My search for interesting short stories (and a quick sample of authors who are new to me) continues… I have recently discovered the dedicated section over at Tor.com, and found many interesting offerings. This week’s choice is for:
THE ATONEMENT TANGO by Stephen Leigh
This story is part of the WILD CARDS series, a collection of tales and novels set in an alternate reality, one where shortly after the end of WWII an alien virus was released in the atmosphere: of all those affected who did not die outright, some transformed into Aces – people with superhuman powers – and other into Jokers, people with weird abilities and/or equally weird body modifications, not a few of these taking the victims far away from the human norm.
Joker Plague is a band of bizarre, music-loving Jokers: Michael, or Drummer Boy, with tympanic membranes across his torso and endowed with six arms; Bottom, the donkey-headed guitarist; keyboard player S’Live, who looks like a floating balloon; and the Voice, the invisible vocalist. They are playing in front of a less-than-enthusiastic audience, since their glory days are long gone and the new songs don’t encounter the public’s favor, but still they care about music and what it can give them. Suddenly a series of explosions tears through the band and those nearest the podium, and once Drummer Boy Michael wakes up in a hospital, his drum membranes are lacerated, both his legs are fractured and one of his arms gone; what’s worse, he learns that only he and Bottom survived, while several bystanders were killed alongside the rest of the band. Once he’s one the road to recovery, Drummer Boy launches in the search for the bomber, someone who clearly holds a great deal of hate for the Jokers…
What’s fascinating in this story – apart from the concept of the virus itself and the way it affected humanity – is the wide, sometimes terrifying variety of the Jokers, and the way they try to integrate their diversity in the midst of society – a society that after what seems a long time after the initial incident, still looks on them with scorn, if not outright hate. In the city where Michael lives – and probably in every city in the world – there is an enclave called Jokertown, with its own police precinct and different venues catering to the Jokers: it’s not difficult to think of the word “ghetto” while witnessing the segregation between the “nats” (those that remained unchanged) and the mutated individuals, and even people with means, like Michael, still linger at the margins of society.
Drummer Boy’s search for the person responsible for the attack becomes therefore a tour into this reality, with its many shadows and a very few rays of light, and the truth about the concert bombing reveals a quite unexpected – and disheartening – side of the situation. Still, this short story piqued my curiosity about this series and I will certainly love to know more, not so much about the Aces (after all there is an overabundance of super-heroes these days) but rather about the Jokers and their world.
My Rating:
This alien virus seems most interesting! Got me thinking about superpowers…what would you like yours to be (if you were to have one)?
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Mmmm…. Good question!
Maybe being able to read two books at a time? 🙂 It would come in quite handy!
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Oh my gosh! Yes! Or, being able to place your hand on a book and soak up the information whilst still getting that pleasurable ‘reading experience’. I always feel like there’s just way too many books and not enough years to get through all that goodness 😀
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All too true! (and sadly so…)
But I like your idea of “contact reading”: now all we need is a friendly mutation… 😀
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Wow, this one sounds totally wild! I don’t know, anytime I hear “Joker” used to describe anything, it just gives me these creepy, bizarre vibes. It sounds like these people with weird abilities and body mods apply 🙂
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I’ve seen there is a *huge* list of books in this series and although I’d love to know more…. I don’t know where to start! Ah, what a dilemma… 😀
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Wow – this one does sound, well, wild! And, yes, sign me up for the reading two books at once as my super ability.
Lynn 😀
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That would be just great, indeed! 😀
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I’ve not read any of the Wild Card stories yet!
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I saw on the Tor site they are planning a re-read. If nothing else it will help me understand where to start with the series… 🙂
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I’ve never read any of the Wild Cards stuff, although I’ve been curious. Certainly sounds interesting! The Joker concept has a lot of potential.
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Yes, the permutations are almost infinite. This could be a series one can get lost in – happily so 🙂
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I’ve also recently found Tor’s short story corner. It’s brilliant! Have you read The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling
by Ted Chiang? It was brilliant, I truly loved it.
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Oh, thank you for the advice! I will look that story up as soon as possible! 🙂
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I had never heard of this universe! It sounds really cool! Do you think you’ll pick up more in the series, perhaps the ones about the Jokers?
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I would love to read a full novel (or two, or three…) and I’m going to take a look at the Tor re-read section to understand where I should start. There are *some* books in this series! 🙂
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No kidding, there are tons 😵 So it seems like a great series to fall in love with! I’m so glad you’re enjoying them so much. I hope you love the full-length stories just as much!! 🙂
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I have book 1 in my reading queue, and I’m very curious to see how it goes: from what I understand, each book is a collection of individual stories, so it will be like reading shorter works but all of them will be focused on a single theme. And GRR Martin is the editor so I’m certain that quality will not be lacking 🙂
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Oh, now that is interesting! I didn’t realize they were all short stories. But now that I look at the Goodreads…there are tons of authors on book 1, haha. That’s a really interesting concept. I can’t wait to hear what you think of them! If you say they’re worth checking out, I might try them because I like sff shorts, too 🙂
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