Category: Ex-Heroes

Hey there! As I have several times in the past, I thought I’d take a moment at the holidays to mention some of the books I’ve read and enjoyed this year by much more talented authors. If you’re still wondering about what to get that certain someone, you could go hit your local bookstore, browse around a bit, and maybe find a few things from this list they might enjoy.

Or maybe you’ll just find something on your own. That’s the fun of browsing in real-world bookstores.

So, in no real order…

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir – we’ll start with an easy one. If you haven’t somehow heard, Andy’s latest is (surprise) just fantastic. The tale of an (accidentally) lone astronaut’s desperate attempt to save the Earth. It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s incredibly smart while being ridiculously accessible. Absolutely anyone will enjoy it. Yeah, even that grouchy uncle who doesn’ tlike sci-fi stuff.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab—I’m a sucker for stories about memory and identity, and this book approaches it from the opposite side. What if it wasn’t your memory but everyone else’s. What if no one could ever remember you? What if they forgot you the moment they couldn’t see you? What kind of life would this be? And what if that life never, ever ended… ?

Bottle Demon by Stephen Blackmoore—every year Stephen writes a new book about necromancer Eric Carter and every year it ends up on this list. This most recent one is, hands down, his most amazing, and probably the most emotional, too, as Carter deals with an army of golems, an irate djinn, and the completely mysterious and unexpected resurrection of… well, himself.

King Bullet by Richard Kadrey—if you’re one of those people who waits for the end of a series to start reading, well, I guess this is a good day. Kadrey brings the Sandman Slim books to a close with one last Stark adventure and a truly magnificent ending that feels perfectly fitting while also being somehow completely unexpected.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland—I’ve read a lot of zombie books out of a very broad genre, but this book manages to be fresh and very fun, picturing an alternate world where the American Civil War is disrupted by a mass zombie outbreak, and young women of color are trained to be bodyguards against the undead for “proper” women. I liked it so much I recommended this one for our Last Bookstore dystopian book club.

The History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel—a wonderful tale about aliens and their very long-game plan to shape the Earth’s assorted space programs to prepare us for… something. It’s one of those books that’ll teach you a lot of history even as it entertains you.

Madi by Duncan Jones, Alex deCampi, and too many fantastic artists to list here—this graphic novel is set in the same world as Jones’s films Moon and Mute, and asks what happens when a government super-cyborg decides to retire, especially when their body’s loaded up with proprietary software and hardware that requires ongoing maintenance and updates. It’s kind of like the weirdly fun baby that came out of a threeway between The Transporter, Crank, and The Bionic Woman.

Hard Reboot by Django Wexler—it’s a love story about a pair of women trying to rebuild a giant robot so it can compete on the giant robot pit-fighting circuit. Seriously, what more do you need to know?

Reclaimed by Madeleine Roux—remember what I said about memory and identity? Seriously, it’s like Madeleine wrote this book just for me. A group of people agree to be test subjects for a procedure that can erase traumatic experiences from your memory. But how much of who you are is defined by those experiences? What kind of person are you changed into once they’re gone? And how would you go about fixing that change…?

The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig—this is a beautiful, brutal book, and it’s almost tough to recommend because it hit a lot of nerves for me, personally, that are probably going to be raw forever. That said, it’s a wonderful book about choices and consequences and how they make us who we are.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells– people have been telling me about the Murderbot books for ages, so I’m really late to this party. You may already know this but if you somehow didn’t… wow, what a fun read. The story of a security android that figures out how to hack its own code, inadvertently becoming an independent being and now stuck guarding a group of scientists on a survey mission.

Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle –another one I’m really late on but goddamn. This was one of the first books I read in 2021 and it’s still hands down the best. There just aren’t enough adjectives to describe how fantastic this book is and on how many levels. Lovecraftian horror grounded in real-world horror and it’s just brutally beautiful.

And those are my personal favorites for the year. I may add to this list over the next week or two, depending on how my current reads go. Please feel free to add any of your own must-reads down in the comments. I’d also shamelessly remind you that you can find a lot of my own books at your favorite local bookstore, like The Fold, Paradox Bound, or the Ex-Heroes books.

