Peter Clines has built an incredible world that goes ‘way beyond simple gimmicks and pop-cult iconography. And the newest installment, Ex-Purgatory, has just been published.
Superhero novels are kind of a thing these days. You don’t have to look too hard to find ‘realistic’ deconstructions of our innocent, gleeful (and now gritty and disturbing) adolescent power fantasies, from Robert Mayer’s Superfolks to Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible to Tom King’s A Once Crowded Sky. Even the novelizations from Marvel and DC seem kind of limp; only George R.R. Martin’s “mosaic novel” series Wild Cards really seemed to work, and they’re essentially out of print at the moment (though they’ve just reprinted #1, and virtually all of them are available, some for ridiculously high prices, on Amazon). The last new one, Wild Cards: Deuces Down, came out in 2011.
Likewise, zombie novels have – if not quite as completely – gone all lit’ry, too. Whether it’s Alden Bell’s The Reapers are the Angels or Isaac Marion’s Warm Bodies, these soft-at-the-edges fictionales take the real horror of the walking dead and make it about relationships instead, and you have to admit: that’s just wrong. (The ongoing wonders issuing from Permuted Press do keep the awesome ugliness of zombie-fic alive, however. We still have that. How could you not love a company that publishes titles with names like Pray to Stay Dead?)
But Peter Clines gets it. He gets that there’s still pure, unadulterated joy in stories about ridiculously powerful people saving the remnants of civilization from the chattering hoards of the undead. (Gotta love that chattering.) He gives us great characters, clever plots, images that stick with you, and he always leaves you wishing for more. And throughout there’s a weird and wonderful sense of respect and understanding for the genres. No deconstruction here. More like fulfillment.
The first book in the series, Ex-Heroes, starts it all by setting up the premise (and planting many seeds, some of which has yet to blossom). Ex-Patriots, and Ex-Communicaton each push the boundaries of the world-concept a little farther. And now there’s Ex-Purgatory, Number Four in the series, collect ‘em all. And check out this blurb:
When he’s awake, George Bailey is just an ordinary man. Five days a week he coaxes his old Hyundai to life, curses the Los Angeles traffic, and clocks in at his job as a handyman at the local college.
But when he sleeps, George dreams of something more. George dreams of flying. He dreams of fighting monsters. He dreams of a man made of pure lightning, an armored robot, a giant in an army uniform, a beautiful woman who moves like a ninja.
Then one day as he’s walking from one fix-it job to the next, a pale girl in a wheelchair tells George of another world, one in which civilization fell to a plague that animates the dead…and in which George is no longer a glorified janitor, but one of humanity’s last heroes.
Her tale sounds like madness, of course. But as George’s dreams and his waking life begin bleeding together, he starts to wonder—which is the real world, and which is just fantasy?
Okay, we’re all taking off early and reading this now.
Trade paperback and Kindle available here. You can also wander into your nearest bookstore – we think that’s what they call them, “book”…”stores” … and grab up copies of all four. And you can keep an eye on Peter Clines on his Facebook page, where he talked generously and often about his work.
Are we missing any really good superhero novels? Zombies, we got those comin’ out the wing-wang, but good superhero novels? Leave your suggestions in the comments below…
