newnumber6 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
newnumber6) wrote2008-11-07 06:43 pm
newnumber6) wrote2008-11-07 06:43 pm
Book Foo
Finished: Wild Cards, Vol 1, edited by George R.R. Martin (reread)
Started: Wild Cards, Vol 2: Aces High, edited by George R.R. Martin (reread)
Even though it's a reread, I think it's long enough since I last read it, and I may never have mentioned it on LJ, that I'll go into more detailed thoughts. In short, I really enjoy the book and the world created. Even rereading it works well. Minor spoilers (mostly concept related) behind the cut.
For those that don't know, the Wild Cards books are a collaborative efforts that grew out of a superhero roleplaying game run by George R.R. Martin and involving a number of other authors in the field of SF/Fantasy. They created a novel series around it, invited people from the game and some outside to write stories (and some characters are directly from their RPG). The premise is that in the 1940s, a humanlike alien landed on Earth, trying to stop an experiment some of his people were undergoing, testing a virus that had wildly unpredictable effects. The virus came to be known as the Wild Card virus because of this. He failed, and the viral payload exploded over New York City. Of those who contracted the disease (it wasn't contageous, but existed on spores which could lie dormant for decades), 90% died relatively quickly but usually very painfully and dramatically and strangely, 'drawing the Black Queen' as the saying went. Of the remaining, 90% became "Jokers" - freakishly deformed in some way. Maybe they'd grow an extra set of arms, or have an elephant trunk on their face, or be covered with bright hair, etc. The remaining 10% developed superhuman powers, becoming so-called Aces. (There's also some crossover so that some Jokers have Ace-like powers, and some Aces could be considered Jokers depending on your and their point of view, and there's slang "Deuces" for people who have very minor powers like being able to boil an egg by holding it tightly for an hour). So, basically, it's like a comic book universe, in novel form.
Except, it's a little more than that, too. The outbreak is in the 40s, and the first book covers the next 40 years in a series of short stories set in the universe. Some of them just involve individual characters and their powers and reactions to becoming aces or jokers, others intertwine with real historical events. I almost felt like I wished I was near a computer while reading it, so I could have wiki at my fingertips and investigate whether something was historical, made up, or historical but altered because of the existence of super-powered beings and general butterfly-effecting (for example, in the Wild Cards universe, Fidel Castro was a baseball player and never takes over Cuba). It's incredibly rich, particularly with the Jokers and their struggle for acceptance, often handled much better than the Mutant/Morlock issue in the comics (though Morrison's Mutant Town is very similar to Jokertown). The people feel real and engaging, and I kind of want to grab the writers of Heroes and say "HEY, READ THIS! THIS IS HOW YOU WRITE SUPERHEROES IN THE REAL WORLD". Of course, knowing them they'd just steal powers and ignore the cool stuff. I kinda wish they'd do a Wild Cards TV series, although I suspect it would never ever happen, unless _maybe_ Watchmen does spectacularly well and someone comes up with the idea that "Hey, maybe an alternate history series involving superheroes having been around over the past sixty years could be a success!"
Not perfect, of course... I'm not fond of some of the characters or plotlines, and there's a tendency for kinky sex to become more and more prominent as the series progresses (and there's some in this book as well, including some pretty disgusting stuff), and some assorted elements of the canon don't really work for me. My favorite stories are the ones involving the House Unamerican Activities Committee turning its attention to Aces, and anything involving the Great and Powerful Turtle is cool as well.
Still, it's a world I love visiting, and, as grim and gritty and horrible as it is at times, it's one of those worlds a part of me really wishes I lived in.
Finished: Sign of the Unicorn, by Roger Zelazny (reread)
Started: The Hand of Oberon, by Roger Zelazny (reread)
Liked this one a little more than the last, but not as much as the first. And since I decided to move on to the fourth, I might as well finish up the first cycle of books. It does occur to me that the method of shadow-walking in some way matches my technique of choosing my destination when I have a lucid dream. In fact, it's possible that reading Amber long ago helped inspire that ability, since I didn't try anything like it before. Maybe I just need to find the Pattern in my dreams and walk it and then I can do it in real life. Anyway, no real comments beyond that.
