Wild Cards IX: Jokertown Shuffle - Softcover

Wild Cards Trust

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250168112 ISBN 13: 9781250168115

Verlag: Tor Trade, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards classic adventure, in trade paperback for the first time: a dangerous superpowered gang rises to power and threatens the citizens of New York City

Bloat, the boy-governor of the Rox, wanted to make Ellis Island a safe haven for Jokers, and made a choice to recruit the Jumpers, superpowered teen outcasts who could steal a man's body in the blink of an eye.

But under the leadership of Dr. Tachyon's psychotic grandson, the Jumpers grow more vicious and uncontrollable every day, becoming the greatest threat the Wild Cards have ever faced....

Edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin, Jokertown Shuffle features the writing talents of Walton Simons, Chris Claremont, Lewis Shiner, William F. Wu, Victor Milan, Stephen Leigh, Melinda M. Snodgrass, and John Jos. Miller, along with previously unpublished stories from Carrie Vaughn and Cherie Priest.

The Wild Cards Universe
The Original Triad
#1 Wild Cards
#2 Aces High
#3 Jokers Wild

The Puppetman Quartet
#4: Aces Abroad
#5: Down and Dirty
#6: Ace in the Hole
#7: Dead Man's Hand

The Rox Triad
#8: One-Eyed Jacks
#9: Jokertown Shuffle
#10: Dealer's Choice

#11: Double Solitaire
#12: Turn of the Cards

The Card Sharks Triad
#13: Card Sharks
#14: Marked Cards
#15: Black Trump

#16: Deuces Down
#17: Death Draws Five

The Committee Triad
#18: Inside Straight
#19: Busted Flush
#20: Suicide Kings

The Fort Freak Triad
#21: Fort Freak
#22: Lowball
#23: High Stakes

The American Triad
#24: Mississippi Roll
#25: Low Chicago
#26: Texas Hold 'Em

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

The Wild Cards Trust is the creator of the Wild Cards series.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Wild Cards IX: Jokertown Shuffle

By George R. R. Martin

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 1991 George R. R. Martin and the Wild Cards Trust
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-250-16811-5

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Notice, 
Dedication, 
The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat, 
And Hope to Die, 
The Unintended, 
The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat, 
Lovers, 
The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat, 
Lovers, 
The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat, 
Madman Across the Water, 
The Unintended, 
Madman Across the Water, 
Unraveling, 
The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat, 
Lovers, 
The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat, 
While Night's Black Agents to Their Preys Do Rouse, 
The Unintended, 
While Night's Black Agents to Their Preys Do Rouse, 
The Unintended, 
The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat, 
Riders, 
Nobody Does It Alone, 
The Temptation of Hieronymous Bloat, 
Lovers, 
The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat, 
While Night's Black Agents to Their Preys Do Rouse, 
Lovers, 
The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat, 
Lovers, 
The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat, 
Excerpt: Inside Straight, 
The Wild Cards Universe, 
About the Editor, 
Copyright Acknowledgments, 
Copyright, 

CHAPTER 1

The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat

by Stephen Leigh

I

I DON'T KNOW WHY I'm starting this or what I'm going to do with it or just who it is I'm talking to. I guess ... I guess the reason is that I want someone to remember what happened here when it's over. Lately I've been thinking that the Rox won't last long.

It can't; THEY won't let it.

Do I need to explain who "THEY" is? I didn't think so. I can tell you this, man — whoever you are — if you need to ask, then you ain't a joker, are you?

There's one question to answer, I suppose. No one ever really asks me directly, but I always hear it, like a little tinkling chime in the clamor of thoughts. I hear it whenever someone looks at me or even thinks about me: What's it like to be so fucking gross? What's it like to be a head and shoulders sitting like a wart on a body that takes up an acre of ground and feeds on sewage?

What's it like? God ...

Okay. Let me try.

Find a room. A huge, empty space. Don't make it too goddamn comfortable — be certain that the floor's cracked and damp, the air's too cold or too hot, the overall atmosphere's tottering on the edge of gloom.

Then find a chair. A hard and unyielding and splintery one that makes you want to get up and walk around after sitting in it for even a few minutes. Bolt it to the floor in the middle of your room.

