Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

This is a Buddy Read for Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry starting on July 7, 2025.


Happy Reading!

Get to commenting, Felina ;)

LOL Thanks Iain! Will attempt to build a series list here, will need your input when I get it done... probably not today though.

Here goes... working off of the list on Maberry's website:
https://www.jonathanmaberry.com/joele...

Joe Ledger DMS main series
1. Patient Zero (Jul 7)
0. Short: Countdown in Joe Ledger: Special Ops collection)
1.1 Short: Zero Tolerance (in Special Ops)
1.2 Short: Deep, Dark (in Special Ops)
1.3 Short: Material Witness

2. The Dragon Factory (Aug 7) [link]
2.1 Short: Dog Days (in print versions of Dragon Factory)
2.2 Short: Changeling (in Special Ops)
3. The King of Plagues (Sept 7) [link]
====Requests made to here====
4. Assassin's Code (Oct? Dec?)
4.1 Short: A Footnote in the Black Budget in The Madness of Cthulhu collection
4.2 Short: Mad Science (in Special Ops)
4.3 Short: Borrowed Power (in Special Ops)
5. Extinction Machine
6. Code Zero
6.1 Novella: Three Guys Walk Into a Bar in Limbus, Inc.: Book II
6.2 Short: Artifact (in Special Ops)
6.3 Short: The Handyman Gets Out (in Special Ops)
7. Predator One
8. Kill Switch
9. Dogs of War
10. Deep Silence
10.1 Short: Atoll in Joe Ledger: Unstoppable collection
10.2 Novella: All the Devils are Here in Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror

Joe Ledger: Rogue Team International
1. Rage
2. Relentless
3. Cave 13
4. Burn to Shine
5. Red Empire

Joe Ledger Collections
Joe Ledger: Special Ops (all shorts listed above)
Joe Ledger: Unstoppable (various authors playing in Maberry's sandbox)
Joe Ledger: Unbreakable (2nd Multi-author collection)
Joe Ledger: Secret Missions Volume One and Two (crossover collection)
Maberry's reading order puts Unstoppable here--but he also stopped updating after 2015

Dead of Night
Picks up a few years or so after the Rogue Team books. Some cameos by Ledger.
1. Dead of Night
1.1 Short: Jack and Jill in 21st Century Dead collection
1.2 Short: Chokepoint in Hungry Tales collection
1.5 Short The Wind Through the Fence in Wind Through the Fence: And Other Stories
2. Fall of Night
2.1 Short: Lone Gunman in Nights of the Living Dead: An Anthology
2.2 Short: Not This War, Not My World in Wastelands: The New Apocalypse collection
3. Dark of Night - Flesh and Fire
4. Still of Night

Rot & Ruin
Picks up a decade or so after Dead of Night series. Joe becomes a regular by #3. Younger protagonists.
0.5
1. Rot & Ruin
1.5 vingettes In the Land of the Dead Bonus on Maberry's Website: (https://www.jonathanmaberry.com/files...)
2. Dust & Decay
2.3 Novella: Dead & Gone in Tales of the Rot & Ruin: Rot & Ruin; Dust & Decay; Dead & Gone; Flesh & Bone or solo Kindle ebook
2.5 Graphic Novel: Rot & Ruin Warrior Smart #1-5
3. Flesh & Bone
3.5 Novella: Tooth & Nail Kindle ebook?
4. Fire & Ash
5. Bits & Pieces

Broken Lands
Direct continuation of Rot & Ruin--#1 of Broken Lands is #6 of Rot & Ruin
1. Broken Lands
2. Lost Roads

V-Wars
A series of Graphic Novels with Ledger cameos

Okay, series list made--comments & edits welcome.

To be clear, all these series other than Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International are in parallel dimensions with slightly different Joe Ledger and slightly different zombie apocalypses...

There's a crossover in one of the books when reality gets wonky and Joe hops between dimensions for a few chapters...

Also, Kagen the Damned is technically set on Earth like 20k years in the future after yet another zombie plague, before devolving into a high fantasy settings... The main crossover there is one of the immortalish villains in books 2-3...

I haven't read the parallels dimension series, but this is a good excuse to finish out the Mayberry bibliography :D

Hm. Interesting. He doesn't mention the multi-dimension thing on his series page. Boo.

If the group does the full original Joe Ledger series, I'll jump in where I left off at book 7. I've been meaning to finish these for a while. I've also been skipping the short stories.

Timelord Iain wrote: "Get to commenting, Felina ;)"

Felina, reporting for duty!

I really enjoyed this. (view spoiler)[ I immediately liked Maberry's writing style and the way the characters talk to each other. It's very Scalzi. But that can get old for me so I'm hoping that evens out as the series moves along.

