A WILD CARDS Timeline Wild Cards I - Wild Cards The virus and Tachyon arrive on Earth. The story of Jetboy's failure and the Four Aces destruction. The Sleeper, Turtle, Fortunato and Puppetman all make their appearances. Mark Meadows fights the establishment as the Radical with the Lizard King in 1970. Book ends in the late 70s with Gregg Hartmann as a senator. Looks at the 50s and the HUAC period with the Four Aces, the 60s summer of love, Vietnam in the 70s. JJS starts and Daniel Brennan arrives in New York City. Wild Cards II - Aces High The year is 1979 at the famous restaurant. The wild cards are the only ones that can save the Earth from the invasion of the alien Swarm, both aces and jokers alike. The Astronomer and his Egyptian Masons and other henchmen summon the Swarm by mistake. It is a mass-mind entity and can bud off parts off itself. The wild cards and military fight it across the country. Demise, Kid Dinosaur, Chrysalis and Jube appear in this one. Modular Man also fights the Swarm, and finally the wild cards take the fight to it, with the help of Brennan. Wild Cards III - Jokers Wild The year is 1986, September 15th is the 40th anniversary of Wild Card Day. The Astronomer is waiting for his chance to strike and destroy. He attacks Aces High and Fortunato leads the return attack on the Cloisters. Bagabond, Sewer Jack and Fatman turn up here. Wild Cards IV - Aces Abroad The World Health Organisation sponsors a junket tour on a jumbo called The Stacked Deck to report on conditions for the wild card victims around the world. The book starts on Thursday November 27th, 1986. The fact finding tour includes Xavier Desmond, Dorian Wilde, Chrysalis, Father Squid, Howard Mueller, Asta Lenser, Peregrine, Doctor Tachyon, Jack Braun, Hiram Worcester, Mordecai Jones, Sara Morgenstern and Digger Downs. It travels through Syria, Haiti, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, Israel, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Russia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Rumania, Germany, England, France. Cordelia also meets Wyungare in the Dreamtime apart from the WHO tour. The book ends around May 1987. Wild Cards V - Down and Dirty Rival gangs are fighting for the city. Rosemary Muldoon, a district attorney, is exposed as being a mafia head. The events take place from October 1986 to April 1987. Lots of action with the Shadow Fist Society, the mafia, Yeoman. Cordelia Chaisson organises an AIDS/Wild Card benefit at the Funhouse via Global Fun and Games with U2, Springsteen, and the return of C.C. Rider and Buddy Holley. People are working on exposing Hartmann and Ti Malice, a twisted joker with mind control powers. Wild Cards VI - Ace In the Hole It is 1988, a presidential election year. Gregg Hartmann is the leading Democratic candidate, and Jack Braun is working for him. Can Puppetman be stopped before he becomes the next president of the US? Can whoever stops him survive being branded a traitor to the wild cards, as Hartmann is the only pro wild card candidate? Mackie Messer is also on the prowl, and Hartmann also has fundamentalist preacher Leo Barnett to contend with, along with Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis. Jack, Tachyon, Blaise, Jay Ackroyd, and George, Tachyon's Russian spymaster must try to stop him. Wild Cards VII - Dead Man's Hand In the week of July 18, 1988, to July 25, 1988 Daniel Brennan must take down his arch enemy General Kien Phuc and his Shadow Fist organisation. He must also protect his lover Jennifer Malloy, the ace known as Wraith, in the process. Complicating matters is the horrible murder of Chrysalis by an ace, and Jay Ackroyd and Brennan also have to discover what went on there. Wild Cards VIII - One Eyed Jacks There is a new and terrifying menace for New York and the wild cards to face, the jumpers. They have the ability to switch bodies with people, or to switch people into other bodies. How can they stop this? Jerry Strauss decides that St. John Latham needsto be stopped, with help from Veronica. Wild Cards IX - Jokertown Shuffle There will be no new jumpers, but there are many still around. A new factor is in town, a boy named Bloat has constructed his own fantasy land on Ellis Island, calling it a Joker haven, and naming it the Rox. A mental barrier is constructed by Bloat to keep out unwanted people. He is building an army of aces, jokers, and jumpers to help him. Even Dr. Tachyon, the supreme mentat, is jumped, feared dead. After the jumper leader is dead, Blaise takes over, becoming more and more psychotic, combining his inherited Takisian abilities with his jumper powers to rampage through New York City. The first assault on the Rox is repulsed. Wild Cards X - Double Solitaire Blaise steals Tachyon's ship Baby using Kelly in Tachyon's body. Tachyon has to find a way to escape from the Rox and catch Blaise. How? He has no spaceship, and Blaise has headed for Takis. Fortunato helps him, pregnant and in a teenage girls's body, to find a Network spaceship to come and pick him up. Tachyon must deal with his sex change, his pregnancy, the return of his cousin Zabb and Blaise. Blaise brings demagoguery to Takis and engulfs the planet in war, only Tachyon's Ilkazam house can stop him, along with the help of Mark Meadows and Jay Ackroyd. Wild Cards XI - Dealer's Choice The final days of the Rox. General Frank Zappa gets serious with military muscle and an ace task force to attack the Rox, including the Turtle, Mistral, and Cyclone. The books begins on Friday morning, September 21, 1990, and ends on Sunday, September 23, 1990 Wyungare and a group of shamans must also try and stop Bloat tearing apart reality with the increasing strength of his reality-altering powers. Meanwhile George Battle leads a covert team through the caverns under the Rox. Wild Cards XII - Turn of the Cards The last volume in the first series revolves around J.R. Belew and Mark Meadows, who is a fugitive from the law, being chased by the FBI, CIA, and DEA. Belew, a shadow operative, hatches a plan after the Joker Brigade is shafted. Moonchild can start a revolution, establishing a wild card homeland in Vietnam. The book is set in 1991. New Cycle Book I - Card Sharks The book starts on September 16, 1993. Black Queen Night. An arsonist attacks the Church of Jesus Christ Joker, burning it down. Rookie FBI agent Hannah Davis is part of the investigating team. What she discovers is a lot more horrifying than one fire. There is a whole conspiracy out there, run by rich and powerful men, to destory all the wild cards in the world once and for all. The Card Sharks are at work, and have been for decades. Clara van Renssaeler is working on the Black Trump virus, to defeat the wild card virus, killing those that possess it. Hannah discovers more and more instances of wild cards being killed, genocide committed in South America and Africa. With the help of Quasiman, she must try and stop it. She decides to turn to Gregg Hartmann, who is no longer Puppetman. Book II - Marked Cards This book picks up after the last one finishes. The wild cards are fighting back with the media to expose people like Pan Rudo and Etienne Faneuil. However, Croyd Crenson and Black Shadow, imprisoned by the Card Sharks in order to exterminate them, have a plan that involves a bit more than just a media blitz against the Card Sharks. Hannah uncovers more of the conspiracy, and more of the players. Clara van Renssaeler falls in love with a joker and realises she must destroy her virus. Will her Card Shark compatriots be able to stop her? Book III - Title is Black Trump, I have been told. Due out in June/July 1995 after they had problems with Baen books over whether to split this large novel into one or two parts. I believe they are looking for another publisher, but it is good news that the project is still going, as many stories remain such as Tachyon's wild card latency, the Card Shark, the vials of early Black Trump virus, etc.