Peter Clines has established himself as a master of the science fiction thriller genre, with novels including The Fold and 14 which drew a cult following of ardent readers. Characterized by expert fast-paced plotting, cinematic action scenes, and tons of geek and pop-culture references, Clines’s genre-bending Ex-Heroes series has returned with EX-ISLE, the exhilarating fifth installment.
In the days after civilization fell to the zombie hordes, a small team of heroes—including St. George, Zzzap, Cerberus, and Stealth—turned an abandoned Los Angeles movie studio into a stronghold against the undead and brought the last humans they could gather within its walls. Every day is a desperate battle against overwhelming odds as the heroes fight to keep the undead at bay, provide enough food and supplies for the survivors, and lay down their lives for the humans they’ve sworn to protect.
EX-ISLE picks up five years after the plague of ex-humans decimated mankind, and the heroes’ expanded base at the Mount is still going strong. One day, while out scouting for survivors living in similar safe zones around the world, the superheroes discover something strange: a large assortment of ships bound together to form a man-made island in the middle of the Pacific. Overjoyed at discovering another group of survivors, St. George leads a small team off to introduce themselves to this new encampment. But the heroes soon realize that there’s something very wrong with this isolated community and its mysterious leader—who may be hiding a secret that could put every survivor in the world at risk.
After the jump read an excerpt of this fantastic installment available now in bookstores and e-tailers.
ST. GEORGE HUNG in the air and looked down at the Mount.
That name meant a couple of things now. If you were outside the Big Wall, the Mount was everything inside it. If you were inside the Wall, the Mount was their original film studio-turned-fortress, located at the center of the more-or-less square area the citizens of Los Angeles now occupied.Neither of these definitions took into account being three hundred feet over the ground. Granted, only he and Zzzap ever saw the Mount from this angle. And sometimes Stealth.
Outside the Big Wall, Los Angeles was a ghost town. An empty shell of a city. Buildings stood deserted, many with gaping windows. Cars sat in the road where they’d been abandoned. Tall grass covered La Brea, Sunset, Highland, Western, and Hollywood Boulevard—formerly some of the busiest streets in the area. A baker’s dozen of small trees had sprouted along the Hollywood Walk of Fame. One had pushed its way up next to Godzilla’s star, right by the Hard Rock Cafe, and stood over twelve feet tall. A long stretch of the Hollywood Freeway had turned into a small oasis, complete with grass, shrubs, and a rainwater pond. Nature had forced its way up through every crack and crevice.
And, of course, there were exes everywhere. Even with the hundreds—maybe even thousands—St. George had destroyed over the past five years, he knew the raw number of zombies hadn’t changed much. They lurked in buildings, stumbled down streets, staggered along freeways. Sometimes alone, sometimes in packs, always hungry for the living.
But not inside the Big Wall. Inside, things were safe. Inside, hundreds of solar cells gleamed on rooftops, scavenged from all over the city. People lived more or less normal lives. They had jobs and families and even movies on the weekend.
Inside, you could almost forget the Mount was surrounded by thousands of mindless, merciless eating machines.
Although it seemed like everything was about hunger and eating these days.
He drifted down and south. A huge black scar marked three and a half blocks beyond the Wall. Two gutted houses had collapsed in on themselves. Two others still stood with charred walls and hollow windows. One had burned to the ground and left a brick chimney standing in the ashes, flanked by a few blackened boards.
In one sense, they’d been lucky. Dozens of overgrown lawns and under-watered hedges had survived the flames. If there’d been any wind last night, half the city could’ve gone up.
In another sense, the fire had really screwed them.
A little lower and he could see Billie Carter waiting for him on the Big Wall. She stood between the South Gate and the southwest tower, right in front of the burned area. Her head tilted up from her binoculars as he descended. “I’m double-checking just to be sure,” she told him, “but it looks like we lost the whole grove and another twenty-three trees past that.”
“Dammit,” muttered St. George.