Get five hundred television sets. Bank them all around the chair, a Great Wall of blank screens. Now wire each of the sets to a different channel, turn up the sound, and switch on every one of the mothers.

Sit buck naked in your splintery chair in the middle of that ugly room before all the televisions. Have someone chain you to that nasty chair, and then stack a couple hundred lead ingots in your lap. Make sure the binding's tight so you can't move, can't scratch yourself, can't hold your hands up to your ears to blot out that terrible din, so you're utterly dependent on others to feed you or clean you or talk to you.

Hey, now you're beginning to feel like Bloat. Now you have some idea of what it's like.

I hear you. (I always hear you.) C'mon, you're saying. You have the ability to read minds. Ain't that a gift, a little kiss from the wild card deck?

Okay, I can read your mind. I have Bloat's Wall, which keeps the nats and aces away from the Rox unless they really want to be here. I have my own army of jokers who protect me and care for me.

I make the Rox possible. I'm the governor. I have power. There's no Rox without me. Bliss, right?

Yeah? Well, that's bullshit. Crap. A load of bloatblack.

You think I really rule this place? You gotta be kidding. Look, I used to play D&D. Most of the time, I ran a character who controlled a little kingdom in the scenario our Dungeon Master had dreamed up. Y'know what? That fantasy's about as real as the "kingdom" I have here.

You can't hear what they're thinking when they talk to me: Prime, Blaise, Molly, K.C., the other jumpers. Even the jokers, even the ones the wild card cursed. "God, I'm glad I'm not like him" or "I don't care how much he knows or what kind of powers he has, he's just a fuckin' kid. ..."

I know. I know what they think of me. I know what they think of the Rox too. My Rox is a convenient refuge, but if Ellis Island sank into New York Bay tomorrow, they'd find another place. The jumpers would melt into the city's back alleys; the jokers ... the jokers would do what jokers have always done: Shrug their shoulders — if they got 'em — and head for Jokertown.

So just what am I going to do? Threaten to take my basketball and go home, huh? You think I'm likely to go anywhere at all? Man, I was lucky I managed to get here three years ago when I was only the size of a school bus. Now ... hell, the blue whale's no longer the world's biggest mammal. I'm bigger than a whole pod of fucking whales.

What's it like?

You can't visualize Bloat. You can't empathize with me. It's not possible.

Every goddamn joker's hell is individual and private. So just leave it that way.

* * *

I hate being judge and jury. I even know why.

My parents were weak-willed. Hey, sure ... most kids blame it on their folks.

But why not? Mine were spineless, accommodating people who let the neighbors, store clerks, and anyone in a position of authority push them around. They were two nice people who would gladly change their opinions and back down at any hint of opposition. They were two charming people, really, who let the neighborhood scum intimidate and harass their son, the high school poet; their son, the "oh, what a talented artist"; their son, the-one-with-his-head-in-the-comic-books.

They kept telling me (when I came home with bloody noses and black eyes and torn clothes): "Well, if they're bothering you, why didn't you just walk away? Maybe it's something you're doing. Concentrate on your drawing or your writing or your schoolwork, Teddy. Play that strange fantasy dice game of yours or read a comic book. When you grow up a little, they'll stop."

They were two compassionate people who, when Ted slammed into puberty by turning into a slug the size of a subway car, didn't just abandon me. No. First they called the Jokertown Clinic, and then they disappeared.

Gone. Vanished.

Well, Mom and Dad, Teddy sure as hell grew up, didn't he? I wish I were less your son now, because just getting big didn't help and I'm still carrying all your emotional baggage with me.

So how do I do what I want to do? How do you find a way to mix power with a little compassion? How do you make the other players on the stage of the Rox see that they're too damn shortsighted and selfish? How do you stay an idealist in a world of greedy pragmatists?

They brought in a case for me to judge today. "The gov's court," they call it, mockingly. Still, they bring in these cases because I insist on it. Okay, let's be honest — the usual "justice" on the Rox is violent and final. Actually, they come only when the antagonists aren't already dead or maimed.

I knew who...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Tor Trade
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1250168112
• ISBN 13: 9781250168115
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 511
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland