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alice_digest's review against another edition
4.0
I stumbled across this book when I was cruising Amazon one day. Superheroes and zombies? How could I resist that? It was guaranteed to be awesome fun or really, really terrible. Luckily it was the former! It's pure trashy entertainment, and if that's all you are expecting from it then you won't be disappointed. I always try to rate on a scale of pure enjoyment rather than necessary "worthiness" .. and for just being a really fun read it gets 4 stars, despite its faults.
There is a quotation on the back describing it as The Walking Dead meets The Avengers, and honestly that is exactly what this book is (but so much more fun than The Walking Dead is)! There was an outbreak of a zombie plague that over ran the population, leaving on a few pockets of survivors.. standard zombie stuff. The zombies are actually referred to as "exes" which actually does help to make it feel a little fresher. However in this world there are also a people with super powers, who had been acting as vigilante heroes for a few years before the plague. They have banded together to help protect the survivors from whatever threats they might all face.
I honestly loved this book. It's a proper guilty pleasure. There are a good range of heroes with a range of superpowers, some more useful than others. St George is probably the most awesome as he is impervious to almost everything, super strong, he can fly and he can breathe fire! I was a big fan of Zzzap too. I thought Gorgon's powers were also interesting, and he had a nice darker edge to him next to the squeaky clean St George.
It is worth noting that this book is 100% an adolescent boy's dream. At the end of the book the authors notes that this novel was born out of conversation with friends in school, and you can tell.. and I'm not sure he ever grew up! For what it is I'm not upset with it for that. Of course it means that a lot of the women are hypersexualised.. particularly Stealth! I did like her, I thought she was an awesome character but.. there were A LOT of descriptions of how hot she is. And she wears a mask to hide her face because she is SO PRETTY that people never take get seriously. Some of this I can perhaps (perhaps) rationalise (a little bit). The majority of descriptions of her hotness comes from St George chapters (not all but most). It does serve to remind us that St George is in fact human and not boring far too perfect saintly guy. He has impure thoughts! He also has casual sex with another female character in which we get a nice description of her bra too. It's thin defence but I tried.
Now as for Stealth's costume I remained a little baffled as too why, if she was so sick of being objectified, she would choose to dress in a latex suit with belts and straps in all the right places! It was never stated anywhere, but I assume that as a "stealth" character she finds her hot body a useful distraction. She is constantly objectified.. but she isn't a sexual character. She has a bisexual past, which she mentions in a very logical and cold was (sex had as useful function) but comes across to me as a now existed as asexual. I have a feeling that might change in future books.. I was be disappointed though.
The are other women in the novel too, and while they are more sexualised than then male characters it's not to the extent of Stealth. I would say there are more descriptions of dead female exes than the male ones.. at one point he does describe the blood dripping between the breasts of one. Gross. This is problematic but.. the novel was just so much fun I honestly didn't care that much. When I was reading this, and talking about it now, it does read like a comic book. Like a graphic novel turned into text. It's an unavoidable truth that over sexualised females are a trope of comic books, so I guess it plays into the very visual style Clines is going for.
Still, Cerberus was another of my favourites, and while being a giant robotic suit of hardcore armour it is piloted by a woman. She managed to escape without any descriptions of her body parts that I can remember, and she's both super smart and completely badass. So not all hope is lost.
It's not perfect.. but I didn't expect it to be.. and I don't particularly need it to be! This is a guilty read. It's pure fun. There are a lot of action scenes are they're brilliantly written. The characters are also well-formed, and distinctive. The plot is crazy. If you like superheroes and you like zombies.. give it a read.
I loved it. Maybe I shouldn't have but I did. It's better than I ever expected it to be.. and I cannot wait to read Ex Patriots!
There is a quotation on the back describing it as The Walking Dead meets The Avengers, and honestly that is exactly what this book is (but so much more fun than The Walking Dead is)! There was an outbreak of a zombie plague that over ran the population, leaving on a few pockets of survivors.. standard zombie stuff. The zombies are actually referred to as "exes" which actually does help to make it feel a little fresher. However in this world there are also a people with super powers, who had been acting as vigilante heroes for a few years before the plague. They have banded together to help protect the survivors from whatever threats they might all face.
I honestly loved this book. It's a proper guilty pleasure. There are a good range of heroes with a range of superpowers, some more useful than others. St George is probably the most awesome as he is impervious to almost everything, super strong, he can fly and he can breathe fire! I was a big fan of Zzzap too. I thought Gorgon's powers were also interesting, and he had a nice darker edge to him next to the squeaky clean St George.
