Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines

You know, I've been hearing about how amazing Peter Clines's Ex-Heroes is for so long that you'd think I'd have posted about it by now myself. Sadly craziness chez moi has delayed it but here it is! (And I'm happy to say that in this case you can believe all of the hype -- Ex-Heroes is fabulous!)

It's been a year since the exes began making their appearance. No one calls them zombies -- instead, they are exes, as in ex- humans. A plague of them has taken over forcing those left alive to band together for survival. A group of them have made a home on an old movie lot in LA where they are protected by a group of superheroes: The Mighty Dragon, Gorgon, Cerberus, Zzzap, Regenerator, and Stealth. And it's fortunate that they have these heroes on their side because something much worse than the exes is rising in LA!

C'mon, folks. Even Nathan Fillion blurbed Peter Clines! Nathan freaking Fillion!

Clines is the latest in a growing list of authors to be snatched up by one of the big six soon to be five after his books were released by the folks over at Permuted Press (remember David Wong's John Dies at the End?). PP released Clines's first two installments in the series (Ex-Heroes and Ex-Patriots) as well as the stand alone 14 - which I also hear is mind blowingly amazing. Crown's Broadway Paperbacks has reissued book one and has a new edition of book two, Ex-Patriots, due out next week. Books three and four are both due out later this year.

This first in the series alternates between the present, or one year after the ex infestation, and the onset of the outbreak. The flashback portions also provide a bit of our heroes' backstories as well as set up for the uber bad they begin to discover they're up against.

It's true that this is a bit of a Heroes meets Walking Dead love child and I'd be willing to bet money that fans of either or both will be able to at least temporarily fill the void left by both shows with Clines's gruesome superheroes vs zombies series (at least until Walking Dead returns this fall). I particularly enjoy the twisted sense of humor injected into the tale (points for celebrity kills in LA, yeah).

Rating: 5/5

Watch for an Ex-Heroes and Ex-Patriots giveaway here on the blog very soon!