Inside Straight

Good to see the Wild Cards books back on form again, after a fairly long hiatus. This new volume brings the world fully into the 21st century (not, of course, the first volume to do that, but perhaps the first where it's truly obvious), with reality TV shows and Middle Eastern conflicts both taking a rather topical share of the centre stage.

Although the previous book. Death Draws Five, introduces one of the key characters in this one, for the most part its a metaphorical passing of the baton to a new generation of aces, and there's a whole slew of new characters in here, who presumably will be the focus of the new two books in the series as well. Mostly, they are interesting and well-rounded, although there's a few we still need to see more fleshed out (Curveball, for example). Also somewhat amusing to see a character from the original RPG campaign the books are based on, but that George RR Martin had, back in the '90s, described as too silly to make it into the novels, now actually making his debut. As a minor character, to be sure, but not an entirely incidental one.

Oddly, the cover blurb, at least of my edition, actually seems to describe the later books in the series, and has nothing to do with this one. Even though it, in a way, a follow-on to Death Draws Five, it's also a pretty good entry point into the series, with all but one of the viewpoint characters being new, and the plot not heavily relying on the back-story.