I’ll also take this moment to remind you of my Black Friday offer, just in case you missed it earlier. Please feel free to get in touch if you think it might help you out. And please—it’s not about if someone needs it more than you. It’s just about if you need some help.

Oh, and if you happen to be at SDCC Special Edition this weekend, I’m going to be hosting the Writer’s Coffeehouse on Sunday at 11:30, room 32AB. Ninety minutes of random tips and facts from me as I try to answer all your questions about publishing, writing, and anywhere those two might overlap.

Happy holidays. Probably back to all our usual stuff next week.

In the before times I tried to update the frequently asked questions every six months or so. Last year kinda blew that habit out of the water. A lot of this year, too. With all the disruption to, y’know, everything. Some things slowed to a crawl. Others came to a grinding halt.

And that meant I had a lot less news to share and/or questions to update.

Folks are finally getting used to this new normal, though, and enough things are getting back in motion that I figured it was finally worth updating this.

So here’s fresh answers to some of the most common questions I get. So now when people ask me those questions (again!)—or when their teacher says “Hey, hunt down an author on social media and ask them a bunch of questions”—I can just point you at this document, most likely pinned near the top of my social media pages and this blog (look, there it is in the right-hand-column). Which means the answers are all right here.

Or in the books. There’s lots of answers in the books. Really.

1) When are we going to see something new?
Next up for me is going to be The Broken Room, coming out in early March 2022—about six months from now! We technically have an exact date, but I want to hold off sharing that just in case things go wonky sometime between now and then. As a lot of things are right now. I wrote The Broken Room over lockdown last year and it’s a bit different for me. After a couple phone calls and discussions, my agent pitched it to publishers as “Jack Reacher meets Stranger Things.” And it turns out, hey, that sounded interesting to some folks.

After that—possibly before depending on how a few things go—I’m going to (finally) put out my short story collection as an ebook. Yeah, just an ebook, sorry. Dead Men Can’t Complain + Other Stories has been an audio collection for a while, but it really needs to get out more. And (if I can pull this off) there may be some cool bonuses for this version.

And, after some strategizing, my agent and I are talking about two more ideas you might like and he may be talking to certain folks about over the holidays…

2) Why did you do all these “Audible exclusives” for the past few years ?
First off, I only did two. Well, okay, four, since they offered to release some previously-published, out-of-print stuff nobody else was interested in anymore—The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope RobinsonCrusoe and a bunch of short stories we combined into Dead Men Can’t Complain, but those two weren’t even exclusives.

Second, there’s a solid argument to be made that the majority of my fan base is audiobook listeners. Audible knows this, too, so when they heard about Dead Moon and Terminus they made me an extremelygenerous offer for exclusive rights, meaning both of them would be audiobook only for the first six months they were out. Then I’d be free to do what I want with them.

Yeah, I know it made some of you grind your teeth. Sorry if you weren’t an audiobook listener (for whatever reason) and it left you out of the loop for a bit. My agent and I talked a lot about the pros and cons of doing of those deals. In the end, I really wanted to tell those stories and that was the overall best way to do it. Again, I’m sorry if it put you in a bad spot.

3) Do you make more money if I buy your books in a certain format?
This sounds like an easy question, I know, but there’s a bunch of conditionals to any answer I give. A huge chunk of each and every book contract is just all the different terms and conditions for when and if and how people get paid. Lots of “ifs” and “excepts” and “unlesses.”

For example… format matters, sure, but so does whereyou bought the book. And when. And how many people bought it before you. And if it was on sale. And who actually had the sale (publisher or distributor).  And all of this changes in every contract.  What’s true for, say, Paradox Bound isn’t true for Terminus. In some situations. Usually.

TL;DR—just buy the format you like. It’ll all work out fine.

4) So still no paper version of Terminus orDead Moon?
No, sorry. There’s a couple of different reasons for it involving different business and PR things. If you’re really interested, I went over all of it about a year or so back. There’s still a chance both books may still become available if there’s a big demand for them (feel free to tell Crown Publishing you want to read them in print and would buy half a dozen copies), but for the moment these (and a few of my other older books) are only going to be ebook and audio. Sorry.

5) When are we going to see a movie/ TV series/ graphic novel/ video game of your books?

