Peter Clines’ 2010 debut novel, Ex-Heroes, had a simple, pitch-friendly premise: superheroes meet zombies! Too often, such catchy marketing angles are reductive, but in the case of Ex-Heroes, it was pretty much a dead-on summary of Clines’ double-decker “What if . . . ?” contemporary fantasy sandwich. (What if people with superpowers started to appear in our world? And what if that was almost immediately followed by the zombie apocalypse?)

Given the waxing popularity of superheroes in film, and zombie fever pretty much everywhere, there hasn’t been a more inevitable combo since Jim Butcher dipped detective noir into “wizard!” for his The Dresden Files series (the Reeses Peanut Butter Cup of genre mashup success stories).

Still, a simple premise with built-in popular appeal doesn’t mean easy to write. For his part, Clines had to create his own version of not one but two fantasy staples so well-worn the ruts in them are basically trenches. Wisely, the author kept it simple: Clines’ undead are pretty much “zombie classic”—slow-moving, cognitively challenged, “swarm ya” machines that are deadly thanks to sheer numbers and a bite-to-infection success ratio that can’t be beat. His heroes are also pretty standard fare—a “Batman” type (Stealth), a “Superman” (Mighty Dragon/St. George), a giant/robot (Cerberus), an energy manipulator (Zzzap), etc.

More importantly, with Ex-Heroes Clines faced the overarching challenge of his genre mashup—telling a compelling story that kept readers, many of whom are “experts” in the genres, interested and guessing. For the most part, Clines succeeded, providing what amounted to a gritty comic book series in novelized form.

With Ex-Patriots, Clines returns to the world of his superhero-flavored zombie apocalypse. The heroes of the Mount—the film studio turned undead-thwarting fortress—have weathered the brutal assault of a truly horrifying supervillain and his zombie hordes. But a return to “normal” in a zombie-ravaged world is still a danger-fraught existence, and as the community of the Mount returns to the daily routine of scavenging and surviving, contact is made with a top-secret branch of the U.S. military. Will this contact turn out to be a good development for the human population of the Mount and its superhuman protectors?

As any reader familiar with Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comics knows, few “promising developments”—be they surviving humans or prospective safer locales—come without hidden peril, and Clines’ sequel is no different. For fans of either genre (be it heroic or zombie), determining the nature of the threat represented by these new players is half the fun of Ex-Patriots. (The continuing character arcs of Stealth, St. George and crew, the other.) Overall, Ex-Patriots continues the novelized comic series feel, minus the original comic series, of its predecessor. If the superheroes and zombies mix of Ex-Heroes was your cup of tea, sit down, crack open Ex-Patriots, and let Peter Clines pour you another cup.

Howard Andrew Jones’ debut novel was an impressive achievement. An exquisite distillation made from only the finest pulp ingredients, The Desert of Souls introduced readers to Captain Asim and the scholar, Dabir, a potent Watson/Holmes pairing placed in a realm flavored by Arabian Nights rather than Victorian London. (Thank goodness . . . have you tasted Victorian London lately?!) With writing both crisp and evocative and characters both familiar in template yet fresh in execution, The Desert of Souls provided readers with the next best thing to reading the works of Howard, Doyle or Lovecraft for the first time.

But with every sensational freshman effort, there are nearly as many sophomore slumps—could Jones carry over the magic of his debut into the sequel?

Yes. (We’ll forego the suspense.)

The Bones of the Old Ones finds our heroes a little wealthier and a good deal more renowned, thanks to their adventures in The Desert of Souls. Asim and Dabir have mostly adjusted to their new higher-profile circumstances when, as is the case in so many other pieces of good pulp fiction, a mysterious, troubled woman arrives on their doorstep in need of help.

The young woman, Najya, claims to have escaped from a group whose name and description match the members of an ancient cabal of powerful sorcerers. Too ancient to be the same beings, surely, but perhaps of the same origin? Soon enough, Asim and Dabir find themselves facing new foes and relying on old friends (and enemies) in an attempt to stave off an apocalyptic, wintery doom.

