Beyond Westeros: Exploring the other works of George R.R. Martin
By Daniel Roman
7. Wild Cards
Aside from ASOIAF, Wild Cards is the other big intellectual property in Martin’s back pocket. The Wild Cards books are “mosaic novels” comprised of connected novellas written by different authors, which George R.R. Martin edits. Though the origin for the Wild Cards universe lies with GRRM, these books are very much in the vein of comic book writing collaborations, with each writer contributing their own characters and plot ideas to the overall series.
After World War II, a space virus crashes to the planet’s surface and spreads across the globe, infecting a huge chunk of the populace and killing 90% of the people exposed to it. Of those who are left, 1% gain incredible super powers and become known as Aces. The other 9% suffer horrible physical mutations, and become known as Jokers. Think X-Men meets Watchmen and you’ll have a decent idea of what Wild Cards is about.
If you’re looking for a series with a ton of material to sink your teeth into, Wild Cards might be just the thing. In addition to the 27 mosaic novels and anthologies, Tor.com regularly publishes Wild Cards shorts online. These books are still coming out pretty regularly at this point, and Tor has been doing a good job of re-releasing the older, harder-to-find volumes to make it easier for new readers to get into the series.
In a last bit of news, Hulu recently started work on a TV adaptation of Wild Cards — one of their horses in the race to have the next Game of Thrones. Expect to hear a lot more about this series in the years to come.