In 1985, Earth is attacked by an alien horde, sent by a giant biomass floating through space that spawns tens of thousands of vicious children. In the Northeastern United States, wild carders help contain the horde’s first attack, although human casualties are high. Meanwhile, the arrival of the Swarm Mother is connected to a cult of Egyptian Freemasons controlled by wild card villains, headed by the reprehensible Astronomer; the members of this cult hope to bring the Swarm Mother to earth. You’d think things couldn’t get much worse, but suddenly the Takisians (the alien creators of the wild card virus) show up in the form of the Tisianne family. The good-guy wild cards must unite to fight off the Takisians, to overthrow the Masons, and ultimately to defeat the Swarm Mother by merging her with a more benign ace personality.
Aces High, the second Wild Cards novel, was published in 1987. The first book in the series related the origin and history of the wild card virus and provided worldbuilding via somewhat discreet stories covering a 40-year period. Aces High, in contrast, focuses on a unified storyline to which each author contributes, with many of the characters’ paths interwoven throughout. Nine authors wrote for the volume, which includes full chapters and interstitial segments to link them together.
Although Aces High’s first chapter begins with Fortunato in 1979 and the Turtle flashes a decade back, the bulk of the novel takes place in 1985 and 1986. We come across friends familiar from Wild Cards I, who’d been full POVs (Croyd, the Yeoman, Tachyon, etc.) or minor background characters (Jube), as well as completely new characters (Water Lily, Demise, etc.).
Aces High has two major storylines that vacillate between the realm of science fiction and the uncanny. The Swarm Mother plot is a standard alien invasion story, yet it is tied to a Lovecraftian tale of the occult. Sure, Wild Cards I began with alien first contact and its aftermath, but the extraterrestrial element played a very limited role throughout the book itself. Aces High, however, reflects the science fiction leanings of so many of its authors; in this second volume, the aliens arrive front and center. First, we learn that Jube, the walrus-looking, newspaper-selling joker, is actually an extraterrestrial observer who’s been watching humankind for some 30 years. Our known alien encounters then rise to three, with the unfortunate grasshopper-man Ekkedme added to the ranks along with Jube and Dr. Tachyon. At this point we learn that, in fact, there are hundreds of alien races flung across the stars; many are part of the capitalist Network, which is run by Master Traders. The most dangerous of all is the Swarm, the species feared by all other alien races. Later in the book we’ll receive a more intimate introduction to Takisian society, as well. For us, it’s a family affair, thanks to the appearance of Tachyon’s great-gram, numerous cousins, and their sentient space ships. The Takisians bring our wild carders to space for the first time in a legit alien abduction.
As for the Swarm Mother, she might’ve fallen into the trap of being just another insect-like horde of bug aliens, following in the insectoid footprints of Heinlein’s Bugs (and, of course, Ender’s Game had come out in 1985, just two years before Aces High). But this Swarm is more floral and faunal than insectoid: the Swarm Mother is a yeast, reproducing on her own in a sort of parthenogenesis.
Modular Man and his creator Travnicek represent another ode to traditional science fiction storytelling, highlighting an android’s exploration of his own humanity, as well as his search for independence from his creator. ST:TNG brought us the android Data at the end of that same year, 1987, but here the genre’s love of the machine-man trope is explicitly cast in terms of Victor Frankenstein. As with Frankenstein, Modular Man’s creator is truly the inhuman one, while the creation seems to have the more human soul.
Whereas the android is a machine made into man, Aces High also includes a reversal of the trope: the human become machine. In this case it is Ellie, the wife of Roman, one of the Astronomer’s henchmen. Roman seems shifty and smarmy as hell—until you find out that he’s with the Masons in order to protect his wife, whose wild card turned her into an organic computer, of all things. The notes of love typed back and forth between the pair feel eminently modern; did Wild Cards inadvertently predict love-affairs-by-instant-message, so familiar to our own contemporary world? ICQ, anyone? In contrast to an android, Ellie has a human soul and a woman’s insides, encased within a machine’s shell: “Jane could see the circuitry pulsing, could see the texture of the boards and the moistness there, the living flesh mixed with the hard, dead machinery.” Ellie is a joker I’d have loved to see again in the series, but alas, she gets zapped. Thanks for nothing, Astronomer.
