edited by George R.R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass
Format: Hardcover, 361 pages
Publisher: Tor
Cover Art: Michael Komarck
Release Date: November 4, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0765331953
Like the previous book in the Wild Cards series, Fort Freak,
Lowball focuses on the cops and the poor, deformed residents of Jokertown. In this book, jokers are going missing and except
for a young cop looking to prove himself, the authorities are unwilling to
investigate. This means that the jokers
and other wild cards take matters into their own hands. The deeper they get, the higher the stakes
get and the seedier the search becomes.
Like the previous books in this long-running series, the
stars are the characters: the aces and jokers drastically changed by the Wild
Card virus. Characterization and
interaction are both mostly good. Most
of the stories are good, though like Fort Freak I didn’t care for all the
contributing authors. Cassutt’s writing
has just never worked for me. And in Mohanraj’s
story, a character makes a rather stupid decision that felt like it was done
purely for drama.
Unfortunately, there also seemed to be an editing
problem. While some of the stories are
good, the whole was less than the sum of its parts. Stories by Vaughn and Tregillis were well
written, but they featured characters from the previous series Committee “triad”
and it felt like they were only included in order to carry the plot
forward.
The plot was one of the weakest parts of the book. It took a little while to get going and felt
a bit like a B-movie/TV story. It’s also
a bit thin and while it mostly gets resolved by the end of the book, the reader
suddenly gets a strange cliffhanger ending.
So all in all, Lowball is a decent Wild Cards book, but not
a very satisfying one. It has good
characters and interactions; however, the B-movie/TV plot feels a bit
stretched. And while some of the stories
are good, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
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