Wild Cards: Ases High

Name: WILD CARDS: Wild cards.

Author: Several.

Editorial: Océano. (The cover of the book and the publisher are the ones that there are in Argentina)

Gender: Science Fiction.

“Ases High” is the second book of the WILD CARDS saga, carrying on with the story of the characters from the first book.

Again, the book was written by many authors making the story to change according the point of view of the different characters and the particular narration of each of them.

The story begins in 1979; in the city of Manhattan where we find the place strongly divide don Jokers, Ases and people to whom the virus didn´t affect in any way and the appearance of characters from an unknown origin.

In this part the Earth faces once again the threats and alien invasions, but not only that, also to the ideals of those who think that they can change the world. For which, the union from the ones that want to fight against those threats will be primordial.

For many motives, a lot of the characters are caught in different situations: those that have to fight the alien menace, the ones that must hide their true identity, those who take advantage from the invasion and take it as a sign to perform their own plans, and the ones that must decide if they join the fight or ignore it and live their lives.

This book is deeply influenced by greed, revenge, new experiences, good and bad influences, fear, heroic acts, and lies, and specially the team work. 

In my opinion, this is a story that has an exciting start, but maybe over the course of the reading it starts to get bored a little, getting back at the half of the book to regain the impulse from the beginning.

If I compare “Ases High” with the first book, it loses the initial strength (thing that happens, especially when the first book has so many characters and stories) because it focuses more in certain characters, leaving aside those that have a “general” participation in the acts.

This is also why it generates a big expectation over the third book because we get to know better the story from the main characters in this saga.

Anyway, even thou I think the book doesn´t have the impact from the first one, so many things happen that change the course in the life of the main characters (both those who appear in the first book as those that we meet in this book) producing an incredible turn and generating a lot of expectations in the next book.

Authors:  George R. R. Martin, Lewis Shiner, Walter Jon Williams, Roger Zelazny, Walton Simons, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Victor Milán, Pat Cadigan, John J. Miller.