Wildcard (2018)
Wildcard is a 2018 internet games book written by Marie Lu.
Emika Chen won her place in the spotlight, but the victory left her tangled in a conspiracy she cannot walk away from. A shadowy group called the Blackcoats now wants her skills, and their target sits at the center of everything she thought she understood about Warcross. Marie Lu closes out her duology with the same neon speed, layering double crosses over the virtual arenas and back alleys of near future Tokyo. Loyalties shift, the game's reclusive creator guards his own secrets, and Emika has to decide whose version of the future she is willing to trust.
Quick answers
What is Wildcard about?
Emika Chen won her place in the spotlight, but the victory left her tangled in a conspiracy she cannot walk away from. A shadowy group called the Blackcoats now wants her skills, and their target sits at the center of everything she thought she understood about Warcross. Marie Lu closes out her duology with the same neon speed, layering double crosses over the virtual arenas and back alleys of near future Tokyo. Loyalties shift, the game's reclusive creator guards his own secrets, and Emika has to decide whose version of the future she is willing to trust.
When was Wildcard published?
Wildcard was published in 2018.
Who made Wildcard?
Wildcard was written by Marie Lu.
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Wildcard in our writing
A few thoughts on Wildcard
Read Warcross first, since this half completes the story. The Matrix suits the same unease about a reality someone else engineered. Sword Art Online, the anime, trades on the same fear of a game that refuses to let its players log out. Muse's Simulation Theory keeps the neon paranoia running underneath.
Games so immersive the real stakes bleed through the headset
Wildcard keeps Emika Chen moving between real back-alley danger and Warcross's virtual arenas, where a wrong move in the game can cost her everything outside it. The Matrix and Free Guy build the same collapsing wall between digital and physical, Sword Art Online traps its cast inside a game with real consequences, and Simulation Theory's glitchy electronic sound mirrors that same blurred reality.
Fast tech-driven YA sci-fi to read next
Wildcard closes out Marie Lu's duology with double crosses layered over holographic arenas and near-future Tokyo, the same glossy, high-stakes register that drives Illuminae, Gemina and Aurora Rising's ship-bound conspiracies, Brandon Sanderson's Starsight, Cytonic, Steelheart and Firefight, and Marissa Meyer's Cinder, Scarlet and Cress. All keep a resourceful lead outrunning a system built to use them.
Kids used as pieces in someone else's hidden game
Emika Chen spends Wildcard realizing both Hideo Tanaka and the Blackcoats have their own uses for her, a bind that also traps Ender in Ender's Game, Matt in The House of the Scorpion, the newly named apprentices of Scythe, the conscripted pilot of Iron Widow, and the manipulated heirs of Carve the Mark and Renegades.
Dystopian rulebooks that turn out to be a trap
Wildcard shows Emika the fine print behind Warcross's rules once the Blackcoats pull her deeper in, the same bait-and-switch waiting inside The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Divergent's faction tests, The Maze Runner's engineered trial, The Giver's curated utopia, Chaos Walking's settlement, Uglies' surgery, and The 5th Wave's invasion.