Along with the strength of Jones’ storytelling, The Bones of the Old Ones also brings with it what any good sequel must—further exploration of the world at hand that both enriches and expands upon the material introduced in its predecessor. Jones interweaves somewhat obscure figures of myth and legend with arguably the most famous of such heroes, in the process managing to open up a heretofore undiscovered perspective on the latter. As a result, The Bones of the Old Ones is just as satisfying as The Desert of Souls—which leads to the one drawback to the thrill of early discovery: the frustration of having to wait for the next book.

Author Caleb Carr ventures into the realm of fantasy and fable for the first time with The Legend of Broken. This dense, immense work is presented as a true story of a Germanic region whose existence has been obscured by the Dark Ages.

Broken is a society ruled by a religion that treats health and wealth as evidence of worthiness. The deformed, unfortunate and heretical are either banished to the hungry wilds of Davon Woods or, in a milder form of trickle-down-get-what-you-deserve, shunted aside to an impoverished Fifth District. The people who have survived the Woods have formed a society of sorts called the Bane. The Legend of Broken follows the efforts of a select few both within (a military leader of humble origins) and without (a trio of Bane foragers and a banished “sorcerer”) the walls of Broken to identify and thwart a heavily veiled yet deadly plot with elements that would have made Heinrich Himmler proud.

Still best known for his debut 1994 novel, The Alienist, Carr presents his latest work under the guise of a recently discovered historical manuscript. Coating a work of fiction in a veneer of “real” is by no means a unique approach to setting up a fantasy tale. “Discovered papers” have provided segues to tales by H.P. Lovecraft, and the fake memoir (both as conceit and as act of deception) is a genre in its own right. Even William Goldman’s The Princess Bride is presented as an abridgment of “S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure.” (Spoiler: There is no such author.)

That said, Carr, a historian by training, takes the approach to the extreme, treating the publishing of The Legend of Broken as if he were publishing a heavily annotated scholarly manuscript. (He also presents correspondence throughout between no less historical personages than Edward Gibbon and Edmund Burke.) The result buries his often compelling characters and intriguing storyline so deeply within a didactic framework, it’s a miracle they survive.

Readers with a tolerance for (or willingness to skim past) the overly pedantic trappings will be rewarded by a memorable cast of characters and occasionally thrilling plot. For those who don’t—well, perhaps an unannotated version?

Novelist N.K. Jemisin believes in setting the hook when it comes to world building. Take The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the first book in Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy. Released in February 2010, her debut novel barely had time to land on reviewers’ desks (and garner a host of impressive award nominations) before the second book, The Broken Kingdoms, was released in November. (The third book, The Kingdom of Gods, came out a year later.)

Jemisin (or more to the point, her publisher) must have liked how that worked out—her next two books (aka The Dreamblood Duet) are being released in consecutive months. In the first, The Killing Moon, Jemisin again demonstrates why her fans have every reason to enjoy the Anti-George R.R. Martin pace of it all.

The Killing Moon introduces us to the desert city-state of Gujaareh, whose peace is presided over by the servants of the Dream-Goddess, Hananja. Foremost among these servants are the Gatherers, priests who practice a form of magic called narcomancy and “take final tithes” from the old, sick and maimed, as well as from those deemed corrupt. (Less enlightened cultures might just call the Gatherers “assassins,” though compassionate ones.)

The Killing Moon focuses on two members of this sect. The first, Ehiru, is an established Gatherer who, as the novel opens, has his faith in himself and his order disturbed when a routine “gathering” goes wrong. The second, Nijiri, is an acolyte and then apprentice of Ehiru. Together, the two try to at first unravel and then survive a plot that threatens their order, their city and their lives. 