Well, first off, I hope you understand I have pretty much zero influence on Netflix making a Threshold series or Disney+ doing aLycanthrope Robinson Crusoe movie. When we see a TV series or film adaptation, it means the filmmakers went to the writer, not the other way around. Think about it. If the writers just had to say “hey, make this into a movie,” wouldn’t most books be adapted by now? Everybody’d be doing it.

That said… yes, there’s a potentially big thing going on right now. But like so many Hollywood things, it’s moving along at its own pace and hasn’t quite hit the point where I feel good talking about it yet in anything more than vague terms like this. Once there’s something solid to tell you, I’ll tell you.

Really, you’ll probably hear me shrieking from wherever you are on Earth.

6) Well, is there anything we can do to help?
Buying books is always the best step. Talking about them is a close second. Hollywoodlikes to see big sales numbers and interest. Producers/ directors/ actors all hear about this stuff the same way you do—online reviews, bestseller lists, and social media. If #ParadoxBound started trending on Twitter tomorrow, there’d probably be a film in pre-production by the end of the year. Really.

So talk about books you like (anyone’s books, not just mine). Mention them to friends, write reviews (always good), tag online streaming channels if you want to talk about how this or that should be a movie. Word of mouth is the best (and easiest) thing to do.

7) I thought you don’t like people talking about your books. Now I’m confused.
I’m always thrilled and amazed people talk about anything I wrote. Seriously. I think most writers are. What I can’t stand, personally, are people who blurt out spoilers that ruin these stories for other people. It’s why I avoid those questions in interviews, ignore them on Twitter, and why—where I can—I delete (or block) posts that reveal things from a book.

And not just my stories! You shouldn’t mess up other stories, either. Movies, TV—I’m just saying, if you enjoyed it spoiler-free, why not try to give other people a chance to enjoy it the same way? Especially these days when release dates/airdates aren’t the ironclad things they used to be. Even if you didn’t enjoy it, they might.

8) Do you have any plans to attend ########-Con?
I’ve been doing a lot of virtual stuff, but I’m hoping the world will be in a place where I can get back out there next spring and say “Hi” to folks. Really, I’d love to do a lot of stuff in February-through-May to help promote The Broken Room. So if you want to see me at your local con, let them know. Email them, tweet them, post on their Instagram account. Reach out, vote, and let your voice be heard.

Also, generally this is a sooner-is-better type thing. If you’ve got a convention near you that plans to go ahead in February, there’s a good chance they’re putting together a guest list now. So don’t wait—let them know right now that you want K. Arsenault Rivera there!

And me. Let them know you want to see me. Y’know… if you do.

9) Could you explain the whole “Threshold” series?
Threshold is the umbrella label for the shared “cosmic horror” universe I unknowingly began a little over nine years ago with 14. It refers both to doorways and also things reaching a critical point–common themes in many of the stories. There are some books that form a more linear story, a “series” if you will, and some that stand alone. Which. in all fairness, makes things a bit awkward sometimes. I know the marketing folks sometimes pushed Thresholdas a pure, straightforward series even though I’ve said many, many times that it’s just a shared universe. I know at times this gave some readers false expectations for some books, and I apologize if that was you.

10) Is Ex-Isle the last Ex book?
Yeah, Ex-Tension is on the back burner for the foreseeable future.  Sorry.

The truth is, every series has a limited life. Book one always sells best, not as many people show up for book two, even less show up for book three, and so on. Not a lot of folks leap in on book five, y’know? Something may happen to give the first book a boost (and all the other books after it) but they’re always going to be on a near-constant downward slope heading for that big red line where things aren’t profitable. None of the Ex-Heroes books ever lost money (thank you all for that), but when the publisher looked ahead to book six… well, hitting said line was pretty much unavoidable.

11) Have you considered a Kickstarter or a GoFundme?
Yeah, sorry, the answer’s still no. I love these books and had tons of fun writing them. I’m still amazed there are so many fans who love them so much. But the math is pretty simple—if enough people were willing to pay for another book, the publisher would be willing to put out another book. And all the numbers say that’s just not the case.

Yeah, I know some of you might be willing to pay twice as much to see one more book, but I think we can all agree there’s at least as many people (probably more) who wouldn’t pay anything. And that’s the math again—it just doesn’t work out for this.

