High Stakes (Wild Cards #23) by George R.R. Martin, Melinda M. Snodgrass

High Stakes is so full of interesting and delicious horror that I am willing to forgive the bland and boring setup in the previous Wild Cards book, Lowball. A mosaic book like many others in the series, where different characters are written by different authors, it describes the coming of a supernatural horror that can change reality itself. People (normal, joker and ace alike) get turned physically and psychologically into rage filled monsters that want to eat babies and kill everything for the glory of their dark god. Even if some sections were reminiscent of the bore in Lowball, with love between people and worry and relationship issues, the bigger problem of the end of the world took precedence and made this into one of the best books in the series.

In many ways it reminded me of the early Wild Card books, when the virus was still a thing of awe and fascination, horror and fear, but with even more oomph. I think this particular volume washes the sins of many of the recent others that kind of forgot what the Wild Card was all about. I do hope this becomes a trend and the next books are at the same level.