By Jemisin’s own admission, Gujaareh and its heal-and-kill order of monks are loosely modeled on Ancient Egyptian society, religion and medicine. But “loosely” is the key word here, since ancient cultures are just one of the building materials—along with Jungian psychotherapy—Jemisin uses to build the world of The Killing Moon. Just as not every tree trunk must be part of a log cabin nor every block of stone a castle, Jemisin quickly moves away from “inspired by” to establish a world where only the dedicated Egyptologists out there will still be seeing Gujaareh through pharaoh-colored glasses. 

Above all, the pages turn, and they turn quickly. The dramatic reveals are suitably dramatic, and the characters believable, likable and worthy of respect, be they protagonist or antagonist, main player or extra. It can be tricky introducing a new system of magic—the average fantasy reader has seen most every flavor—let alone yet another iteration on monks and assassins. Yet, taken together, Jemisin’s Gatherers and their narcomancy feel fresh. The series is young, but the Gatherers seem a worthy addition to both monk lit (the Bloodguard of Stephen R. Donaldson) and assassin lit (the Dragaera books of Steven Brust).

Best of all, there’s only a month’s wait until the release of the second book, The Shadowed Sun. Hook, set and match.

When last we checked in with Harry Dresden, the protagonist of Jim Butcher’s immensely popular Dresden Files series, Chicago’s only wizard private eye had overcome daunting odds to save the life of his infant daughter while putting a permanent kibosh on one of his most powerful foes, the vampiric Red Court. Not surprisingly given the tone of this modern noir genre mashup, the victory came at great cost. Loves were lost, troublesome alliances were forged and great personal sacrifices were made.

And then, in the afterglow/wrap-up phase of the story, Harry Dresden is assassinated. Wow. Rough day.

That abrupt ending ensured avid fans were paying attention from the start of Ghost Story, the thirteenth—and perhaps final—chapter in The Dresden Files. As the title suggests, Harry Dresden is now a ghost, but though an ectoplasmic remnant of his former self, no detective worth his dust can let a murder mystery—particularly his own—go unsolved.

As plot devices go, the after-death of Harry Dresden proves a savvy choice by Butcher. Good modern pulp fiction—and The Dresden Files is just that—ultimately depends on a well-balanced mixture of the familiar and the strange. Early in a series, the mixture is understandably heavy on the strange. (“John Carter is on frikkin’ Mars!!!”) But as the series ages, after the “hook” of the strange has been set, the equation shifts back toward 50/50. But if the familiar grows to be too large a part of the formula, a series can become more comfort food than culinary adventure. And while Butcher’s series is hardly Chinese takeout, it was certainly time for a little spice—an upping of the strange and unfamiliar.

With Ghost Story, the reader gets just that. Ironically, a dead Dresden is just what the doctor ordered to liven up the series. Dresden’s ghostly existence casts almost all of the series’ old standbys—the staunch allies, the fearsome foes and the usual array of personal resources and plot-twisting wild cards—in a new light.

Yet, for all the new in Dresden’s plight, there’s ample familiar for a fan to hold onto. Dresden remains an engaging first-person narrator—death hasn’t affected his snark—and he’s surrounded by a rich supporting cast developed over the course of the preceding 12 books (and one anthology). And as he struggles to help his friends and confound his enemies—and perhaps, just perhaps, figure out who offed him—the pace and feel that has made the books worthy of bestseller lists and a television series remains intact.

But there’s also something more. Throughout it all, a whispered question nags at the reader’s subconscious, propelling the pages to turn a little bit faster than they already are. Succeed or fail, could this be the end of Harry Dresden? To find out, all you have to do is read a story. A Ghost Story.

It’s fair to say that A Dance With Dragons, the fifth book in George R.R. Martin’s acclaimed Song of Ice and Fire series, is the most-anticipated fantasy release since—well—the fourth book in the series, A Feast for Crows (2005). The anticipation is well-earned. The first three books in the series were an exhilarating, gritty combination of quasi-historical fiction and high epic fantasy. The brisk publication pace—A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords were released in two-year increments—kept the burgeoning population of fans fed even as the books themselves challenged the conventional hero/villain dichotomy of traditional fantasy.

