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The Card Sharks Are Back

September 15, 2025 at 11:31 am
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The Wild Cards series goes back a ways.  All the way to 1987, when Bantam Spectra released WILD CARDS, volume one of our original triad, which introduced the world to Jetboy, Dr. Tachyon, Golden Boy, Mark Meadows, Gregg Hartmann, the Great and Powerful Turtle, Yeoman, Sewer Jack, Bagabond, and a host of other aces, jokers, deuces and nats.

There have been thirty-four volumes published to date — that’s not counting the various games, comic books, graphic novels, audiobooks, and similar spinoffs (but it IS counting AMERICAN HERO, the contents of which were originally published on-line to accompany INSIDE STRAIGHT, and later collected as an e-book — that’s the only book in the series that was never released on paper, so even ardent Wild Cards fans sometimes forget that it exists).

The first twelve volumes of the series were published by Bantam as mass market paperbacks… but back in the early 90s, the series moved over to Baen Books for three new originals, starting with volume thirteen.  Baen dropped the old Bantam numbering, however, reasoning that new readers might be reluctant to pick up volume thirteen of a series if they had not read the first twelve.  So the new books were not numbers, and had cover art and graphics that made they book like a new series.

CARD SHARKS was the opening volume of the new triad, featuring stories by Stephen Leigh, Victor Milan, William F. Wu, Roger Zelazny, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Michael Cassutt, Laura J. Mixon, and Melinda M. Snodgrass.

MARKED CARDS followed, with a lineup that included Stephen Leigh, Walter Jon Williams, Melinda M. Snodgrass & Laura J. Mixon, Walton Simons, Leanne C. Harper, and Sage Walker.

Both of those were made up of individual stories tied together by an interstitial narrative.  A classic Wild Cards structure.

The concluding volume of the triad, however, was a true mosaic novel, where all the storylines were woven together tightly; one novel with five authors and five viewpoint characters.   John Jos. Miller, Stephen Leigh, Victor Milan, and Sage Walker were the contributors… along with yours truly.   Yes, I wrote a novella for this one, as well as editing it.   As much as I loved Wild Cards, I had too much on my plate to write for it as often as I would have liked… (had a lot of other things on my plate by then, including a certain epic fantasy series you may have heard about)… but I found time for this one, and came in with a Popinjay story.   Jay Ackroyd was so much fun to write about, I only wish I’d had the time to write more stories about him.   (The fans liked him too, I am pleased to say).   We called this one BLACK TRUMP.

Editors, like writers, are not good judges of their own work.   Hard to be objective, don’t you know.   That being said, I’ve always thought the Card Shark books ranked right up there, among the best we ever produced in the long history of the series; tightly knit,  with a strong overplot, plausible villains, with some great new characters and some old favorites.   We tied up threads that we’d been playing with since volume one, and wrapped up the ongoing storylines of some of our original case.   Our mosaic novels were always challenging to edit, but BLACK TRUMP came together powerfully… or so I always thought.  My team largely agreed.

Alas, the readers did not seem to share our excitement.   Reviews were good, but the three volumes from Baen did not sell nearly as well as the previous twelve.   It’s hard to say why.   Perhaps packaging the triad as if it was the start of a new series rather than a continuation of an old one was a mistake.   It could have been the new cover art, which looked very different from what had gone before.   Maybe dropping the numbering was a bad idea.   Whatever, Jim Baen was disappointed with the sales, and showed no interest in continuing the series.   After fifteen books, Wild Cards found itself homeless.

The history of the series gets complicated after that.   My writers and I had more stories we wanted to tell, but no place to published them.  The original Bantam twelve went out of print, one after another.   The Baen volumes disappeared too.   We had a hiatus of some seven years, while we tried to find a new home.   Finally iBooks came along and picked us up, reprinting some of the old titles and publishing two new volumes (an original anthology DEUCES DOWN and John Miller’s solo novel DEATH DRAWS FIVE, volumes sixteen and seventeen in the overall series).   iBooks soon went under, however, and once again Wild Cards was orphaned.

