Yes!!! You have read the title correctly, the 7th book of Aces’s High Joker’s Wild series is here! For those that don’t know why we are so excited and surprised by this book coming to Scribble’s shores, let me tell you that this series is the most awarded book series in our site, with 4 awards including “Book of the year”, “Cyberpunk book of the year”, “LGBTQ book of the year”, “Best plot & Characters”, all in one year, with an average of 9.4/10 per book. So do not, and I repeat, do not underestimate these books in any way. Worth the read, and re-read. Amazing series
Book 6 ended with a massive victory for the Wildcards, the Gammas, and too many loose ends and bruised ego’s from the Corporations, and we saw a rising wave of mercenaries being hired to fight the revolution, and, rumors of new bioweapons being developed. As we know…. The title of the book actually hints a lot about the book’s plot, or major events, and “Odds Against” doesn’t sound good, at all, and the last time we had a bad-sounding title “Draw Dead” we had… Well… A lot of dead people, so yeah….. prepare for the worst, because if you are new here, let me tell you that these writers do not pull punches.
Ok! Imagine, Kevin, the most wanted man on almost every state, doing grid runs, when… the corporations somehow advanced their tech in order to track him, now, add that, to a sick Kevin with almost what’s pneumonia, trying to escape. Let me tell you, the authors did take time to work on the thriller muscles, holy crap! Yeah, talk about great starts ugh? Hahahahaaahahah
Consistency is hard, but the authors managed to keep the quirks of the characters throughout 7 books, and that is impressive.
One thing! This book is not much about the Wildcards per se, and don’t worry, you will have a lot of Wildcards action here, yes, but it doesn’t revolve as much around the base. This part of the series will be more wholesome, meaning, it will focus on the integration of the many parts of the revolutionary groups, and the level of command of the Dusters and organizational aspects of it, how they interact, what they are doing, what their plans are forming into, you will get a LOT more of the Higher Commands, such as Commander Ouray, Magnum, and other new characters that pull lots of strings. It’s cool, and new, and we get to understand a lot of how the Commanders think and why they don’t appear all the time.
We will also have a lot of page-time from other communities that we have seen and met on the previous books, and how they will help out in the major plan that is taking place behind the scenes, you’ll see a LOT of Yvonne and Sarah, Iyoni and Kevin and Billie too will get more attention on this book, so it will be something new to read, and I see this book as a consolidation book that sits on top of the previous ones, like the roof-work on the pillars. It’s something nice to read and just simply understand the whole game-play of the authors’ visions.
Oh, don’t think that the corps won’t get page time, they will, and they will suffer a lot, in hilarious ways too, because the Official Pranksters in Chief are in charge of the main operations on the grid and they will raise hell to the corps and make them look like fools, so yeah, there is a a lot to expect from this book and loads of fun inside.
Fire and water will be major things on this book, and although the fires were told to be seasonal, as you read, more and more it seems like these fires are somewhat off. And given the lack of resources in general, you can well imagine, how damaging and dangerous they become, but the reality is worst than you expect it to be.
Then you have a mole. Someone is on the inside of the Dusters, a hacker, probably as good as Tweak, apparently better, that is tracking them, sharing their plans with their enemies and sending out their locations, making everyone suspect. Heck, as I was reading I was doubting even Iyoni! This guy is a ghost! He uses drones, the mesh, videos, locations, audios, transmissions, everything you can think of, and this is both mysterious and annoying!
One of the things that you don’t notice, until you do, is the absence of characters, and, let me tell you that, the character that you will realize that has been missing for too long, that is one of the MC’s, will come back with a bang that will define this work and make you say: “Ok, shit is happening”. This realization, will also make you snap your fingers to the writers and say: “HEY! I see what you did there“, because all those pieces that were being set to place in the previous books, that we had no idea about until now, are shown in an instant and everything starts making sense! Genius! Like, how could we not see that? (Ok, maybe I didn’t see it, lol) Yet, this is still brilliant, I have to use this one in my books.
Annnnnnndddd I’m proud to announce that for the first time, in 7 books, I made a prediction that was right!!!! Haha!!!!!! Finally!!! And all I can tell you is that it’s about Tweak. *Grins* . Yes…
Still on Tweak, you are going to want to buckle up for this chapter of the series because it’s going to be intense, punchy, raw, emotional and a little triggering for some folk (but I cannot tell you why, so I don’t spoil your fun), so go at it easy and steel yourself for the punch, and yes, somebody got punched by Tweak. Yes.
You know when a book is full of close calls, some minor disasters and a big “whata fuck” moment, but never an “oh shit” moment that is plot-twisting and by the middle of the book, as you see a big event coming you just get the feels that something wrong isn’t right and your eyes narrow as you read because something tells you that things are too quiet? Yeah…. That. Prepare for that because a big bang is coming your way.
Although we don’t have enough curses from Janice on this book, we still have humour and there are some lines that will make you bend over with laughter like this one:
“Okay…I’m thinking. If we strapped a slicktarp over the rig, would that do it?” For the satellites, of course,” Kevin agreed. “But on the ground, even a dead Peacekeeper would sit up and wonder why there was a colossal gap in city traffic.”
The books gets heavier, not on the mystery, but on Kevin. You remember that deep dark part of Kevin, that one that you want to strangle and kick until it stops being so annoying and dumb and impulsive ?! Yeah? Ok. Well, that part of Kevin is coming back, times 3 and put on a situation that will be like throwing a match on gasoline and hoping it doesn’t burn. Yeah….. I have to clap at the authors for pulling it off and making us want to go in the scene and bitch slap Kevin and scream: ” Snap out of it Kev, you fool!”
With an abrupt end that will leave you like: “what? I have to wait another year for more of this good stuff?!” and a smile on your face, because Janice cursed, this series has a lot to give to us, because the corps were not defeated and there is still the Sleepwalker on the picture ruining their plans, so yeah! It’s bad, but it’s not all hopless. Great book! Worth the wait, worth the read.
Pros:
Excellent plot, it makes sense and continues the story well
Excellent mystery villain that is yet to find
I love how fire was used as a villaim as well here, lol
Excellent thriller scenes
Solid character development
The details in interaction between the characters was taken up a notch and it was cool
There were many surprises for those who thought were used to the dynamics of the Wildcards
Cons
None (there weren’t enough curses from Janice though)
Lesson of the book:. The power always lays with the people
Scribble's Worth 
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