The occult features prominently in the second major plotline, which follows the Egyptian Masons. There’s a hint of the genuinely supernatural in the Masons background story, but the true believers of the group are ousted by the wild cards, who adopt the spooky, creepy cult elements (as well as its rank-and-file disciples) but replace any “magic” with more explainable wild card powers. The Mason upper echelon is a nefarious bunch, exhibiting some truly evil traits that manifest as murder, mayhem, the quest for power, and joy in the suffering of others. Their leader the Astronomer hopes to bring the Swarm Mother to Earth in fine Cthulhu fashion.
Beyond their more ghastly crimes, the Freemasons excel at taking advantage of those who are alone, with Water Lily, a small town girl new to the big city, being a prime example. Her power allows her to draw the liquid out of a victim, leaving behind nothing but dust, yet she finds herself trapped by her own inexperience and the manipulations of the Masons. Before things get too dicey, a combined force of superstar aces destroy both their homebase at the Cloisters and (for the most part) the Masons in an Indiana Jones-worthy explosion of antiquities. Although the Astronomer escapes, the Great Cloisters Raid features a number of wild card personalities in a pretty fantastic and thrilling episode.
And the Swarm Mother? Another group of aces tackle her, along with Vietnam vet and vigilante Yeoman as the lone nat hero representing at the Swarm Mother’s defeat. The Swarm Mother is transformed into something new after mind-melding with the quiet Mai Minh, an ace with incredible healing power who sacrifices herself to save humankind. It’s an interesting concept: the infinitely powerful, biologically prolific, mindless Mother, combined with the consciousness of a human girl, cruising through space. The Yeoman wonders “what philosophies, what realms of thought, the spirit of a gentle Buddhist girl melded with the mind and body of a creature of nearly unimaginable power would spin down through the centuries.” Now that’s a character duo I’d like to see more of! Bring them back!
It’s lovely to revisit some wild card favorites during this reread. There are Croyd’s antics as he chases a grasshopper corpse and a singularity shifter around town (disguised at one point as a sheepish Teddy Roosevelt). Or the wonderful interstitial about the dedicated comet-hunter Mr. Koyama, who sadly only discovers a bunch of yeast in space. Special mention goes to Kid Dinosaur, the teenage brat ace who shifts into various dinosaur forms: T. rex, pterodactyl, ornithosuchus, allosaurus, hypsilophodon, stegosaurus…the list goes on. Every time he flits in and out of the story I do a frenzied Kid Dinosaur dance inside.
Seeing Jube again and again is pretty wonderful, too. While he doesn’t inspire dancing, I’m particularly fond of him. For me, it’s not his Hawaiian shirts or lame jokes, but rather the fact that he is an alien anthropologist, a xenologist. Arriving on Earth in the 1950s, he spends his life studying human behavior and culture in the heart of wild card country, NYC. He’s written treatises on several topics, with his long-term project being a study of humor in human society. My inner archaeologist recognizes Jube’s obsession with backing up his notes and his primal fear that anything might happen to his life’s work; it’s the academic’s time-honored nightmare of “losing the dissertation,” and Jube knows it well.
His story brings the anthropologist’s ultimate dilemma to the fore: are you a dispassionate observer divorced from your object of study, or do you step in and act on their behalf? Jube encounters this problem when he realizes that he is the only one who can stop the Swarm Mother by calling in the Network to fight her off. He crosses that invisible line-in-the-sand and decides to be not just an observer but an actor, a member of the group he previously stood apart from. Worse, he knows that his loyalties should lie with the Network, but he also must confront another problem connected with Real Life anthropology: the quandary of unequal power dynamics. Historically anthropologists represented Western, colonizing powers that subjugated indigenous groups that they perceived as less-civilized, and often sub-human.[1] Jube knows all too well that the Network will enslave Earth as a condition of destroying the Swarm Mother. He tells Red, “I thought we were better than that. We’re not. Don’t you see, Red? We knew she was coming. But there would have been no profit if she never arrived, and the Network gives nothing away for free.”
He must decide: is he on the side of those he studies, or the outside group he represents? Jube is a virtual Lawrence of Arabia, that British archaeologist and expert on Arab cultures, who found himself caught between the Arab culture he’d adopted and the colonial empire that controlled him during WWI.[2] Following Lawrence, Jube comes to the realization that he was “more human than he would ever have guessed” and had “come to love these humans and to feel responsible for them.”