Another hiatus followed; a shorter one, I am pleased to say.  Another rebirth followed, however.  The good folks at Tor stepped up, and bought the series.   INSIDE STRAIGHT launched a “next generation” triad that brought back some of the original cast while introducing a great lineup of new aces and jokers: Double Helix,  the Amazing Bubbles, Curveball, Earth Witch, Jonathan Hive, Drummer Boy, Stuntman, Lohengrin, and many more.   BUSTED FLUSH and SUICIDE KINGS followed, and sold well enough that Tor bought more after that.  (Yay!)   In addition to the originals, Tor also bought up the old, out of print books, and began to reissue them with handsome new covers.   (I love the Tor covers).

All but the Baen volumes, that is.

For various complex reasons that I won’t go into, we had to skip over those.   So as the years went by, the entire Wild Cards series came back into print, save for volumes thirteen fourteen, and fifteen, the Card Shark triad.   Those could only be found in used book shops, or on ebay.   Needless to say, this frustrated the completists, especially new fans who wanted the whole series.   On line, the prices for those old Baen mass market paperbacks began to rise and rise.  They became the most valuable books in the series, simply because of scarcity.

I suspect that won’t be true much longer.  Finally, at long last, I am pleased to be able to announce that we have never editions of all three of the Card Sharks books.  You can find them at your local bookshop, or from your favorite online bookseller… or from Beastly Books here in Santa Fe, where we even have signed copies available.   They’re trade paperback editions, larger and nicer than the original mass markets.   Here, take a look:

Volume one of the Card Shark saga.   It includes all the original content of the Baen edition, but we’ve added a treat for our old readers: a brand new story by Gwenda Bond: “The Wildest Show on Earth,”  original to this edition.  CARD SHARKS also includes “The Long Sleep,” a Croyd Crenson novelette by Roger Zelazny, the last story Roger was able to write for Wild Cards before his passing in 1995.

Second volume of the triad.  The Baen edition was published in 1994, and this one has been impossible to find for decades.

 

Ah, this one is a little tricky.   Yes, it’s BLACK TRUMP, the mosaic novel that concludes the triad.    Our editors felt a title change was necessary, since “trump” has acquired… ah… other meanings since the book first came out in 1995, and we did not want any confusion.   It’s not about the Donald.   The world of the wild cards has a trump virus… and an overtrump virus… and the black trump, which is a sinister as it seems.   All the details are in the book, now called SHOWDOWN.

For all our loyal Wild Cards readers, I am pleased to able to say you can now, at long last, complete your collection, without first needing to mortgage your house.

Enjoy the read.

 

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Me and Joe Down at the Kimo

May 26, 2025 at 5:54 pm
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Joe Abercrombie has a new novel out: THE DEVILS, volume one in his latest fantasy trilogy.

Joe has crossed the pond to the US on a promotional tour, and one of his first stops was the historic Kimo Theatre in downtown Albuquerque, where I had the privilege of sitting down with him for an hour to talk writing, reading, fantasy, fandom, and all manner of other stuff.   We answered a few questions from the audience as well.

Joe is a terrific writer and an even better guest.

We had a lot of fun, and I believe the audience did as well.   The Kimo was full nearly to bursting.

After the talking Joe did a bit of signing. inscribing copies for Bookworks, the sponsoring bookshop.  They may still have a left down there in Albquerque.

He signed some books for my own Beastly Books as well, and Twig and I lugged them back to Santa Fe.  I would tell you how to write in and grab one, but alas, we sold out within two days of arrival.   Plainly, we should have ordered more.

((We still have autographed copies of my own books, though.  Hardcovers, softcovers, fantasy, science fiction, graphic novels, signed and unsigned, what have you.   Lots of other good stuff as well)).

If you have not read any of Joe’s previous novels, you don’t know what you’re missing.   He’s a powerful, evocative writer with a unique voice, one of the brightest fantasists on the current scene.    He never disappoints.   He writes a lot faster than I do too, so there won’t be nearly as much waiting.

I had thought the Kimo would be videotaping our talk, but, alas, there was some sort of mix-up and that did not happen.  I am told some of fans present taped the discussion, but only on audio.   You might be able to find that on the internet.

Meanwhile, Joe is off to Atlanta, Austin, Denver, and various other stops.   Catch him if you can.

 

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Wild Cards Update

January 15, 2023 at 9:05 am
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An apology to all the aces and jokers out there, my Wild Cards fans and readers.   There’s been lots going on with Wild Cards, but I have been so busy with Westeros and the railroad and many many other things that I haven’t found time to blog about it.

