Name: Ex-Heroes
ISBN: 9780804136570

Peter Clines

In a Los Angeles ravaged by a zombie plague, a group of former superheroes protect the survivors.

A Novel

Ex-Heroes

Christine Bruce

There were certainly some aspects that I. Let could have been done better- better reviews have been written outlining these things. 
That said. I've been wanting to pick this book up for LITERAL YEARS. but due to a fear of zombies, never had. I finally decided to give it a go and Am glad I did. Very engaging and entertaining. Not something you're going to read to figure out the mysteries of the universe, but certainly time well spent.

Kelsey Lynn

3-3.5
I have to give the author some serious props for taking two very stereotypical subjects (super heroes and zombies) and giving us something rather unique. The chracters were fun and the flashbacks really grabbed me (I wish there was a prequel book!) but overall I felt this drug on a little and I found the present situation way less interesting than the past and there was a major plothole for me that I can't talk about without marking this as a spoiler so you've been warned! Spoilers ahead!

 Ec-Heroes takes place in post apocalyptic, post super hero LA, where survivors both super and regular have turned a filming studio into a veritable fortress. We follow St. George, one of the first supers discovered as he tries to keep his new city safe from not only exes (zombies!) but ex supers. At some point, 2 years prior to the present of this book, a zombie outbreak took place, starting small and spreading slowly out of control. Around this time superheroes started popping up, with a variety of origin stories and powers and many of them band together to try and contain this zombie menace. However, much like non-zombie pandemics, it spreads out of control due to poor management, stupid people and sympathy for the infected. Being LA, prior to the outbreak the heroes primarily dealt with gangs, the current gang being the Seventeens. After the fall of humanity, this gang is still around and periodically causes issues trying to steal their supplies and whatnot. However, on what should be a normal supply run, something goes awry and the Seventeens manage to pop the tires of the Heroes truck and strand them to fend off zombies while they attack their fortress. While the attack failed, some members were captured, all of which attempt suicide and one of the successful ones turns into a zombie, except rather than bloodlust it speaks to them and tells them sh*ts about to go down. This causes St. George and Stealth, the mastermind behind their little oasis, to venture out to the Seventeen's location to try and figure out what's going on. 
 
 On their reconnaissance they discover something that changes everything, not only is this encampment huge, like 20k people huge, but it's unprotected. All because they have a super too, one they call PZ and he is an Ex, well almost one, and he can control the Exes around him. He knows they're there using the eyes of exes they encounter on their journey and he in true supervillain fashion tells them his whole plan, which gives them time to get back and prepare. Now they're about to have a show down against PZ and his horde of zombies. 

 So overall this was a very easy and interesting read. The plot was unique the characters good, the stakes felt real enough. However, for me, the attempt to integrate the superheroes into this world was only really done via fighting (with exception to Barry, an energy man who acts as a generator for their fortress which was a really cool idea). This caused there to be a TON of random zombie fighting scenes, and they all kind of read the same "superhero does super thing but gets overwhelmed but then other supers help them at just the right moment" and it took a lot of power and self-discipline to not skim these scenes. 
 
 My favorite part was the backstory, at first it seemed like he was going to do and every other chapter a la Oryx and Crake, which I was all for, but soon it became every couple of chapters and I jsut really looked forward to the few chapters on the past. On the rise of the superheroes, their individual backstories, the rise of the zombies and the world falling apart, it was all so interesting. 
But I felt it just wasn't explored enough, some of the origin stories were super interesting, some less so or borderline problematic (Gorgon's for instance where it talks about his 18 year old girlfriend when he's 28 and all the hard sex they have, like jesus that's gross, it doesn't help that they straight up say they started having sex when she was 17 and he took her virginity, Cline WTF). On top of that the author was OBSESSED with telling us how sexy Stealth was, but somehow thought it'd be okay because she hated being objectified? But something tells me someone who hates being objectified wouldn't wear what she wore.

 However, the stakes I mentioned earlier were for the characters described, not for the world they were protecting. The humans in the fortress seemed like an afterthought, often nonexistent until it seemed like author remembered them. When they were present it was just for them to cry outrage or fear and give a reason for what the heroes were doing. But they were cardboard overall. This is a surprising and unfortunate move for the zombie genre, as it goes against the whole rebuild of society thing. Which was a misstep, if you took them out you didn't miss them so what really was the point. It could have just been a group heroes holed up somewhere that go through this. On top of that, the society they built didn't seem all that great, they were so keen on questioning why people would live under the gang's thumb in the name of survival, yet here was a group living in a borderline dictatorship under Stealth. At one point a bunch wants to leave and while the Super's claim they can, they sure do keep talking to them and trying to talk them out of it until it's too late for them too. It just kind of hinted that not all was well in that group if the first major conflict made their pet humans freak out and try and flee.

 But the major plothole for me was the "origin" and PZ, a super they introduced was called the Regenerator, he could heal people and be invincible. At first, it felt super interesting that he lost his powers when he got bit because all of his powers became focused on keeping him not a zombie. But later Cline comes up with an arguably really interesting notion regarding the infection, it's not the virus that kills you, it's the illness upon illness from all these people biting each other, making for a straight-up death cocktail of other infections. That's actually somewhat legit in the mind of me with no understanding of if that's plausible. BUT it destroys the Regenerator thing, if his body was just staving off a bunch of illnesses and not some fancy zombie virus, then he should've healed up and been fine. Heck he gets his head blown off and it comes back, so you can't tell me it can't handle curing some illness. But instead, he loses his powers. Also PZ (Patient Zero if you haven't already figured it out) isn't Patient Zero at all, the Regenerator's wife was, whom he attempted to bring back from the dead but made a zombie, because he could animate the body, but whatever made her HER is gone. It doesn't explain the bloodlust though. PZ was just the first person she took out. So P2? With that being said, why did PZ become essentially what the Regenerator was trying to make his wife? Still deadish, but functioning and talking, why did he become the controller and conscious zombie if he wasn't even Patient Zero? I feel the better twist would be if it WAS Regenerator's wife. Rather Cline chose to have it be Gorgon's gang leader nemesis, creating a conflict by default. I wish, WISH it had been a more creative conflict. 
 
 Then it ends as predictably as it can, the super's fight the baddies and win, with only one death and of the character I cared the least about. 

 So it was a fun ride, but what I'd call a dick flick, similar to it's sibling the chick flick, a bunch of cool people beating up baddies and also there are girls in tight clothes with little substance or emotional connection underneath. So if you're like me an able to clock out while reading and cut a book slack in the name of a fun read, go for it. It WAS fun, no doubt, and I will read the second book, but how this has so many books in the series is beyond me. It's a cool enough concept with cool enough characters to be worth the read, but it doesn't have much substance, and if the second one doesn't either I probably won't read the third.

Like a said, I'd read a whole book that was just the flashbacks, that would've been super cool.

Entertaining and well written.
Fun book about zombies and I HATE books about zombies

Simon Harrison

Pretty straightforward implementation of a fun genre book. Got a little lost when the battle started, but that might have been my concentration failing. Not sure if I'm inspired enough to see where these characters go, I seem to have fallen into an apolocalyptic survivor hole (Station Eleven) and need something different next.

Ex-Heroes A Novel