Other characters, though, I could live without: Captain Trips (and company) are, for me, as annoying as ever. Fortunato, who was a tolerable character in Wild Cards I, becomes increasingly unsympathetic. A pimp, he may label his girls “geishas,” but he seems to have no respect for them whatsoever. He calls them “acquisitions” and continuously evaluates them on their appearance (and yet laments the fact that Caroline is so insecure). His affection for Eileen is unconvincing, and he thinks about women as if they are another species, inherently different from men. His treatment of Caroline is downright loathsome. Just as Fortunato’s customers use his “geishas” for sex, Fortunato uses them, too, but for him they are a source of power rather than sexual pleasure; Fortunato is a shakti leech. Although Lenore laid out this idea in Wild Cards I, there is little articulation or development of this issue in Aces High.
As in the first volume, there are very few roles for women to play in this book. They are more often than not prostitutes, wanton mesmerizers, bag ladies, unrequited fantasies, or victims of male violence. Of the many murdered women in this volume, several have the distinction of being actually sacrificed on an altar, with the pièce de résistance coming in Demise’s chapter, which ends in rape and snuff porn. It is only in the second half of the book that we get female characters performing a more active role, with enough dialogue between them to try the Bechdel test.
We do get brief glimpses of what could be some kick-ass women, such as Mistral and Peregrine, but their screen time is fleeting. Kim Toy develops some depth and ends up a POV character I’d like more of, one of those sympathetic bad guys you can’t but help root for. Water Lily is our main female POV, with all the hallmarks of an awesome ace hero in the making. Kim Toy thinks of her as one of those “innocent ones…their strength and their sincerity made them lethal.” Cross your fingers that we’ll get a strong female hero POV outta her in later books…
New York City continues to be a character in its own right, as the authors explore its urban topography. A favorite series of landmarks are the nightclubs of NYC and the personalities that haunt them: the Funhouse, the Chaos Club, Joker’s Wild, the Twisted Drag, Freakers, and, of course, the Crystal Palace, run by Jokertown’s mistress of secrets, the shrewd Chrysalis. NYC is also overrun with eccentric gangs of both jokers and nats, from Chinatown to Harlem, evocative of the 1979 cult film and gang extravaganza, The Warriors. I can practically here the Demon Princes chanting “Warriors! Come out to plaaaay-yay!” The Jokertown streets are filled with crime, crooked cops walk the streets, and the alleyways are filled with garbage. And Croyd. And for some reason, a black bowling ball…
[1] For more on this, check out the essays in George Stocking’s (ed.) 1991, Colonial Situations: Essays on the Contextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge (University of Wisconsin Press).
[2] Note that Lawrence did indeed lose his ‘dissertation,’ the final copy of his epic tome Seven Pillars of Wisdom; he left the manuscript on a train in 1919 and had to rewrite the entire thing. Jube was right to be terrified of losing his work!
Katie Rask is an assistant professor of archaeology and classics at Duquesne University. She’s excavated in Greece and Italy for over 15 years.
Hey Katie! :)
I love this book. It was the first Wild Cards book I ever read – if I remember correctly, I picked it up in a secondhand book shop at random. It was slightly confusing to dive into such a broad cast of characters right away, though.
Of course the alien invasion, in one form or another, is a staple of superhero stories – for good reason. It provides a chance for the heroes to stretch themselves and show their abilities, taking down literal armies of bad guys with little sympathy from the reader. Still, it was a brave move to do that as the second book in the series. One wonders if it was something the writers wanted to make sure they took the chance to do: or if this plot arises from the legendary role-playing campaigns that gave rise to the series. It has that sort of feel, at times.
You’re right about the lack of female characters, though Water Lily at least gives us something. I had a fondness for Eileen Carter as well. Fortunato has always been a problematic character: some of his later stories complicate him a bit more. I get the feeling that he was always meant to be problematic, grey, an anti-hero more than a hero, but the treatment of women in his story here does not work well.
Similarly, Captain Trips has some 60s mannerisms and attitudes that are clearly not meant to be accepted without question by the reader, but I have a fondness for him more than Fortunato, though I can’t say exactly why. Maybe it’s his hopeless quest to find the Radical again, making him a sympathetic character: powerful yet unfulfilled.
My theory on Modular Man is simple. He’s a construct into which Travnicek can project all his good traits (via the Wild Card, of course). That’s why Travnicek can rebuild him more than once, but can never manage to get more than one model working at a time. IIRC, Travnicek’s a survivor of a concentration camp, something that would have taught him to repress urges of generosity, kindness, and bravery (all traits Mod Man has and Travnicek lacks).