Better late than never, though, so…

We have had some fun  new original Wild Card short stories up on Tor.com.

Here’s “Grow,” by Carrie Vaughn.

Grow

And here’s “Hearts of Stone,” from Emma Newman.

Hearts of Stone

Jason Powell had a couple of thought provoking Wild Cards essays up at well.

 

Ten Satisfying Long-Term Payoffs in George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards Series

Comprehensive Network Coverage: A Look at the Wild Card Universe’s Predatory Alien Coalition

That’s not all, though.

On the literary front, the Wild Cards gang is hard at work on three new originals:  PAIRING UP, SLEEPER STRADDLES, and HOUSE RULES.

Meanwhile, work continues apace on the Wild Cards Tv series we are developing for Peacock.   The pilot will be based mostly on FORT FREAK.   Haven’t read that one?  No problem, signed copies are available from Beastly Books in Santa Fe, and unsigned copies from your favorite on-line bookseller.

Jetboy forever!

 

 

Current Mood: bouncy bouncy

FULL HOUSE Is Here!

August 2, 2022 at 8:12 am
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 Aces Assemble!  You jokers can come too.   We have a new book coming for you TODAY

 Our friends at Tor will be releasing FULL HOUSE in hardcover.  

 FULL HOUSE is the thirty-first volume in the overall Wild Cards series, which began all the way back in 1987, before some of you were born.   (Seems like last week to me, though)  This one is a little different.  It is not our usual mosaic, but rather a collection of stand-alone stories:

“When We Were Heroes”                                 Daniel Abraham
“Evernight”                                                          Victor Milan
“Lies My Mother Told Me”                               Caroline Spector
“Nuestra Senora de la Esperanza”                   Carrie Vaughn
“Discards”                                                            David D. Levine
“The Elephant in the Room”                            Paul Cornell
“When the Devil Drives”                                 Melinda M. Snodgrass
“The Atonement Tango”                                  Stephen Leigh
“Prompt.  Professional.  Pop!”                        Walter Jon Williams
“How to Move Spheres and Influence People”              Marko Kloos

Many of those titles may seem familiar to you… if you’re one of our longtime Wild Cards fans.  Yes, all of these stories have appeared before.  All but one of them were originally published electronically on Tor.com.   This will be their first time on paper, though, in an actual book that you can put on your shelf beside all of your other Wild Cards books. 

The sole exception is Caroline Spector’s novella, which originally appeared in DANGEROUS WOMEN, one of the big crossgenre anthologies I co-edited with my dear friend, the late great Gardner Dozois.  (It was a great fit there.  Bubbles and Hoodoo Mama are not to be messed with). 

 Maybe you’re read all of these.   Maybe you missed a few.   Maybe you missed all of them.   They’re some terrific tales, however, and I’m delighted to have them all together between the same set of covers.  And who knows?  FULL HOUSE may get these stories a whole new readership — old guys like me who hate reading stuff on a computer, most like, but what the hell.

 And if this one does well, there have been enough Wild Cards stories on Tor.com to fill two more collections… and more in the pipeline.   So watch for new Wild Cards tales on Tor.com, and enjoy those collected  in FULL HOUSE.   On sale August 2 from your local bookstore or favorite online bookseller… and signed copies are always available from Beastly Books, via their website.

Spread the word, aces.

Current Mood: cheerful cheerful

Stonemaiden Is Back

May 27, 2022 at 8:32 am
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There’s a brand new treat for Wild Cards fans over at Tor.com.

“Hearts of Stone” is a terrific new novelette from Emma Newman.   It marks the return of Stonemaiden, the Cornish ace first introduced in KNAVES OVER QUEENS.   That was her origin story.   She also appeared, in a supporting role, in THREE KINGS, but that was decades later.   Emma’s new story is more of a follow-up to her debut, dramatizing her introduction to the Order of the Silver Helix.

Hearts of Stone

Stonemaiden is a great new addition to the Wild Cards universe, and “Heart of Stone” is a wonderful story.

Check it out.   It’s FREE.

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Dealer Takes Two

March 15, 2022 at 8:11 am
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Kings and deuces may not be as iconic… or ominous… a poker hand as aces and eights, but it’s not a bad hand to be dealt… and Tor will be dealing those cards to all the Wild Cards fans out there with the release of two more volumes on MARCH 15.

