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When I first started reading this compilation, and hit upon a character named "Jetboy", I mentally rolled my eyes and decided that if I didn't like the book, I'd just put it down without ever reading the whole thing. But soon enough, I got caught up in the story, and began enjoying it.

Wild Cards is a compilation of short stories, edited by George R. R. Martin, who wrote the fantastic Song of Ice and Fire series. The stories take place in 1950s America, just after World War 2. A very stange man dressed like one of the three musketeers arrives in Washington via a very odd spacecraft, trying to alert the government to a biological weapon that his home planet is about to test on the earth. The weapon was originally designed to enhance the superhuman abiilities of its creators, but they found that in most cases, it mutated or killed rather than empowering. When the weapon eventually detonates over Manhattan, nine out of ten people are killed horrifically, and one out of ten is transformed. Out of those transformed, nine out of ten change into strange and sometimes hideous creatures. The lucky remaining 1% gain superhuman powers. But as the stories progress, you learn that the distinction between superpowered "aces" and mutated "jokers" is sometimes blurred. How would you classify The Incredible Hulk? Superhero or mutant? He is both. Characters like that are not uncommon in Wild Cards. My favorite characters, "The Sleeper" and "The Turtle" are certainly unorthodox.

The stories in the book are as follows:

Prologue, by George R.R. Martin	The Tale of the alien Dr. Tachyon's Arrival
Thirty Minutes Over Broadway, by Howard Waldrop	Jetboy's attempt to save humanity from the Wild Card virus
The Sleeper, by Roger Zelazny	One of the first (and oddest) aces
Witness, by Walter Jon Williams	Aces during the McCarthy hearings
Degradation Rites, by Melinda M Snodgrass	A tale of Dr. Tachyon and his Ace lover
Shell Games, by George R.R. Martin	Introducing the Great and Powerful Turtle!
The Long, Dark Night of Fortunato, by Lewis Shriner	The tale of an ace pimp
Transfigurations, by Victor Milan	In the 70's, even Aces took LSD - Imagine a superhero Jim Morrison
Down Deep, by Edward Bryant & Leanne C Harper	Hobos can be Aces too
Strings, by Stephen Leigh	Mind control powers can be quite insidious
Comes a Hunter, by John J Miller	A skilled tracker and bowman hunts an old foe

While the first volume in this series was good, the sequel was merely okay - it featured an alien menace known as the swarm, which I thought was a great enemy. The third volume however, is one of the few books I had to stop reading midway. Although it was still a collaboration, it scrapped the concept of multiple short stories.