I have explained in the past that I am not a massive fan of short story collections but there is an exception to every rule. In my opinion, The Wild Cards novels are the best ongoing series of short stories available today. When I heard that Tor Books was re-releasing the first novel I felt compelled to immediately start re-reading my old copy. How best to describe the concept of Wild Cards? The quick answer would be – imagine an alternative Earth where an alien virus has been released and as a result super-powered humans exist openly in society. That description doesn’t do the novels justice, as the Wild Cards cannon is so much more than that. At the end of World War II, as the world enters the atomic age, an alien virus is released over the streets of Manhattan. Everyone is in the area is affected by the virus and will suffer one of three seemingly random possible outcomes – known as wild cards. Firstly, there is the ‘Black Queen’ a painful and unpleasant death. Another possibility is becoming a ‘Joker’ meaning that the victim is mutated and disfigured. The final possibility is to pull an ‘Ace’ –…