For all you Wild Card fans waiting for the newest volume — FORT FREAK, the twenty-first installment in our field’s longest running shared world — check out Tor.com, where they have just put up a sample from that volume: Melinda Snodgrass’s story, “The Rook,” introducing Francis Xavier Black, rookie cop, beginning his first tour at the infamous Jokertown precinct.

http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/06/the-rook

And if that’s not enough to whet your appetite, there’s also a sample from Cherie Priest’s interstitial story, “Rat Race,” available on my own website at:

http://www.georgerrmartin.com/wc-s.html

Check ’em out, and reserve your copy of FORT FREAK at your favorite local bookstore.

FORT FREAK will be published on June 21.

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Good news for all my Wild Cards readers. FORT FREAK, volume twenty-one in the series, will be out in hardcover on June 21, Tor tells me.

The cover is once again by the amazing Michael Komarck, who just keeps getting better and better. You really should nominate him for a Hugo some year, he’s way overdue.

After the wide-ranging global storylines of the Committee triad, FORT FREAK returns to New York City, the epicenter of the Wild Cards universe, to tell the stories of the cops and crooks of the historic 5th precinct of the NYPD !” the Jokertown precinct.

The lineup this time around includes stories by Wild Cards veterans Melinda Snodgrass, Stephen Leigh, John Jos. Miller, Kevin Andrew Murphy, and Victor Milan, and introduces newcomers (new to Wild Cards, at least) Cherie Priest, David Anthony Durham, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Ty Franck, and Paul Cornell. You can check out a sample of Cherie’s interstitial, the literary mortar that holds all the bricks together, on my website.

So mark June 21 on your calendars, and place your preorder now with Amazon or your favorite local bookstore. Come meet Ramshead, the Rook, Tabby, SlimJim, Abigail the understudy, Sgt. Squinch, Ratboy and Flipper, Tinkerbill, the Infamous Black Tongue, Natya, Maggie Graves, Puff, Beastie, Dr. Dildo, and the other colorful denizens of Fort Freak and environs. Old-timers like Father Squid, the Sleeper, and the Oddity are also expected to turn up to enliven the proceedings.

And while you’re reading, we’ll be working on LOWBALL.

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One more monkey off my back.

I just sent the manuscript of FORT FREAK, volume twenty-one in the ongoing Wild Cards series, off to our editors at Tor. Six hundred and eight pages of Jokertown goodness.

After the wide-ranging global storylines of the Committee triad, this volume returns to New York City, the epicenter of the Wild Cards universe, to tell the stories of the cops and crooks of the historic 5th precinct of the NYPD — the Jokertown precinct, Fort Freak. The lineup features work by WC veterans Melinda Snodgrass, Stephen Leigh, John Jos. Miller, Kevin Andrew Murphy, and Victor Milan, and introduces newcomers (new to Wild Cards, that is) Cherie Priest (Hugo-and-Nebula finalist), David Anthony Durham (still wearing his Campbell Award tiara), Mary Anne Mohnaraj, Ty Franck, and Paul Cornell (Dr. Who scripter).

No publication date set yet, of course, but I’d look for it sometime in the spring of 2011. So mark that down on your calendar, and come meet Ramshead, the Rook, Tabby, SlimJim, Abigail, Sgt. Squinch, Ratboy and Flipper, Tinkerbill, the Infamous Black Tongue, Natya, Maggie Graves, Puff, Beastie, Dr. Dildo, and the other colorful denizens of Fort Freak and environs. Old-timers like Father Squid, the Sleeper, and the Oddity are also expected to turn up to enliven the proceedings.

As for me… there are still a few more monkeys to wrestle into submission. Including Kong.

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This week Ian Tregillis is taking a stint as guest blogger at Tor, with more reflections on the complex and sometimes frustrating experience of writing for Wild Cards.

Check it out at http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=58674

And then go out and get SUICIDE KINGS at your favorite bookstore.

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Daniel Abraham is a guest blogger on Tor.com, talking about Wild Cards and other collaborations. Check out what he has to say at:

http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=58634

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Just got a peek at the final cover for SUICIDE KINGS, courtesy of the good folks at Tor Books. The art is by Michael Komarck.

SUICIDE KINGS will be the twentieth overall volume in the Wild Cards series, and the third and concluding book in the current “Committee” triad. Written by S.L. Farrell, Ian Tregillis, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Daniel Abraham, Caroline Spector, and Victor Milan, and edited by yours truly.

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