Turn of the Cards by Victor Milan

Let me start off by saying that the wild card series has a way of endearing itself to its readers considering the volume and extent to which the series has grown. Of course, the finesse of workmanship that goes with the series captivates one in further picking up the next book in the series, and that is how, I find myself writing a review for the series in this twelfth book.

The continuity by which the series' has been riddled with can be said to be one its strength and yet it too is the source of a waterloo for the series. What happens when a reader gets enthralled with a series is that we find a connection with the characters, we developed an inkling to these characters' stories and we expect a closure if not a continuation on the foundations we have been fed. We look, or rather we crave for further developments for personalities and characters we have inevitably labelled 'favorite/s' or more pretentiously identified with 'me'... or is ambitiously seen as what 'I' 'you' or 'me' would like to be. We have made it personal for this is the only process whereby one appreciates the written work. And this is precisely the reason why Turn of the Wild Cards garnered a three-star rating, or something lower if not for the Capt. Trips.

Mistral inhere for example is a misnomer. From the conclusion of the superbly done arc that was the jumper-rox-arc, she just suddenly appears pursuing Capt. Trips. Where a concise and substantial caveat could have sufficed, nothing was offered. How the hell did she get back to her body? And what of his father, Cyclone, feared dead in the previous arc. And it begs to be emphasize that in the succeeding books in the series, much of the discontinuity escalates into full blown disjointed story arc presentations, presumably (and i do hope i do stand to be corrected) due to the transfer of the right to create and publish the succeeding books to several publishing companies like TOR and IBooks.

For a person who wants to find the same continuity I am looking for, there's something to look forward to in the seventeenth book of the series Death Draws Five.