Low Chicago

Low Chicago A Wild Cards Novel by George R. R. Martin Macmillan-Tor/Forge Tor Books Sci Fi & Fantasy Pub Date 12 Jun 2018

Review

Low Chicago is a collection of interrelated wild card stories. It begins with a high stakes card game that descends into a Wild Card firefight. Players and their companions, Wild Cards and Jokers alike are transported to different times in the past. But as a result, a time storm develops making it necessary for the remaining pair of Wild Cards to travel back to the past and prevent history from changing too much. As a premise it has a lot of potential. The authors do a decent job of weaving Wild Card history with US history, and the stories are competently written, but somehow I found the end result lacking. The characters are shallow, making it difficult to care what happens to them. That is the biggest weakness of this anthology. I wasn’t given much reason to care one way or another.

Low Chicago trades upon George R R Martin’s fame. His name alone will attract readers. I don’t think Low Chicago would be nearly as successful if he wasn’t associated with the project. The stories in Low Chicago are decent if unexceptional, and the anthology is one way of getting Martin’s name associated with the upcoming tv series.

3 / 5

I received a copy of Low Chicago from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

— Crittermom

Description

In Low Chicago, a gang of criminals scattered throughout the past threaten the stability of the world in George R. R. Martin's latest Wild Cards adventure. The stakes were already high enough at Giovanni Galante’s poker table that night in Chicago. Poker. Dealer’s choice. Seven players. A million-dollar cash buy-in. But after a superpowered mishap, the most high-profile criminals in the city are scattered throughout the past and their schemes across time threaten the stability of the world. Perfect for current fans and new readers alike, Low Chicago is an all-new time travel adventure that highlights the criminal underworld of 1920s Chicago, featuring a fresh cast of characters from the Wild Cards universe. Co-edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass (screenwriter, Star Trek), Low Chicago features the writing talents of Saladin Ahmed (author of the bestselling comic Black Bolt), Paul Cornell (screenwriter, Doctor Who), Marko Kloos (author of the bestselling Frontlines series), John Jos. Miller, Mary Anne Mohanraj (Bodies in Motion, The Stars Change), Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and Theodore Sturgeon Award finalist Christopher Rowe, Kevin Andrew Murphy, and Melinda M. Snodgrass. “Martin has assembled an impressive array of writers. . . . Progressing through the decades, Wild Cards keeps its momentum.”—Locus Now in development for TV: Rights to develop Wild Cards have been acquired by Universal Cable Productions, the team behind The Magicians and Mr. Robot, with the co-editor of Wild Cards, Melinda Snodgrass, as executive producer.