Croyd’s story here is a lot of fun and for some reason his chase of Devil John really sticks in my mind: simple superhero fun amidst the chaos.
The Great and Powerful Turtle story in this one is the best story in the book, probably the best Turtle story in the series, and possibly the best writing GRRM has done in Wild Cards, IMHO. It’s an odd fit in the alien-invasion volume, maybe, but I do really love it.
I remember buying the first two Wild Cards books while on holiday in London in about 1988 – I was twelve at the time, a recent superhero convert who wasn’t allowed to buy superhero comics. Books, on the other hand… although my preacher father would never have bought me the damned things if he’d glanced at more than the amazing Brian Bolland covers.
More adult than anything Chris Claremont could get away with in Uncanny X-Men at the time (the only comic I was able to get my hands on regularly), the Wild Cards books were strange, unsettling and romantic in equal measure. It’s the characters I come back to more than the plots, especially with Aces High. I loved the first book in the series unreservedly – yes, even the Bagabond story – but the second threw me for a loop. I was far too young to appreciate the Lovecraftian elements of the TIAMAT storyline, and the grim sexual sadism of the Astronomer made me deeply uncomfortable… and I never forgave the collective for what happened to Kid Dinosaur in Joker’s Wild.
But I loved – and still love – Croyd Crenson, the unbalanced but fundamentally decent crook with a different aspect every time he woke. I made myself Sleeper t-shirts, each with Croyd Crenson stencilled on the front and a different tagline on the back – ‘sleeper speeding, people bleeding’ was my favourite, of course, but ‘sleep is for the weak’ and ‘pick a card, any card’ were gold too. The books weren’t widely available in England back then, and without the internet for people to instantly become bluffing ‘experts’ my mates at school all thought that ‘Croyd Crenson’ was a band. I never corrected them. He’d be a bloody amazing band.
Demise, too. Twelve-year-old Jack held a deep sympathy and simultaneous loathing for James Spector as a human being, and it marks one of the first times that I became genuinely fascinated by the villain. I’ve been rooting for the bad guy ever since, and remain convinced to this day that Spector somehow survived the events of Ace In The Hole (but we’re getting ahead of ourselves).
Jube is the deeply loveable anchor for the disparate storylines throughout Aces High; Yeoman, the Green Arrow analogue who inspired me to try to make my own bow and arrow out of twine and twigs. The Great And Powerful Turtle, Wild Cards’ oddball stand-in for the Spider-Man heroic archetype, was endlessly relatable. There aren’t any stories in Aces High quite as good as the high water mark stories in Wild Cards, but it sets the scene perfectly for Joker’s Wild, the series’ first mosaic novel.
Here’s my thoughts from my own reread last spring:
Fortunato’s story of TIAMAT was one of the most obvious dangling loose ends from the original Wild Cards volume, so it’s great to see that it was all a setup for this second volume.
However, what’s greatest about this volume is how successfully it interweaves multiple short stories to create a … mosaic (though the book doesn’t use that term in its early printings). This was a step beyond what Thieves World had done, creating not just a coherent universe, but also a coherent story.
This second volume is also quite impressive for how it melds together mysticism and science-fiction. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder … which was probably a great model for *how* to fit together this disparate stories by these disparate creators.
Pennies from Hell (Shiner: Fortunato). Fortunato does mystic things. Fortunato does sexual things. Tragedy strikes. Fortunato fails to conquer TIAMAT. The biggest problem with this story is that it feels like a rehash of the Fortunato story from the first volume. It’s a nice setup for the rising power of TIAMAT, but not very original. Also, not very deep. [5+/10].
Jube (Martin: Jube). When Jube appears in the first part of his story, he looks to be a take on Thieves’ World’s Hakiem: the main editor of the anthology uses a storyteller character to help set the stage and show the background of his shared world. But then Martin pulls the rug out from under us by revealing that Jube is an alien … the other part of the tapestry that makes up Aces High. Afterward, he very successfully uses Jube to tie together the various parts of the novel into a coherent whole. In the end, this is just an interstitial bit of connectivity, but it’s well done and well characterized [6+/10].
Ashes to Ashes (Zelazny: Croyd). This minor caper could have been dull if Zelazny didn’t play it for laughs so successfully. Instead it becomes another magnificent tale of the Sleeper [7+/10].
