Wildcard Ch. 1

With Wildcard, Master stylist and best-selling rowdy bard Kelly Mitchell (shortlisted for the prestigious Faulkner Wisdom prize) codes out a complex masterpiece in the vein of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque cycle with channels of Zelazny’s Amber series and brush strokes of Neuromancer.
When young Karl and his mother Martha are torn apart by hidden forces, they find themselves pawns in the larger game played out by three Manufactured Entities - Juniper, who studies power; :3:, the lord of science and math, and the slightly absurd D’artagnan, who struggles to become human. Powerful humans - the Named - also have designs on their future.
But the darkest plan of all may come from Wildcard - the semi-mythical, horribly damaged first Manufactured Entity, who was trapped in isolation for 100,000 years alone, who has never made contact with anyone, and who may not even exist.