It is worth noting that this book is 100% an adolescent boy's dream. At the end of the book the authors notes that this novel was born out of conversation with friends in school, and you can tell.. and I'm not sure he ever grew up! For what it is I'm not upset with it for that. Of course it means that a lot of the women are hypersexualised.. particularly Stealth! I did like her, I thought she was an awesome character but.. there were A LOT of descriptions of how hot she is. And she wears a mask to hide her face because she is SO PRETTY that people never take get seriously. Some of this I can perhaps (perhaps) rationalise (a little bit). The majority of descriptions of her hotness comes from St George chapters (not all but most). It does serve to remind us that St George is in fact human and not boring far too perfect saintly guy. He has impure thoughts! He also has casual sex with another female character in which we get a nice description of her bra too. It's thin defence but I tried.
Now as for Stealth's costume I remained a little baffled as too why, if she was so sick of being objectified, she would choose to dress in a latex suit with belts and straps in all the right places! It was never stated anywhere, but I assume that as a "stealth" character she finds her hot body a useful distraction. She is constantly objectified.. but she isn't a sexual character. She has a bisexual past, which she mentions in a very logical and cold was (sex had as useful function) but comes across to me as a now existed as asexual. I have a feeling that might change in future books.. I was be disappointed though.
The are other women in the novel too, and while they are more sexualised than then male characters it's not to the extent of Stealth. I would say there are more descriptions of dead female exes than the male ones.. at one point he does describe the blood dripping between the breasts of one. Gross. This is problematic but.. the novel was just so much fun I honestly didn't care that much. When I was reading this, and talking about it now, it does read like a comic book. Like a graphic novel turned into text. It's an unavoidable truth that over sexualised females are a trope of comic books, so I guess it plays into the very visual style Clines is going for.
Still, Cerberus was another of my favourites, and while being a giant robotic suit of hardcore armour it is piloted by a woman. She managed to escape without any descriptions of her body parts that I can remember, and she's both super smart and completely badass. So not all hope is lost.
It's not perfect.. but I didn't expect it to be.. and I don't particularly need it to be! This is a guilty read. It's pure fun. There are a lot of action scenes are they're brilliantly written. The characters are also well-formed, and distinctive. The plot is crazy. If you like superheroes and you like zombies.. give it a read.
I loved it. Maybe I shouldn't have but I did. It's better than I ever expected it to be.. and I cannot wait to read Ex Patriots!
natshak's review against another edition
3.0
I guess I am on a superhero kick lately. Now that we are in quarantine, I have the opportunity to read some of the books that I do not have on audiobook. One notable series that I cannot find on audiobook is the Ex-Heroes series. I had just finished the Super Powereds series right before this, so I figured I would keep with the Super Hero theme. Ex-Heroes uses a “now” and “then” format in which the present day is a post-apocalyptic landscape where zombies roam the world. There are occasional flashbacks to times when heroes were mysteriously manifesting powers and fighting to save the United States from zombies. The bulk of the story revolves around a group of heroes and regular people hold up in a base called the Mount. As they venture out on missions for food and supplies, they are repeatedly attacked by another group of survivors called the Seventeens. The Seventeens, led by a man who can control zombies, end up attacking the Mount. The heroes are able to fend off the attack and kill the leader. They then must figure out how to incorporate thousands of new refugees and what the future holds. I enjoyed this book. I am already a sucker for post-apocalyptic stories. The introduction of super heroes is an interesting combination. One must suspend disbelief as it seems strange that humanity is devastated by a “slow zombie” virus, especially in a world of super heroes, but if you don’t think about it TOO much, it does make a fun story.
observer_1's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
hmonkeyreads's review
3.0
This one is all over the place.
Negatives: I'm sick of zombies and end of the world stories. I'm not a huge fan of super heroes. I don't like reading about battles and gory monster stuff.
Positives: origin stories of super heroes are cool. (Frustrating that they aren't more fleshed out here.) Love among super Heroes in a zombie apocalypse could be interesting and fraught with danger/angst.
More negatives: characters that are super annoying (mostly Stealth, the super hot Victoria's Secret model / genius / crabby leader of the Heroes)
More positives: cool/interesting characters like St. George and Gorgon and Cerberus.
I will make an allowance here because he's setting the stage for future books. I will try book two but it will have a short leash.