Unto the Sixth Generation (Williams: Modular Man). Williams [already the creator of Golden Boy] creates another great character here in Modular Man. He’s neat because he’s another super character that isn’t a Wild Card (like Miller’s Yeoman from the previous volume), but he’s also got great characterization as he tries to balance his own evolving self with his creator’s asinine demands. The first half of the story itself is also impressive because it’s greatly epic: a space invasion of Earth held off by numerous Aces. It tells you the sort of thing you can expect in the Wild Cards books, and the scope is magnificent. [7+/10]. Unfortunately, the second half is anticlimactic, with Modular Man fading into the background in the face of the Masons and the whole quest for a bag lady with a magic bag not making much sense (yet). [5/10] However, I do admire the decision to break this story in two (or four or five), allowing it to interweave with the rest of the novel, much like the “Jube” story, as part of a mosaic.
If Looks Could Kill (Simons: Demise). When I was young and read this for the first time, I found Demise and his ability to kill with a look terrifying. I dunno if I was scared for the characters of the Wild Carduniverse, or just myself. In any case, Simons does a good job of making Demise a terrifying villain, and simultaneously makes the Astronomer quite creepy — with the latter character connecting this story into the larger narrative. But the plot? I’m not convinced that “bad guy decides to join up with even worse people” is really much of a story [5/10].
Winter’s Chill (Martin: Turtle). Martin is very deft with this whole shared-world-anthology idea. He manages to tie his Turtle story into the Swarm invasion, and even has Tom play one round in the catch-the-macguffin plot. However at its heart this is a character story, and it’s a pretty wonderful one. I can forgive Tom refusing to tell the secret that might have made everything all right, because he had decades of keeping to himself. And that secret leads us into a wonderfully melancholy tale of a mature hero … who is alone. Great stuff! [8/10]
Relative Difficulties (Snodgrass: Tachyon, Turtle, Captain Trips). This story isn’t really related to the big Swarm plot, but it gets by fine through references and the fact that it’s another space story. However, where it really excels is in detailing the universe of the Wild Cards and in developing its characters. Its great to see the Takysians for the first time and learn a bit about their culture. It’s also really nice that Snodgrass replies to Martin’s story in the first volume by expanding and deepening the friendship between Tachy and Turtle. Captain Trips is also used to fun effect here: it’s pretty amazing that Snodgrass got to be the one revealing how Trips’ powers worked. Overall, this emotional, character-based story makes it clear how closely and well the Wild Cards writers worked together in these early days [7+/10].
With a Little Help from My Friends (Milán: Tachyon, Captain Trips).It’s surprising to see Milán write another Tachyon story, with his own Captain Trips playing a supporting role. It’s a perfectly fine Tachyon story that continues on from “Relative Difficulties” while still maintaining its own existence as a standalone short story with a beginning, middle, and end. I don’t think any of the characters come into as strong of focus as in Snodgrass’ story, but this is still an interesting and meaningful episode in Wild Cards [7/10].
By Lost Ways (Cadigan: Water Lily). This story is obviously meant to be another major climax for the book, setting back the Masons who have been sneaking around the background since Wild Cards I. Setting up multiple plot points in the book (swarm invasion, bowling ball search, Masons, TIAMAT) and giving multiple authors the ability to write important tales is nice model. Unfortunately, this one feels more like a anti-climax. The problem is that Cadigan is just trying to do too much: introduce Water Lily; characterize the Masons; give Fortunato a chance for vengeance; bring down the Masons. The result is very awkwardly plotted and goes from 0 to 60 in the span of a paragraph or two. [5/10]
Half Past Dead (Miller: Yeoman). It’s a bit surprising to close the threat of the Swarm Mother with a “Green Arrow” story, but that’s exactly what Aces High does. And, it’s a pretty good story that doesn’t feel out of place. I’m not convinced that we learn much new about Yeoman (or Fortunato or Tachyon), but this is a nice adventure with a great, appropriate ending [7+/10].
When comparing this to Thieves World, it’s obvious how much George R.R. Martin is pushing the shared-world anthology into the future. Thieves World never achieved this sort of tight continuity, but here Martin does an amazing job of both corralling the writers to tell a consistent story while also allowing them to each shine in your own way.
There are still bumps along the way. The constantly changing set of goals (Masons, black globes, Swarm) feels a bit artificial. With a few exceptions (the first half of the Modular Man story & the main Turtle story), the stories also don’t excel in the way they did in the first Wild Cards anthology. Still, this is a fun “novel” that nicely blends the creativity of many fine authors.
