Superheroes and villains do battle over the human heart in this delightful anthology featuring all-new stories from a wide range of contributors, all set in the Wild Cards universe, where an alien virus mutates some and grants superpowers to others, created by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Game of Thrones . An alien virus ravages the world, its results as random as a hand of cards. Those infected either draw the black queen and die, draw an ace and receive superpowers, or draw the joker and are bizarrely mutated. Nevertheless, human nature reigns supreme. And one of the most enduring human drives is the search for love. Aces and jokers alike both want to find it, or have lost it . . . or perhaps just want to use it for personal gain. Crazy, unconventional, touching, strange, and oh-so-familiar, this is love, Wild Cards-style. Within these stories: • A jewel thief seduces a popular actor just so she can track down a long-lost treasure. • A teenager trapped in the body of a giant snail attempts to win his love à la Cyrano de Bergerac. • A man discovers his purpose in life after meeting a beautiful butterfly woman. • A young hero who has been awarded the hideous name of Hero McHeroface finds some solace in the arms of an astrologer hiding her own unique powers. Pairing Up is the Wild Cards take on love—finding it, seeking it, losing it, or achieving it—as aces and jokers enter into the highest-stake game of all: gambling on their heart's desire. With stories by Kevin Andrew Murphy • Christopher Rowe • Marko Kloos • Melinda M. Snodgrass • Bradley Denton • Walton Simons • Peter Newman • Gwenda Bond • David Anthony Durham • Edited by George R. R. Martin George R. R. Martin is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including those of the acclaimed series A Song of Ice and Fire— A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons —as well as related works such as Fire & Blood, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, The World of Ice & Fire, and The Rise of the Dragon (the last two with with Elio M. García, Jr., and Linda Antonsson). Other novels and collections include Tuf Voyaging , Fevre Dream , The Armageddon Rag , Dying of the Light , Windhaven (with Lisa Tuttle), and Dreamsongs Volumes I and II . As a writer-producer, he has worked on The Twilight Zone , Beauty and the Beast , and various feature films and pilots that were never made. He lives with his lovely wife, Parris, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 1957 Trudy of the Apes by Kevin Andrew Murphy The Garden of Allah was found, not in the Prophet’s Paradise, but in Hollywood, at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Havenhurst Drive. But instead of flying there on the back of the Buraq like Muhammad, Trudy Pirandello had taken Pan Am. She checked her bags at the front desk, checked her makeup with her compact, and in the reflection, checked out the jewels and jewelry on display on the other guests—­a nice watch here, a pretty ring there, but nothing that wouldn’t be missed and nothing worth risking, especially with her eyes on a greater prize. Trudy slipped her compact back in her handbag, slipped the bellman a generous but not lavish tip, and slipped off into the interior of the Garden of Allah. She had expected paradise to look a bit more Arabian, with ­fanciful fountains and arabesques, not a couple dozen Spanish Mission–­style bungalows, all terra-­cotta tiles and stucco. At least the landscaping was pretty and tropical enough, with bougainvillea vines and night-­blooming jasmine, the dark shiny leaves glittering in the sun. The houris were there, too, or at least starlets, many of them taking advantage of a swimming pool in the shape of the Black Sea, the legacy of Alla Nazimova, silent-­screen Salomé turned hotelier. Rumor also had it that Nazimova coined the term sewing circle for ladies who liked ladies, though as Trudy understood, Alla liked everyone. Her tradition had continued—­the Garden of Allah, as the hotel had been renamed with an added h, was the swinging place to go if you were a Hollywood creative. F. Scott Fitzgerald had stayed there, as had Errol Flynn. It-­girl Clara Bow, Ernest Hemingway, Ginger Rogers, D. W. Griffith, Laurence Olivier, Frank Sinatra, and Dorothy Parker. Even Marlene Dietrich, who’d starred in the movie The Garden of Allah. Of course, the hotel had seen better days. Alla Nazimova had died in ’44—­two years before the wild card—­and it was now 1957. Errol Flynn had swashbuckled away. Trudy thought she glimpsed the dark-­haired head of Ronald Reagan in the pool, surrounded by a bevy of bathing beauties—­a definite trade-­up from Bonzo the chimp—­but a B-­movie star wasn’t what Trudy needed. What she needed was an ace: a blonde, to be specific. She spied a very small one: A little blond girl, no more than six, sat poolside sipping a pink lemonade. She wore a white blouse, a black skirt with suspe