Low Chicago

Review ebook Low Chicago

This is the 25th volume of the Wild Cards series, and it’s still fresh and fun and vibrant. In fact, this one struck me as being a bit lighter and more fun than some of the other more recent books. It’s pretty much unconnected from any existing narrative from previous volumes, so it would be possible to enjoy this one without being familiar with any of the others. It’s the story of a card game (naturally) gone awry, with the players being scattered through time by Croyd Crenson’s (Roger Zelazny’ This is the 25th volume of the Wild Cards series, and it’s still fresh and fun and vibrant. In fact, this one struck me as being a bit lighter and more fun than some of the other more recent books. It’s pretty much unconnected from any existing narrative from previous volumes, so it would be possible to enjoy this one without being familiar with any of the others. It’s the story of a card game (naturally) gone awry, with the players being scattered through time by Croyd Crenson’s (Roger Zelazny’s Sleeper from the very beginning of the series) latest ability. Croyd teams with Nighthawk to gather them back together, thus preserving the timeline from The Butterfly Effect proposed in the famous story by Heinlein… or was it Asimov… the delightful last line of this book solves the mystery. All of the castaways end up in historical Chicago settings, and we visit the fire, the World’s Fair, the Democratic Convention of 1968, etc. I particularly enjoyed Paul Cornell’s dinosaur story, the overall framing pieces by John Jos. Miller, and the 1968 story by Melinda Snodgrass. I’ll admit that my initial reaction to the addition of time travel to the Wild Cards universe was that it was an unnecessary complication (like when they added the holodeck to the Enterprise), but it seems to be a one-time thing and it worked out to be an entertaining piece of the puzzle. (Twenty-five volumes… goodness, where does the time go?) …more