A review by apostrophen
Ace in the Hole by Victor Milán, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Walton Simons, George R.R. Martin, Stephen Leigh, Walter Jon Williams
5.0
This was by far the best of the Wild Card series to date that I've read. The villain, "Puppetman"/Gregg Hartman, was a truly chilling villain.
If you've not read the series at all, you do need to start with the first book, but the general overview is thus: an alien virus, called the "wild card" is released into Earth's atmosphere around the end of WW2. The virus kills 9 of 10 infected people - called "Drawing the Black Queen"(luckily, infection isn't all that common), and of the survivors, 9 in ten mutate into deformed figures - called "Drawing the Joker." Of those few one-in-one-hundred survivors, there is "Drawing an Ace," (basically, becoming a superhero), or "Drawing a Deuce," (getting a negligible power, like changing skin colour at will).
The villain in this piece is Gregg Hartman, who we've seen since the very beginning, a man who wants to be president, and is at the Atlanta Democratic National Convention in 1988. All the big players are there, Aces, Jokers, Naturals, etc, and things are beyond tense. Gregg is a secret Ace, a man who has another personality inside him, "The Puppetman," who can worm its way into another's mind after touching, and then release all their darker impulses, and feed on the hate and pain.
The climax of this tale is superb, the character growth all around is astounding, and some of my favourites made cameos (The Great and Powerful Turtle, Popinjay, and Goldenboy, among them). Stupendous!
Cudos and blame again to Jaybird who got me hooked on this series.
If you've not read the series at all, you do need to start with the first book, but the general overview is thus: an alien virus, called the "wild card" is released into Earth's atmosphere around the end of WW2. The virus kills 9 of 10 infected people - called "Drawing the Black Queen"(luckily, infection isn't all that common), and of the survivors, 9 in ten mutate into deformed figures - called "Drawing the Joker." Of those few one-in-one-hundred survivors, there is "Drawing an Ace," (basically, becoming a superhero), or "Drawing a Deuce," (getting a negligible power, like changing skin colour at will).
The villain in this piece is Gregg Hartman, who we've seen since the very beginning, a man who wants to be president, and is at the Atlanta Democratic National Convention in 1988. All the big players are there, Aces, Jokers, Naturals, etc, and things are beyond tense. Gregg is a secret Ace, a man who has another personality inside him, "The Puppetman," who can worm its way into another's mind after touching, and then release all their darker impulses, and feed on the hate and pain.
The climax of this tale is superb, the character growth all around is astounding, and some of my favourites made cameos (The Great and Powerful Turtle, Popinjay, and Goldenboy, among them). Stupendous!
Cudos and blame again to Jaybird who got me hooked on this series.