Wild Cards. 23, High Stakes

Locations
Call Number: Science Fiction / High stakes
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Science Fiction / High stakes	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Officer Francis, vigilante joker "The Infamous Black Tongue," and ace thief Tesseract are forced by a cold-blooded Baba Yaga into an illegal fight ring as part of her effort to placate a vicious monster from another dimension.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Fiction Profile
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

So so conclusion submitted by eknapp on September 23, 2016, 10:07am Conclusion of the Fort Freak/joker fight ring triad. The fight ring apparently served to appease and placate a Lovecraftian dark god, and after the ring gets busted up a horrible black madness makes its way into the world and spreads out from Talas. The Committee goes in to fight the monsters and figure out what’s what but the madness takes hold and we’re treated to some pretty black stuff: friends murdering each other, grotesque body transformations, cannibalism. It’s almost (not quite) as grim as the Astronomer storyline from early in the series.

High Stakes gets off on the wrong foot, dumping me into the middle of a plot that I can't recall having read the last book a year or two ago. I know it’s hard to do gracefully but some kind of recap would have been helpful. It recovers to some extent, and the horror aspects are certainly effective enough. But ultimately it feels both unfinished and fairly predictable. It’s not giving anything away to say that the world is saved at the last minute, at some cost to our noble heroes.

A note to the writers: Jokertown needs more love and attention. Fort Freak was easily the high point of the triad.

POV characters:
Bubbles
Detective Francis Black
Midnight Angel
Babel
Infamous Black Tongue
Mollie

Also appearing: Bugsy, Carnifex, Tinker, Lohengrin, Hoodoo Mama, Wally, Olena, Vasel, Baba Yaga, Adesina, Earth Witch.