PerExWriMo proceeds on schedule, doing fairly well meeting my goals.
Started: Wild Cards, Vol 2: Aces High, edited by George R.R. Martin (reread)
Even though it's a reread, I think it's long enough since I last read it, and I may never have mentioned it on LJ, that I'll go into more detailed thoughts. In short, I really enjoy the book and the world created. Even rereading it works well. Minor spoilers (mostly concept related) behind the cut.
For those that don't know, the Wild Cards books are a collaborative efforts that grew out of a superhero roleplaying game run by George R.R. Martin and involving a number of other authors in the field of SF/Fantasy. They created a novel series around it, invited people from the game and some outside to write stories (and some characters are directly from their RPG). The premise is that in the 1940s, a humanlike alien landed on Earth, trying to stop an experiment some of his people were undergoing, testing a virus that had wildly unpredictable effects. The virus came to be known as the Wild Card virus because of this. He failed, and the viral payload exploded over New York City. Of those who contracted the disease (it wasn't contageous, but existed on spores which could lie dormant for decades), 90% died relatively quickly but usually very painfully and dramatically and strangely, 'drawing the Black Queen' as the saying went. Of the remaining, 90% became "Jokers" - freakishly deformed in some way. Maybe they'd grow an extra set of arms, or have an elephant trunk on their face, or be covered with bright hair, etc. The remaining 10% developed superhuman powers, becoming so-called Aces. (There's also some crossover so that some Jokers have Ace-like powers, and some Aces could be considered Jokers depending on your and their point of view, and there's slang "Deuces" for people who have very minor powers like being able to boil an egg by holding it tightly for an hour). So, basically, it's like a comic book universe, in novel form.
Except, it's a little more than that, too. The outbreak is in the 40s, and the first book covers the next 40 years in a series of short stories set in the universe. Some of them just involve individual characters and their powers and reactions to becoming aces or jokers, others intertwine with real historical events. I almost felt like I wished I was near a computer while reading it, so I could have wiki at my fingertips and investigate whether something was historical, made up, or historical but altered because of the existence of super-powered beings and general butterfly-effecting (for example, in the Wild Cards universe, Fidel Castro was a baseball player and never takes over Cuba). It's incredibly rich, particularly with the Jokers and their struggle for acceptance, often handled much better than the Mutant/Morlock issue in the comics (though Morrison's Mutant Town is very similar to Jokertown). The people feel real and engaging, and I kind of want to grab the writers of Heroes and say "HEY, READ THIS! THIS IS HOW YOU WRITE SUPERHEROES IN THE REAL WORLD". Of course, knowing them they'd just steal powers and ignore the cool stuff. I kinda wish they'd do a Wild Cards TV series, although I suspect it would never ever happen, unless _maybe_ Watchmen does spectacularly well and someone comes up with the idea that "Hey, maybe an alternate history series involving superheroes having been around over the past sixty years could be a success!"
Not perfect, of course... I'm not fond of some of the characters or plotlines, and there's a tendency for kinky sex to become more and more prominent as the series progresses (and there's some in this book as well, including some pretty disgusting stuff), and some assorted elements of the canon don't really work for me. My favorite stories are the ones involving the House Unamerican Activities Committee turning its attention to Aces, and anything involving the Great and Powerful Turtle is cool as well.
Still, it's a world I love visiting, and, as grim and gritty and horrible as it is at times, it's one of those worlds a part of me really wishes I lived in.
Finished: Sign of the Unicorn, by Roger Zelazny (reread)
Started: The Hand of Oberon, by Roger Zelazny (reread)
Liked this one a little more than the last, but not as much as the first. And since I decided to move on to the fourth, I might as well finish up the first cycle of books. It does occur to me that the method of shadow-walking in some way matches my technique of choosing my destination when I have a lucid dream. In fact, it's possible that reading Amber long ago helped inspire that ability, since I didn't try anything like it before. Maybe I just need to find the Pattern in my dreams and walk it and then I can do it in real life. Anyway, no real comments beyond that.
PerExWriMo proceeds on schedule, doing fairly well meeting my goals.