I was introduced to the story telling skills of George R. R. Martin in 1986 with the first anthology of stories in the shared world known as Wild Cards, five years before Martin released Game of Thrones as the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series.. There are many authors in this series from George R. R. Martin to Victor Milan, Melinda Snodgrass, Walter John Williams, John Jos. Miller, Roger Zelazny,… well, the list is so long suffice it to say it’s some of the best Sci-Fi authors around.
The Wild Cards Consortium started with some Albuquerque, New Mexico writers having a go at a Role Playing Game called Superworld. Martin himself created the world and game-mastered the setting. This led to stories and an entire shared world system being created by these talented writers.
The series of books start in 1946 where history diverges on September 15, and go to modern days with the 23rd book in the series, High Stakes, being set for release on August 30, so to say there’s a lot of material here for a television series is an understatement.
Martin announced Saturday on his Not-A-Blog that UPN has picked up the series for television. Melinda Snodgrass (Star Trek TNG: Measure of a Man and many more credits) will be set as an executive producer for the show. She will do an admirable job and was the writer who created many of the characters in the shared world setting as well as served as the co-editor with George R. R. Martin.
Martin’s own synopsis of the series is:
The shared world of the Wild Cards diverged from our own on September 15, 1946 when an alien virus was released in the skies over Manhattan, and spread across an unsuspecting Earth. Of those infected, 90% died horribly, drawing the black queen, 9% were twisted and deformed into jokers, while a lucky 1% became blessed with extraordinary and unpredictable powers and became aces. The world was never the same.
Martin served as the primary editor of the 22 existing anthologies and mosaic novels. The pattern has been a story arc of three books, the first two books being anthologies of short stories with an overriding plot line with the third book being a true mosaic novel with Martin and Snodgrass editing the words of many writers into a single novel.
David Barnett of The Guardian says, “George RR Martin's Wild Cards TV show is a safe bet for success.”
So if you, like me, LOVED the HBO Series, Game of Thrones, I’m sure you will like Wild Cards when it comes to television.