Another point to consider. I’ve usually got a good sense of what I’m working on for at least the next year, sometimes even longer. If I do a crowdfunded project, I have to schedule my time under the assumption it’s going to succeed, which means telling my publishers any other projects need to be put off and scheduled accordingly. And that leaves a six or seven month hole in my schedule when the Kickstarter flops. Which—again—all the math says is what’ll happen.

So again, no. Sorry.

12) Will you read my story and tell me what you think?
Short answer… no. 

Long answer… look, if I said yes to even a third of the requests I got, I’d be spending most of my time reading and doing critiques instead of writing. I don’t mean to sound mercenary, but… writing is how I pay my mortgage. And buy food and booze. And I really like food and booze. And my house. So when someone asks me to read stuff, they’re asking me to give up a few hours of work. Would you want to give up a few hours of work? Plus, I do have this ranty writing blog sitting right, y’know, here with over a decade of advice and tips.

Also, sad truth is some folks are not too bright and lawsuit-crazy, and they ruin it for everyone else. Somebody shows me a piece of bland, generic fanfic, then a few years from now they sue me for stealing their ideas. Yeah, I know how stupid that sounds, but I’ve actually been subpoenaed and deposed for lawsuits with less behind them than that. It’s why I’m verrrryleery when I get a long message along the lines of “You know what you should really do next with the people from 14…”  Heck, some writers respond with cease & desist orders when they get sent stuff like this.  

So the long answer also boils down to “no.” And if you send stuff without asking, I’ll delete it unread, just like spam mail. And probably block you.

13) What’s up with your Facebook page?
Ahhhhh, Facebook. Where we’re the product and the target audience. Just like Soylent Green.

Sad fact is, Facebook made it pretty much pointless for me to have a fan page there.  They altered their algorithms over the years so my posts went from 70-85% engagement to barely scraping 10-15% most of the time. All to make me pay to reach people who were already following me. Which I won’t do for a few reasons, a big one being folks pretty solidly showed years ago that paying for views on Facebook actually decreases your reach. Seriously.

Sure–it’s their site, they can run it however they like. And yeah they absolutely deserve to make money off it. I’m a progressive, but I still believe in (regulated) capitalism. But part of capitalism is you have to make something I want. I don’t have to use your product.

Plus there’s all of Facebook’s side ventures. Collecting countless amounts of personal data. Deliberately spreading misinformation. Malicious social engineering. If you think I’m exaggerating, look up articles about how Facebook shaped perceptions or spread propaganda in Myanmaror Sri Lanka. Or, y’know, the USA. And these aren’t fringe articles—they’re from major news sites.

So, yeah,  I deleted my Facebook account almost two years ago (long overdue). There’s still a fan page there, but it’s just sort of a zombie page (zing) with no administrator.

14) What about Twitter or Instagram?
I’m @PeterClines on both.  Fair warning–as I mentioned above, I’m progressive and I’m a bit more political on Twitter. Most Saturdays I also drink and live-tweet bad B-movies while building little toy soldiers so…  look, don’t say you didn’t know what you were getting into.

Instagram is probably the geekier of  my social medias.  How is that possible, you ask?  Well, there’s lots of toys and LEGO and model robots. And cats. Can’t have an Instagram account without cats. Sometimes there are overlaps in these things.

Yeah, I know Instagram’s also owned by Facebook, but (for the moment) they’re not being quite so reprehensible and algorithm-manipulative on Instagram. So (also for the moment) I’ll still be there.

And I think that should answer about 83% of your questions, yes…?

I’ve mentioned experience once or thrice over the past few posts, and I figured it might not be a bad thing to blather on about. It’s one of those things we all talk about and acknowledge, but also all like to believe we’ve got enough and don’t need any more. Mostly because… well, how much is enough? How do you even measure experience? Are there real-world units of experience?

Anyway, let me toss out a few things we can all think about. Like this story you may remember. It’s funny and I’ve told it before.