Oh, I wish these Wild Cards novels had meaningful names though. Aces High just barely manages to remind you it’s about the threat from space, but it’d get lost among the dozens of very similar names over the years
I hate to be that guy but… I really wanted to like the Wild Cards books but Fortunato just made me give up on the series. Fortunato to me was a character made out of the worst parts of black exploitation movie cliches.
@@.-@ ra_bailey: One of the nice things about Wild Cards is that even where there are characters or storylines you dislike, you can be sure there’s a different one coming up which will shift the focus – particularly as the characters age in real time. There are whole books where Fortunato doesn’t appear, particularly the more recent ‘relaunched’ books. So try those!
Fortunato to me was only a symptom of my major problem with the original Wild Cards series (the relaunch was better), a juvenile obsession with sex. Especially once the body swappers showed up. Individually, each of the characters and stories was pushing the edge, combined, they went WAY over it.
I think Fortunato is a compelling character, but yeah, I agree that he is a very screwed-up fellow, to say the least. His first story reveals that he lost his father very soon and had to make his own way in life, and it also seems that his mixed black/Asian heritage makes him feel like something of a loner in late-20th century New York. He seems to take an extreme attitude of “life didn’t give me anything for free, so I don’t owe anybody nothing.” He exploits women (for all that he professes to love them), and seems to hold most other men (particularly his fellow aces) in contempt.
Hey, finally I’m in and can comment. I haven’t been able for a couple of days. But, now, of course, I don’t have any time to say much of anything, but, briefly, No, the Swarm was never part of the game. And second, in regard to one of Katie’s demands I can reply with a firm, maybe.
Leon –
This is a matter of personal taste, but I still like the 15 original books better than the newer ones (though I love those too). To me, the old books had more intensity and felt like there were bigger stakes. The new books are, in some places, too… cozy and comfortable and gentle.
The Committee trilogy had a decent balance of optimist and edge, but this latest trilogy, the cop trilogy, seems to me like the weakest so far. I still love it at places, particularly the Infamous Black Tongue, and the horror plot at the end of the second novel is promising (I still didn’t read the conclusion in the third book), but I feel like the attempt to retreat from all the rough sex, violence, and anti-heroic characters in the original books went too far in the other direction. The story with the cop with two wives, for instance, was mostly about a really happy family. I like my friends in real life to be happy and cozy. In fiction, that tends to be boring.
But yeah, I understand that times have changed and what was the coolest in superhero fiction in the 1980s (the dark deconstruction, the violence, the sex), may be out of place in our current decade.
For me, this book doesn’t work as well as the first one. The first Wild Cards had long sections that felt very info dumpy, but the snapshots in time, mosaic effect really worked IMO.
Here, we are caught in kind of a no man’s land. The stories are more tightly tied together to tell the larger story of the Swarm invasion, yet each short story still needs it’s own climax and resolution. I don’t feel like this allows tension and anticipation to properly build up (lectus interruptus?).
I also don’t feel like they should have drawn the Cthulhu comparison because the Swarm mother doesn’t seem at all large scale enough to inspire the same kind of dread. In SF and comics we have seen these kinds of invasions beaten off countless times.
One thing I did like was Captain Trips. His Jekyll-like hunt for the right formula was tragic, even though I don’t know why he necessarily wants to become the Radical again; what made that identity better than any of the ones he has become subsequently?
Finally, I always felt that Tachyon was coded to be gay, notwithstanding his over-the-top “weakness” for women and wondered why they had to sneak that in there. I totally forgot that Fortunato explicitly called him out as a “space faggot”.
I agree with most of what’s been said here. This one is fun but not as good as the first, or indeed the third which is one of my favourites.
I never really liked Fortunato, and rereading this reminded me why, he’s just a terrible person, and they don’t even try to hide it, everything he does is for selfish reasons.
Mod man is one of my very favourite characters, he’s just lots of fun, without a lot of the hangups that the other characters have.
As usual The Turtle’s story breaks my heart. Why does Martin always put his characters through such torture?
I didn’t particularly like Captain Trips but love where the character ends up, can’t wait to reread more of his stuff.
As always Croyd’s story is a blast, really makes me happy I stayed in school and learned my algebra.
And Yeoman is great in this and all his other appearances, up there with Hartmann, Tach, Mod Man and the Turtle in terms of my favourites, always happy to read a Yeoman story.