Negatives: I'm sick of zombies and end of the world stories. I'm not a huge fan of super heroes. I don't like reading about battles and gory monster stuff.
Positives: origin stories of super heroes are cool. (Frustrating that they aren't more fleshed out here.) Love among super Heroes in a zombie apocalypse could be interesting and fraught with danger/angst.
More negatives: characters that are super annoying (mostly Stealth, the super hot Victoria's Secret model / genius / crabby leader of the Heroes)
More positives: cool/interesting characters like St. George and Gorgon and Cerberus.
I will make an allowance here because he's setting the stage for future books. I will try book two but it will have a short leash.
twilliamson's review against another edition
3.0
Ex-Heroes is a perfect example of the post-modern mashup novel. It takes two novel ideas--superheroes and zombies--and weaves a story that, while quaint, is hardly original and lacks any clear purpose aside from mere diversion. And while the novel is diverting, it certainly isn't fantastic.
Condensed, the novel is about a band of superheroes as they make their last stand against a horde of zombies set loose upon the world by superheroic hubris. Clines seems to pose the real question of what good superheroes are at the end of the world, and while the finale is somewhat uplifting, the nature of the story being a series suggests, of course, that there's still far more to come in the lives of these characters.
Ultimately, what the book does best is invent a few interesting characters in the comic book sense--they're not very well distinguishable aside from their powers, and their motivations still seem a bit dubious, but the action is fine and the plot comes together quickly enough to make the book readable.
Critically useful? Probably not. This isn't a thinker, nor is it even an innovator. Instead, it cashes in on a now-tired zombie thrill and does so without overstaying its welcome. I don't think I wasted my time entertaining myself, but aside from being a picture-perfect example of post-modern blank parody, I'm not really sure it means anything. It isn't really critical of anything, but simply speaks in a kind of dead language regurgitated for the cover price.
Condensed, the novel is about a band of superheroes as they make their last stand against a horde of zombies set loose upon the world by superheroic hubris. Clines seems to pose the real question of what good superheroes are at the end of the world, and while the finale is somewhat uplifting, the nature of the story being a series suggests, of course, that there's still far more to come in the lives of these characters.
Ultimately, what the book does best is invent a few interesting characters in the comic book sense--they're not very well distinguishable aside from their powers, and their motivations still seem a bit dubious, but the action is fine and the plot comes together quickly enough to make the book readable.
Critically useful? Probably not. This isn't a thinker, nor is it even an innovator. Instead, it cashes in on a now-tired zombie thrill and does so without overstaying its welcome. I don't think I wasted my time entertaining myself, but aside from being a picture-perfect example of post-modern blank parody, I'm not really sure it means anything. It isn't really critical of anything, but simply speaks in a kind of dead language regurgitated for the cover price.
veronica87's review against another edition
4.0
You have to kill them faster than they're killing you. That was the lesson we'd learned too late.
Superheroes in the zombie apocalypse. Need I say more? This was an entertaining read from start to finish - a total blast. The story follows a group of survivors living in L.A. who are led by a small group of people with super powers. They've converted one of the big movie studios into their fortress and the reader follows along with them as things go from bad to worse upon the discovery of a new threat. I really liked how the story unfolded, with every other chapter going back in time to the early days of the outbreak and focusing on a brief history of each of the superheroes. It was absolutely perfect for me and appealed to all sides of my geekdom. This is a series that is going on my to-read list.
Superheroes in the zombie apocalypse. Need I say more? This was an entertaining read from start to finish - a total blast. The story follows a group of survivors living in L.A. who are led by a small group of people with super powers. They've converted one of the big movie studios into their fortress and the reader follows along with them as things go from bad to worse upon the discovery of a new threat. I really liked how the story unfolded, with every other chapter going back in time to the early days of the outbreak and focusing on a brief history of each of the superheroes. It was absolutely perfect for me and appealed to all sides of my geekdom. This is a series that is going on my to-read list.
scottpm's review against another edition
5.0
Wow I loved this book. The action scenes were awesome. I loved the use of flashbacks to fill in the holes. We also got an answer to how it began.
koalathebear's review
4.0
I thought that this book was excellent. For a man, Clines writes his female characters as sympathetically and as well as his male characters. I thought that this book contained a lot of suspense, pathos and the super hero element was very interesting to me. I intend to read it again.
shan198025's review against another edition
5.0
Loved it. I want more. First reading 10/12
Still love it. Second reading 2/16
Still love it. Second reading 2/16