Wild Cards reading order

A plan for the whole series

11 volumes, 4,837 pages, about 90 hours. At 45 min a day that is about 4 months.

Stages

6 stages, with 5 short books from outside the series between them. You finish around March 16, 2027, 20 days later than in one go.

1. 1
   Stage 116 habout 3 weeksby November 20, 2026

   • 1. Wild Cards1987 · 493 pages · 9 h
   • 2. Aces High1987 · 390 pages · 7 h
2. Short breakThe Fire Next Time · James Baldwin · 120 pp. · score 8.82 h, by November 24, 2026. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
3. 2
   Stage 217 habout 3 weeksby December 16, 2026

   • 3. Jokers Wild1987 · 416 pages · 8 h
   • 4. Aces Abroad1988 · 522 pages · 10 h
4. Short breakOn Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century · Timothy Snyder · 128 pp. · score 8.42 h, by December 21, 2026. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
5. 3
   Stage 316 h21 daysby January 11, 2027

   • 5. Down and Dirty1988 · ≈ 440 pages · 8 h
   • 6. Ace in the Hole1990 · 416 pages · 8 h
6. Short breakAnimal Farm · George Orwell · 128 pp. · score 8.32 h, by January 15, 2027. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
7. 4
   Stage 415 h20 daysby February 4, 2027

   • 7. Dead Man's Hand1990 · 352 pages · 6 h
   • 8. One-Eyed Jacks1991 · 464 pages · 9 h
8. Short breakThe Importance of Being Earnest · Oscar Wilde · 102 pp. · score 8.22 h, by February 7, 2027. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
9. 5
   Stage 517 habout 3 weeksby March 1, 2027

   • 9. Jokertown Shuffle1991 · 464 pages · 9 h
   • 10. The Sleeper · ≈ 440 pages · 8 h
10. Short breakA Room of One's Own · Virginia Woolf · 144 pp. · score 8.23 h, by March 6, 2027. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
11. 6
    Stage 68 h11 daysby March 16, 2027

    • 11. Shell Games1987 · ≈ 440 pages · 8 h
12. The end of the series

    March 16, 2027

We count 1.1 min per page, the pace of an average novel reader. Faster? Move the slider.

≈ next to a page count: a volume with no page count in our data is counted at this series’s average.