Zombies! Superheroes! Zombie superheroes!

Peter Clines’s Ex-Heroes melds two well-worn and well-loved genres into a single setting that will be familiar to fans of either. When the world is overrun by hordes of zombies, it’s up to the superheroes of Los Angeles to save the day, or what’s left of it. When the undead “exes” count in their number former superheroes and supervillians, things get interesting. But it takes a while.

The structure of the book parallels that of many ensemble-cast superhero movies. A character is introduced in the modern day, and then expanded upon in a flashback… Lather, rinse, repeat. Power origins and a little background are thus folded in throughout the first half of the novel as we get to know Stealth, St. George, Gorgon, Cerberus, and the rest of the cast. In the latter half of the book, action switches to the present, the threat of the zombie hordes and the intelligence behind them.

The Good:
Ex-Heroes is a fun read. Clines is excellent at translating what really belongs in a comic book — WHAM! superhero action POW! — to prose, and mixes in a good amount of zombie gore for good measure. The setting is fun, the premise interesting if not-quite-unique, and the ending is top-notch excitement. The origin-of-zombies reveal is an excellent twist that I won’t spoil here.

More than anything, Clines somehow manages to capture the feel of both a super hero comic book and a zombie movie, which is something I wouldn’t have considered possible before I read this book. His manipulation of the contrasting tones of each genre is masterful. This is something I imagine Stan Lee would have been proud to get involved with, and would make a great summer movie. I enjoyed the book enough to buy and read the sequel, and I enjoyed Ex-Patriots, too.

The Bad:
Sometimes less is more, and this should have applied here. The sheer number of characters introduced on a literary assembly line left little time to get to know them. We get a good feeling of where the heroes came from and how their powers emerged, but almost nothing of what they care about or why the reader should care about them. I can’t help but feel that the story would have been much more compelling had Clines focused on one or two pivotal personalities instead of spreading his attention across a slew of archetypical powers in spandex suits.

The Ugly:
Speaking of tight suits, good guy mastermind Stealth didn’t work at all. She hates being objectified but dresses like a teenager’s slutty supergirl fantasy, rules as a dictatorial bully without a compelling reason for anyone to follow her, and is neither super nor heroic. She’s supposed to be very smart, but we have to take Clines’s word for it.

The revelation that one of the heroes is capable of killing all of the zombies in a rather trivial manner is brushed off as unpalatable, but to the reader it seems that this solution was inconvenient to the plot. This isn’t the only flaw in the story, but it’s the most egregious.

I get the feeling that these problems are linked. Clines has such rich background in his head that character actions make sense to him, but there isn’t enough on paper for their motives to make sufficient sense to the reader. There’s a delicate balance between giving the reader too much and not giving enough, and Clines gives too little about too many, but not enough about any.

The Verdict:
Ex-Heroes is an enjoyable read. It’s interesting, fun, and left me wondering a lot about the background. Peter Clines is a talented author with a sweeping vision, and he does a good job translating his vision to the page. If he would have honed his focus to a smaller cast it could have been excellent, but even so it’s still an entertaining romp filled with comic book superhero action splattered with delicious brains.

Ex-Heroes is available on Amazon
and Barnes and Noble