DEUCES DOWN will be released in trade paperback that day, with stories from Melinda M. Snodgrass, Walton (Bud) Simons, Stephen Leigh, Michael Cassutt, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Daniel Abraham, and John J. Miller… from the original iBooks edition, long out of print and hard to find… and brand new tales from Caroline Spector, Mary Anne Mohanraj, and Carrie Vaughn, from Tor’s reissue.  Come join Puddleman and Chuckles, Cash Mitchell, Gary Bushorn, Father Henry Obst, the Jokertown Boys, the Myth Patrol, Aurora, Demise…and Croyd Crenson, the Sleeper.   I did the editing, with the able assistance of Melinda M. Snodgrass.

But we have more to offer than deuces.   Tor will also be releasing the first American edition of our new British adventure, THREE KINGS, in hardcover.  The twenty-ninth volume in the series, THREE KINGS is a full mosaic written by Peter Newman, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Peadar O Guilin, and Caroline Spector, featuring the Green Man, the Seamstress, Enigma, Double Helix, and Badh.   Melinda Snodgrass edited this one, with yours truly assisting… a reverse of the usual arrangement.

THREE KINGS and DEUCES DOWN will both be available at your local bookstore, and from your favorite on-line bookseller… and of course autographed copies can be had from Beastly Books in Santa Fe at https://jeancocteaucinema.com/beastlybooks/

 

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Turn That Card Again

September 27, 2021 at 8:14 am
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November 9 is going to be a big day for Wild Cards fans.

That’s the day that Tor is going to be releasing not one but two classic hard-to-find Wild Cards novels as reissues.   These are not the usual mosaics, but solo novels by two of the mainstays of the series, John Jos. Miller and the late great Victor Milan.

I have already blogged about John’s novel DEATH DRAWS FIVE (take a look downstream if you missed it).  Volume seventeen in the overall series, it was initially released by iBooks a week before the company went under, and later made available by Brick Tower Press as a print on demand title.  The new Tor hardback will be the first edition to get widespread national distribution.   This will be a great chance for all of you who missed DD5 the first time around to fill that hole in your Wild Cards collection.   And it’s a helluva ride.

But that’s only half the news.   Tor will also be releasing Vic Milan’s much sought after Cap’n Trips novel, TURN OF THE CARDS, as a trade paperback the same day, with a stunning new cover by Michael Komarck.

TURN OF THE CARDS was the twelfth volume in the series, and the last to be released by Bantam Spectra, our original publisher.   Our contract was up once Vic delivered the book, and rather than re-up for more volumes, we moved Wild Cards over to Baen Books.   (Which proved to be a huge mistake, but that’s a tale for another time.   Buy me a margarita at a con some day and maybe you can winkle it out of me).

Unsurprisingly, moving the series to a rival house did not endear us much to the old team, and when TURN finally came out as a mass market paperback, only a month before the first of the Baen volumes, promotion was pretty much non-existent, and sales declined sharply from the previous volume.

Which was a disappointment to all, and a real shame.  Vic was one of the stars of Wild Cards, the guy who started the whole thing when he gave me that SuperWorld game, and  TURN OF THE CARDS is some of his very best work.   Over the years Vic created a dozen characters for us, great and small… but the most memorable and popular of them all was Mark Meadows, a blond bearded scarecrow of a hippie who ran a head shop, wore a purple Uncle Sam suit, and went by the nom de guerre Cap’n Trips.   Despite the colorful costume, Trips seemed to have no actual superpowers.   Most of the people in Jokertown regarded him as a colorful eccentric rather than an ace.  Ah, but Mark was also a genius biochemist who had concocted a number of designer drug cocktails… and he had friends.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash (that’s him above, on the cover).  Aquarius.   Starshine.   Moonchild.   Cosmic Traveller.   Monster.   Each with his (or her) own personality, quirks, passions, and powers.   And the Radical, the first and the last, who combined the powers of all of them.

Mark and his friends were among the most popular characters in Wild Cards, right from the start.

TURN OF THE CARDS is his novel, a globe-spanning adventure that takes him halfway across the world to Vietnam, with DEA agents, SCARE heroes, and all manner of other aces in hot pursuit.

Like as not, you missed it the first time around.   Don’t miss it now.

