An original novel set in the widely popular Wild Cards world created by science fiction scion George R.R. Martin. Edited by Hugo award winning and New York times bestselling author, George R.R. Martin. It's really quite simple. Mr. Nobody wants to do his job. The Midnight Angel wants to serve her Lord. Billy Ray, dying from boredom, wants some action. John Nighthawk wants to uncover the awful secret behind his mysterious power. Fortunato wants to rescue his son from the clutches of a cryptic Vatican office. John Fortune just wants to catch Siegfried and Ralph's famous Vegas review. The problem is that all roads, whether they start in Turin, Italy, Las Vegas, Hokkaido, Japan, Jokertown, Snake Hill, the Short Cut, or Yazoo City, Mississippi, lead to Leo Barnett's Peaceable Kingdon where the difference between the Apocalypse and Peace on Earth is as thin as a razor's edge and where Death himself awaits the final terrible turn of the card. Wild Cards: Death Draws Five is an original novel set in this shared world utilizing characters from other Wild Card adventures. John J. Miller Splitting his life between the Empire State and The Land of Enchantment, John J. Miller currently resides in Albuquerque, NM, with his wife Gail, five cats, two dogs, two goldfish, and too many books to count, approximately ten of which he's written. He's contemplating getting more goldfish, and, probably, books. George R. R. Martin was born in 1948 in Bayonne, NJ. Four-time winner of the Hugo Award, two-time winner of the Nebula and editor of over two dozen novels and anthologies, and the writer of numerous short stories. His New York Times bestselling novel, A Storm of Swords (the third volume in his epicfantasy series "A Song of Ice and Fire" (was published in 2000. Martin lives in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

An anthology of stories

“Martin has assembled an impressive array of writers… Progressing through the decades, Wild Cards keeps its momentum to the end… I’m looking forward to the next episodes in this saga of mutant Americana.” – Locus

“Well written and suspenseful and a good read… The authors had a lot of fun rewriting recent American history.” – Aboriginal Science Fiction

“Commendable writing… a zany premise… narrated with rueful humor and intelligence.” – Publishers Weekly

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The first fifteen volumes of the Wild Cards series concerned themselves primarily with aces (those given superhuman powers by the Wild Cards virus) and jokers (those whom the virus transformed into freaks and monsters). But in this all-new collection of Wild Cards stories, Deuces Down will focus on some characters less often in the spotlight: the deuces. In Wild Card slang, a deuce is an ace whose superpower is tiny, trivial, sometimes silly.

As with the other books in the series, Deuces Down is set in an alternate, shared-world universe. It's here that you'll find the never-before-told tales of the exciting 1969 World Series between the Baltimore Orioles and the Brooklyn Dodgers; the first moon landing, when the whole world wasn't watching; the Great New York City Blackout of 1977; and Grace Kelly's mysterious disappearance during the filming of The French Lieutenant's Woman.