As it says over on the About page, I’ve got really old New England roots. I mostly grew up in Maine, but I spent my high school years down in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Yes, with the Rock and the Mayflower and all that. One of the big tourist attractions there is Plimoth Plantation, a sort of ongoing LARP museum/interactive show of the original colony in the year 1627. Likewise, all the actors there are playing specific, actual historical figures from that year. You can walk in, talk to the different “residents,” and they’ll answer questions about what they’re doing at the moment or “current events.” Sometimes, depending, they’ll also ask about your odd and extremely improper clothing (young lady, are you showing your shoulders?!? In public?!?)

(weird fun fact—if you’ve ever seen that late ‘80s movie Warlock, the whole “Boston Colony” sequence they show at the beginning with the little town is actually Plimoth Plantation)

Anyway… a friend of mine from high school worked at the Plantation. They assigned her an age-appropriate historical role, and part of that role was getting married at the end of the summer to another character, Experience Mitchell (ahhh, Puritan names). The thing was, my friend kinda had a behind-the-scenes thing for another Pilgrim. So on the big day, she told me one of her co-workers gave her a “wedding gift” in the changing room, a t-shirt that said…

            Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.

It was a clever pun, yeah, but the phrase stuck with me because… well, it’s true.  If you talk to anyone who’s considered experienced, it’s because they failed or screwed up. Probably a lot.

Now—somewhat back on track—in one of the Sandman books, I remember someone (I think it was Eve?) told Matthew the Raven that everyone has at least three great stories in them. This is true, but I think there’s also an unspoken corollary there which is just as important. And it gets ignored a lot.

Yes, we all have at least three great stories in us, but we also have all have lots and lots of bad stories in us. Dozens of them. Maybe even hundreds. We have awful characters, contrived plots, cringe-worthy dialogue, and some incomprehensible structure. We’re not even going to talk about those horrible twists or the very awkward sex scene.

Yes, I’m saying we. I’ve written sooooooo much bad stuff none of you are ever going to see. My third grade attempt at a novel, Lizard Men From the Center of the Earth.  My middle-school sci-fi novel.  My Boba Fett and Doctor Who fan-fiction. My junior high fantasy novel.  My high school werewolf-detective novel.  My college novel, The Trinity.  My after-college-moved-to-California novel, The Suffering Map. And mixed in there are a ton of comic scripts, short stories, screenplays, and I think even one solid attempts at a stage play. Thousands of pages.  Thousands of hours of work.

And pretty much across the board, all that work sucks.

It sucks on different levels, for different reasons, but don’t doubt that most of it sucks hard. I spent weeks and months and years in one case writing stuff that should never again see the light of day. I’ve got no problem admitting it. In fact, being able to admit it let me move from being a random dabbler to a serious writer. I spent about twenty years digging through all those bad stories and found the good ones underneath.  Maybe even one or two great ones.

Writing all those stories was my experience. I had to get them out. Whenever you hear about an overnight success or an amazing “first” novel, odds are that writer’s got a really long string of awful work behind them. Sure, there’s always a chance they really are an overnight success—sometimes those great stories are right on the surface, the way a prospector might kick over a rock and find a gold nugget just sitting there. But for the most part, becoming a good writer means a lot of, well, not getting what you want. Doing the work and then doing… more work.

Y’see, Timmy, there’s an all-too-common belief that just finishing something means it’s good. I mean, I made it all the way through to the end on my first try. That’s a lot of writing. That novel must be worth publishing and being read, right?

But the truth is, the vast majority of first novels are awful. And that’s okay. The second ones are pretty bad, too. Ex-Heroes was my first published novel, yeah , but it was my seventh-and-a-half attempt at writing one. And, as I hinted above, I’m really glad it was the first one people saw.

Because that junior high fantasy novel… jeeeeez, less said about that one the better. So embarrassing. On so many levels.

Sometimes we pour our hearts into something, spend weeks or months or even years on it, and we still don’t get us what we want. But at least we get some experience. If we admit we need it.

Next time, I think I want to talk about what was happening a few days before this.

Until then… go write.

Well, it’s that time again. We’ve made it most of the year, but now I’m afraid I need to shill some books. Lots of books.

Yeah, it makes all of us uncomfortable, but it’s also how I make a living. Which is, y’know, writing more books. And which gives me time to make all these ranty blog posts, some of which are about things you’ve asked me to write about.

So really, all of this is on you.