NOVEMBER 9.  From your favorite online bookseller or local brick-and-mortar bookshop.

 

 

 

 

 

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Death Draws Again

September 7, 2021 at 8:57 am
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DEATH DRAWS FIVE is one of the rarest of the Wild Cards series.

The series started with a twelve-volume run at Bantam Spectra, then moved to Baen Books in the early 90s for three books.   (Not the brightest decision I ever made as editor, but that’s a long story for another day).  The Baen books — the Card Sharks triad — were among our strongest, I thought, but for various and sundry reasons they did not sell nearly as well as the Bantam twelve, and afterward Wild Cards was without a publisher.   Seven long years ensued, and for a time it appeared as if Wild Cards might be dead — to the dismay of all of us involved in the series.   Then, as now, we loved the world we had created, and the amazing cast of aces, jokers, and deuces we had created to populate it.

Then Byron Preiss came to the rescue with iBooks (which had nothing whatsoever to do with iPhones, iPads, or iAnythingElse, let me add).  A fan of the series, he stepped up with an offer to reprint some of the old Bantam titles, long out of print, and do two new originals as well.   The first of those was DEUCES DOWN, an anthology of stories about those the Takisian virus had given small, useless, sometimes silly superpowers.   Volume sixteen in the overall series.   The second original, volume seventeen, was a solo novel by long-time Wild Cards stalwart John Jos Miller: DEATH DRAWS FIVE.

Though iBooks was a small publisher with limited distribution, the revived series was doing okay…. until Byron Preiss was killed in a tragic automobile accident on the Long Island Expressway.   His company did not long survive him, alas.  The last book they published was… you guessed it… DEATH DRAWS FIVE.   iBooks closed up shop a week later and soon filed for bankruptcy.   We were told that fewer than six hundred copies of John’s novel ever made it into the bookstores.

That was a shame.  DEATH DRAWS FIVE is a damned good read, and it deserved better.

Later, another small publisher called Brick Tower acquired the assets of iBooks in a bankruptcy sale, and issued their own editions of DEUCES DOWN and DEATH DRAWS FIVE on a print-on-demand basis, but those did not get any distribution to speak of either, and the two volumes remained hard to find even for the most ardent Wild Cards fan.

But now… at long long last… DEATH DRAWS FIVE is getting a new lease on life, as a hardcover from Tor.

 

DEATH DRAWS FIVE features John’s popular ass-kicker Billy Ray, aka, Carnifex, and the long-awaited return of Fortunato, one of the most popular characters from the early days of the series.  This is also the volume that introduces John Nighthawk, the oldest man in the Wild Cards universe, and the Midnight Angel.   It’s a wild ride, and one you won’t want to miss.

On sale NOVEMBER 9 in hardcover from your favorite online bookseller or local bookshop.   And yes, signed copies will be available via mailorder from Beastly Books in Santa Fe.

 

Current Mood: pleased pleased

New Wild Cards original on Tor.com

July 26, 2021 at 1:27 pm
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There’s a brand new Wild Cards original from a brand new Wild Cards author up on Tor.com.

“Skin Deep” is from Alan Brennert.   Who is not a new author at all, of course (( though he was back in the mid-70s, when he was a Campbell Award loser just a few years after me )) but he IS brand new to the world of aces and jokers.   I first had the honor of publishing Alan when I was doing NEW VOICES, the Campbell Award anthology that was my first foray into editing.  A decade or so later, he and I worked together when I got my first gig writing for television, and he helped teach me how to write a teleplay.   In more recent years he has been writing novels — his bestselling Hawaii series, and a really wonderful book about Palisades Park in New Jersey.

So go and check out “Skin Deep” on Tor.com.   It’s FREE.

Skin Deep

And after you’ve enjoyed “Skin Deep,” go check out the rest of the Wild Cards stories on Tor.com, and pick up a couple of Wild Cards books from your favorite bookseller.. along with a few of Alan’s novels.   They’re terrific.

Current Mood: pleased pleased

The Candle Is Burning

May 21, 2021 at 5:19 pm
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The Candle is back, in “Ripple Effects,” Laura J. Mixon’s great new novella on Tor.com… for all the Wild Cards fans out there, and for everyone who does not know they are Wild Cards fans yet.

Check it out.   It’s free.

Ripple Effects

Current Mood: excited excited