The 'Wild Card' superheroes return with new powers, reality TV

Terry England | The New Mexican

2/3/2008 - 2/3/08

INSIDE STRAIGHT

Edited by George R.R. Martin

Tor
384 pages, $24.95

Let's admit it — some superheroes are just dumb.

A guy gets superpowers because a "radioactive spider" bit him? Oh, please — a dumb origin for a lame superhero. Surely someone can do better.

Someone has, and they've been doing it since the late 1980s. The stories appear under the overall name Wild Cards, and Inside Straight, the latest in the "collective novel" series, brings it all up to date.

The authors this time include New Mexico writers George R.R. Martin (also the editor), Melinda Snodgrass, Daniel Abraham, John Jos. Miller and Ian Tregillis along with Carrie Vaughn, Caroline Spector, Michael Cassutt and "the mysterious S. L. Farrell." (I don't know why he's listed that way in the book's PR sheet; it might be a pseudonym.)

The stories by the writers are chapters that advance the plot (but the authors get their own copyrights). The characters spill over each other's chapters, so the book reads as a whole.

Wild Card superheroes got that way at the beginning when an extra-planetary virus accidentally was introduced into Earth's atmosphere. Many people were turned into grotesque shapes or bizarre creatures. Some died immediately, others survived to live as freaks dubbed "jokers." Other mutations were more favorable to the subject and gave them superpowers or physiologies that went beyond normal human abilities. These were dubbed "aces." (Others, whose mutations were neither particularly grotesque nor super were dubbed "deuces.") The mutations also followed a psychological pattern based upon an individual's character or obsessions. Thus, if you were acted like a low-down snake before infection, you might end up with a snake's head and tail after.

Inside Straight takes on two contemporary issues: reality TV and war in the Middle East. A young crop of aces compete on a show called American Hero, an amalgamation of Fear Factor, Survivor, The Amazing Race and Big Brother. A reality show in this universe means earth-shaking competitions, but in the end, they're all staged, just like "real" reality shows. In the Middle East, a charismatic leader has united most of the Muslim countries under one caliphate. When the caliph is assassinated, the government blames it on the Egyptian jokers who are following the "new gods," a group of Wild Card victims who resemble the ancient Pharonic gods. Massacres follow.

The emotional pull of the stories is the awakening of some of the American aces to not only their new powers but the plight of the people in Egypt. Earth Witch, for instance. She's really Ana Cortez of Las Vegas, N.M., and at the beginning, all she knows how to do is "dig holes." Or Wally Gunderson, a man of metal also known as Rustbelt because he can make metal turn to rust in seconds. Kathleen Brandt, Curveball, can throw a baseball so fast friction will burn off the cover. When she throws a stone, the kinetic energy becomes destructive. Jonathan Tipton-Clark, a cynical journalist (is there any other kind in fiction?), a.k.a. Jonathan Hive, can turn parts of his body into wasps. (A variation on the journalistic "fly on the wall" as his wasps can listen in on conversations far away from Jonathan himself.) And so on for 32 new aces.

All sound pretty fantastic, right? But that's the conceit with superheroes: our willingness to cast aside doubt and lives vicariously through their adventures. But in Inside Straight, we get complex characters, superhero or not. Twenty years after the appearance of the virus, it still infects, but the mutations often don't "turn" until adolescence. Thus the victims get a chance at a normal life, which is overturned on the day of change. We see these forces at work in the psyches of the characters, how they cope with the changes, how they react to the others in the show and how they think of their futures.

Rustbelt is the central signpost here. A Midwestern hick complete with accent and juvenile case of poor self-esteem, he's victimized by a false call of racism, and is essentially exiled. But his restlessness leads him to realize how shallow the show is. An earthquake gives him some confidence, enough to abruptly decide he's had enough and leaves the show and heads to Egypt to help the aces trying to stop the pogrom there. His surge of conscience awakens others, who also abandon the show to join him.

Once in Egypt, the aces face reality in the form of slaughter, hatred, armies and old-time enemy aces with powerful abilities and powers. Some of the once-naive aces die, others are injured. The result, though, are new heroes, bloodied, wiser but with new purpose (mostly).

Disclaimer: I know several of these writers. But even if I knew none of them, I'd still urge you to pick up Inside Straight for some great storytelling.


England is the Books page editor.