I mention publication pace—usually irrelevant to a review of anything but web comics—because after the 2000 publication of A Storm of Swords, it would be five years before the release of A Feast For Crows. The delay was cause for much teeth gnashing amongst an already fervid fan base, but even that only served as proof of the degree to which Martin had succeeded in creating a powerful work of epic fantasy. Then came the afterword of Feast, in which Martin admits a lapse of discipline and editing, announcing that Feast was half of the awaited book, and the second half—A Dance With Dragons—would “be along next year (I devoutly hope).” It turns out that “I devoutly hope” is Martin-ese for “give or take five years.”

Now, six years later, A Dance With Dragons has arrived. Not surprisingly, it shares many of the strengths and weaknesses of its “first half.” There is the engaging character building one expects from Martin—seldom has an author given his readers so many characters to care about (before, of course, maiming and/or killing them). There are the complex lineage-a-thons not seen since that book in the Bible with all the “begats.” There are the in-depth descriptions of castles, demesnes, harbors, passages and the people who occupy them. (I long to read the chapter on scenic Harrenhal in the next edition of Rick Steves’ Westeros.) Tongue-in-cheek comments aside, Dance is further proof that Martin is a world builder of the first order.

And A Dance With Dragons has one immediate advantage over its first installment. Whereas A Feast for Crows had an almost maddening focus on characters who were less central to the story (and in the hearts of readers), Dance returns us to the “big three”—Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen. For the most part, it’s so very, very satisfying. Tyrion could spend the entire book talking about food allergies (My Dinner with Tyrion?), and it’d be amusing. Jon Snow’s battle to man the Wall and navigate the treacherous waters of leadership—while not as quippy—keeps the pages turning. Daenerys’s chapters are a bit more frustrating, as her march to reclaim the throne has turned into more of a squat and fret.

The Queen’s relative inactivity reflects a slackening of pace characteristic of both Feast and Dance. Though there are many developments in A Dance With Dragons—plenty of things happen—there’s also a paucity of events. The first three books present a number of large-scale set pieces—the Battle for King’s Landing, the defense of the Wall against Mance Rayder’s horde, the horrid events of the Red Wedding, the wondrous reveal of the dragons of Daenerys. Even the smaller events possess great heft, be they duel, beheading or de-handing. And though there’s no law saying every book needs a Helm’s Deep, Chain of Dogs or Triwizard Tournament, the 1,500-plus pages of exposition, positioning and skirmishes seem somehow uneventful compared to what has gone before (a certain dramatically placed crossbow bolt or two notwithstanding). All in all, events do not seem to be moving as apace as in the earlier books. In Feast, that’s defensible—it’s the aftermath of a major struggle, and the crows of the title require a certain lull during which they can settle down to feast. But in Dance, one expects a little more movement. In too many places, the dance is more akin to that guy standing against the wall moving his knee in time to the music.

All in all, A Dance With Dragons will do little to ease the minds of those readers who have worried that Martin’s grasp on the immensity that is A Song of Ice and Fire—or at least his ability to steer the narrative of the series—is slipping. For all the deserved praise garnered by Martin as a writer and his series as a captivating work of fantasy, Dance leaves the reader with plenty of questions about the health and trajectory of A Song of Ice and Fire. Can an author discard too many characters in whom readers have built a substantial investment? Is there a line where the thrill of the unpredictable becomes resentment at yet another investment squandered? (Would Tolkien’s epic have had the same impact if Gandalf had stayed dead, Frodo bought it early in The Two Towers and Aragorn died later in the same book?)

Given Martin’s penchant for dramatic reversals, it’s only appropriate I left A Dance With Dragons feeling still up in the air. Is that the Grand Canyon below? Is Martin is in the midst of completing a legendary leap, or are we going to crash into the cliff wall? Or is that just a shark we’re jumping over? And how long will I have to wait to find out? (I devoutly hope it’s not another six years.)