel also contains work from Victor Milan, Walter Jon Williams, Walton Simons and Stephen Leigh.
Book 7
Book 8
Something is stirring on Ellis Island, something strange and dangerous enough to subdue even the white-hot tensions between Wild Cards and normal humans. They call themselves the Jumpers: a vicious gang with the power to transport their minds into others' bodies, using them to commit acts of terror and violence, before abandoning them and leaving their victims to face the consequences. The Jumpers cutthroat ambition to control the Wild Card community will pit aces, jokers, and humans at odds like never before.
Book 9
Bloat, the boy-governor of the Rox, wanted to make Ellis Island a safe haven for Jokers, and made a choice to recruit the Jumpers, superpowered teen outcasts who could steal a man's body in the blink of an eye. But under the leadership of Dr. Tachyon's psychotic grandson, the Jumpers grow more vicious and uncontrollable every day, becoming the greatest threat the Wild Cards have ever faced.... Edited by George R. R. Martin, Jokertown Shuffle features the writing talents of Walton Simons, Chris Claremont, Lewis Shiner, William F. Wu, Victor Milan, Stephen Leigh, Melinda M. Snodgrass, and John Jos. Miller, along with previously unpublished stories from Carrie Vaughn and Cherie Priest.
Book 10
Book 11
Book 12
Book 13
Amidst the fun and festivities of Wild Card Day there is an evil mind lurking, who hopes that the celebrations will go off with more than a band. The streets of New York have erupted in celebration of Wild Card Day - the annual event held every September 15th to remember the dead and cherish the living. It is a day for fire works, street fairs and parades, for political rallies and memorial banquets, for drinking and fighting in the alleys. With each passing year, the festivities become larger and more fevered. And this year - 1986, the fortieth anniversary promises to be the biggest and best Wild Card Day ever. The media and tourists have discovered the celebration, and taverns and restaurants expect record-setting. But lurking in the background is a twisted genius who cares nothing for the fun and festivity. The astronomer has only one concern: destruction...
Book 14
Book 15
Finally flushed into the open by the heroism of a joker and an uninfected female reporter, the Card Shark conspiracy faces destruction. But a cornered animal is a dangerous animal, and the Sharks still have one final card to play: the Black Trump. The ultimate biological weapon, the Black Trump simply kills all those with the Wild Card virus written into their genes, joker or ace—and its success rate is one hundred percent. In New York’s teeming Jokertown, in the Joker’s Quarter of Jerusalem, in the Free People’s State of Vietnam where ace Mark Meadows rules in a sixties vision of love and peace, the bombs are ticking…and time is running out.
Book 16
Book 17
Edited by bestselling author George R. R. Martin, in the next Wild Cards adventure we follow John Fortune, son of two of the most powerful and popular Aces the world has ever seen.
In Death Draws Five, John Fortune's card has finally turned. He's an Ace! And proud of it . . . except that his new powers put him on a collision course with enemies he never knew he had. Is he the new messiah? Or the Anti-Christ? Or is he just a kid who's in over his head and about to drown?
It's really quite simple. Mr. Nobody wants to do his job. The Midnight Angel wants to serve her Lord. Billy Ray, dying from boredom, wants some action. John Nighthawk wants to uncover the awful secret behind his mysterious power. Fortunato wants to rescue his son from the clutches of a cryptic Vatican office. John Fortune just wants to catch Siegfried and Ralph's famous Vegas review. The problem is that all roads, whether they start in Turin, Italy, Las Vegas, Hokkaido, Japan, Jokertown, Snake Hill, the Short Cut, or Yazoo City, Mississippi, lead to Leo Barnett's Peaceable Kingdom, where the difference between the Apocalypse and Peace on Earth is as thin as a razor's edge and where Death himself awaits the final, terrible turn of the card.
Book 18
Book 19
The return of the famous shared-world superhero books created and edited by George R. R. Martin, author of A GAME OF THRONES
In the six decades since the alien plague known as the Wild Card virus spread a wave of mutations around the globe, humanity has begun to come to terms with its consequences. Grotesque half-human creatures known as 'jokers' inhabit an underworld of their own, while the legendary prodigies known as 'aces' have become real-world superheroes, complete with colourful names and costumes.
Now a new generation of aces has taken its place on the world stage, becoming crucial players in international events. At the United Nations, veteran ace John Fortune has assembled a team of young heroes, known as The Committee, to assist at trouble spots around the world - including an invasion of zombies in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, a freak nuclear explosion in a small Texas town, and a fateful showdown with the forces of the oil-rich Islamic caliphate in the Middle East.
But The Committee's opponents have their own aces and jokers ready to do battle, including a Marxist revolutionary, a brutal mercenary, a young boy with apocalyptic powers and - most terrifyingly of all - a sinister arm of the FBI known as SCARE.
Book 20
The return of the famous shared-world superhero books created and edited by George R. R. Martin, author of A GAME OF THRONES
The heart of the world is bleeding, the People's Paradise of Africa is having it out with the Caliphate, and the Sudan is a charnel house. The powers-that-be aren't doing anything. The UN might set up a committee. But the time for action is now. So, one by one, the aces join the fight, each for their own reasons ...
The Wild Card virus kills 90 percent of the folks who catch it, but those who survive gain special powers. Some become grotesque mutants like the half-man, half-rhino Denys Finch. They're the jokers. Some get trivial powers. They're deuces. And some - the aces - develop wild superpowers. Like Bubbles, who can absorb any amount of energy. Or Bugsy, who can turn his body into wasps. Or Double Helix, the shape-changing, teleporting assassin.
And Tom Weathers, the Radical. The strongest, most versatile of the aces - he can fly, he's strong enough to rip the turret off a tank, he can shoot heat rays from his hands ... but his greatest strength is his total conviction in the rightness of his cause. Whatever the cause is at the moment.
At this particular moment, he's found a way to get more aces for the People's Paradise. Lots more aces. And that's where the trouble starts ...