Anyway, here’s a bunch of things I’ve written that are out there for you to enjoy. Or maybe for you to enjoy giving to friends and family members. So they can enjoy them.

Terminus is the latest book set in the Threshold universe of stories. It’s about a bunch of people who all end up at a strange, uncharted island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Chase is running away from things, Anne is running towards them, and Murdoch is slowly coming to realize he probably shouldn’t’ve stopped running. They all start to explore the strangeness there, their paths begin to cross, and the end of the world begins to unfold around them. It’s currently available in ebook and audiobook (no paper, I’m afraid).

Dead Moon is also about someone running away from their past—a young woman named Cali Washington. And Cali runs all the way to the Moon, where she works as a cemetery caretaker… until the dead start to rise, anyway. Zombies on the moon. Can’t beat that. This one’s also available in ebook and audiobook format.

Paradox Bound is the history-traveling tale of Harry and Eli as they keep bumping into each other and finally start traveling together as part of a fantastic treasure hunt through American history. This is probably one of the most positive, hopeful books I’ve every written, and I’m still ridiculously proud of it. It’s available in pretty much every format you can imagine, and there may even be a few hardcovers kicking around if you check your localbookstores.

The Fold is still a favorite, the story of how Mike, a man with some extraordinary gifts he really doesn’t want, gets dragged into evaluating a government teleportation experiment which goes… well, guess. It’s available in many formats, in many places. Check out your local bookstore and see what they’ve got.

The Ex-Heroes books are the superheroes vs. zombies series that began my career. The ongoing adventures of St. George, Stealth, Zzzap, Cerberus, Captain Freedom, The Driver, The Corpse Girl, and more. Ex-Heroes, Ex-Patriots, Ex-Communication, Ex-Purgatory, Ex-Isle. Available in any format you want, in numerous languages.

14 is my creepy-mystery-cosmic horror-thriller. The book I never thought anyone would like that somehow launched my career up to the next level. If you’re a fan of mine and somehow haven’t read it, all I can tell you is it’s about a guy who moves into an old apartment building in LA and starts to notice some strange things. This one’s currently in audio and ebook formats, but there may still be paperbacks lurking out there somewhere in the world.

The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe – is my attempt at a “serious” mashup novel, rather than just being kind of, y’know, goofy (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I tried to clean it up a lot, but it still hews fairly close to the original, stylistically—consider that a warning some of you might deal better with the audiobook. This one’s currently in audio and ebook formats, but again—your local bookstore might have one of the last wave of paperbacks from a few years ago.

The Junkie Quatrain is a sort of novella/ mini-collection of four intertwining short stories. If you picked up Ex-Patriots as an ebook back in the day, you probably got one of the stories. This is basically Rashomon meets 28 Days Later and its one of those odd little things I’m still very proud of. You can find it on audio or ebook.

Dead Men Can’t Complain is a collection of assorted short stories I’ve written over the past dozen years or so for various anthologies and journals, plus a few extras. There’s zombies, time travel, lizard men, an overprotective ghoul, a noir detective, a lot of creepiness, and maybe a few laughs. At the moment this is only on Audible (and the narrators are amazing), although I’m looking into putting it out as an ebook under my Kavach Press line.

And that’s pretty much everything I’ve ever written. Most of what’s out there anyway. Maybe there’s something you didn’t know about to add to your wish list, or something you really liked that you think somebody you know might like too.

Also, since it’s Black Friday, I’ll also take this moment to remind you of my standard Black Friday deal for those of you who need it. And please—if you need it, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ve been there and I wish someone had offered something like this to me.

Also-also…I’d like to remind you of the other gift you can give authors. Purchases are fantastic, but the next-best thing is reviews. If you enjoyed one of my books, please feel free to throw a few stars and kind words at your favorite online review aggregator of choice. It’d thrill me to no end (and on multiple levels) to look and see a hundred new reviews on Paradox Bound. This kind of things makes books much more visible and helps more people find them. And it’s not just me—all authors feel this way. If you want to spread some joy among your favorite writers, spend an hour some night writing up seven or eight reviews for books you like.

Anyways… That’s Black Friday. I now return you to your post-feasting day of numbness. Be safe. Wear your mask.