I thought his relationship with the British chick was stupid and that her being insta-in-love with him was stupid. Based on my track record, I will love her by book 6 ah la Candy McClure.

I thought the plot was very well put together. I've read a fair amount of zombie fiction and it's always a certain type. This was like Orphan X with zombies. I guess more military than horror. I guess it doesn't have the zombie apocalypse vibe because it hasn't actually started yet. And most zombie books are total downers...Walking Dead. (hide spoiler)]

4 stars, good time. Looking forward to continuing but Nirkatze's series post has me getting afraid of commitment. Ha ha.

My memory for all the details of this series isn't the greatest, but I've been looking forward to a re-read for a few years now... super hyped...

My main warning with this series is to not grow too attached to anybody... especially anybody not directly in Ledgers like 3 man team + dog + Mr Church + Ledger's BFF therapist buddy... I can't 100% guarantee anybody else survives from book to book...

Checked wiki for names, and I mean "Top" & "Bunny" and Rudy...

Checked who you meant by British woman (view spoiler)[and yea... that's not a longterm thing... he ends up with someone else outside the DMS that's a more longterm thing, but it's more of a side plot, since the main plot is always saving the world...

Looking at blurbs, that should happen by book 5?... (hide spoiler)]

My main takeaway from Maberry's writing styles is alot of jumping around, giving enemy POVs and victim POVs just before terrorist attacks happen... and coming down to the wire before pulling victory from defeat at the last second...

Talking to Nirkatze's list of unconnected series with Joe Ledger characters in them, any one of the plots of these books could turn out slightly differently and lead to an apocalypse that would let those zombie series happen...

Also, you don't have to do all the extras... that's for the end after we're done with the main goal of this BR: Joe Ledger 1-10 and Rogue Team International 1-5+ (direct sequel series when the DMS has to be dissolved for plot reasons, and leave US jurisdiction)...

Everything else, including the short stories and anthologies is super optional, for collectors/completionists like me & Nirkatze :D

This is very military + zombie, less horror more thriller... also, zombies aren't gonna be the main focus of the series, speculative fiction threats are...

I think book 2 is Nazi clones?... later on there's vampires and bioweapons and aliens and almost anything you can think of...

Code Zero revisits zombies, and thus the name similarity... but it's more about a criminal elements breaking into the vault of previously solved threats and re-releasing them, not just the zombie virus...

This series / author has veered towards grimdark in recent years... both in Kagen the Damned starting off so depressing, and some of the horrible things that Joe & team survive in later Ledger books and especially Rogue Team International...

I still vividly remember finishing Rage and being shell shocked...

The wait for Relentless felt like forever, and it was SO dark... as expected...

Me and Emily made a point of creating "cozy sandwich BRs" when reading Son of the Poison Rose & The Dragon in Winter, altho they didn't feel as necessary as expected...

I have completionist issues too, I just don’t read as fast as you guys so it plagues me. Ha ha.

Pretty excited about other big bads than just zombies though.

If this was one of the June 25 BRs, I'd have read it already :D

Side Note: I wonder if Maberry would have had to change the plot of Dead Silence if it came out after Jan 6... it's a plot with induced violence in Congress/DC...

Seems like notifications broke for me on the 21st-22nd, so I totally missed this conversation! Looks fun. :)

Oh, and first three thread links are live and linked.

Started, through ch 30 (view spoiler)[I guess I didn't pay attention to the precis but I thought he turned into a zombie monster guy but was sentient and able to still work as a cop! I am glad I had it wrong and I feel like a dummy lol He just walked in to a room and kicked the asses of the guys in there only to find out those will be his team after. I am very much enjoying this so far :) (hide spoiler)]

I read it early, sometime during my workweek last week... maybe Thursday?...

The intro chapters remind me of the intro to Monster Hunter International, on re-read (view spoiler)[with the whole "I killed the same guy twice, and was recruited to a secret monster fighting organization" premise... (hide spoiler)]

Other than that, I forgot how early in the series some characters were introduced...

Question about the series overall (view spoiler)[Is the zombie story line just book 1 or is it the entire series? (hide spoiler)]

Ann-Marie wrote: "Started, through ch 30 [spoilers removed]"

You thought Joe was Patient Zero from the title :D

Interesting, but no... I feel like that's the direction Hollywood went with some shows and movies in the past 15 years since this released, tho...

(view spoiler)[Joe definitely has alot of kickass moments throughout this, right from book 1, that I forgot about... so it's not like he suddenly becomes more badass later on, he was pretty much always badass... it's why he's recruited by Mr. Church... (hide spoiler)]

I know Felina said (or someone else said and I'm mistattributing from other friend reviews (view spoiler)[that they hope to never get Mr. Church's backstory and keep him mysterious... sadly, that's not true... but it has been kept secret for a long long time... the whole of the Joe Ledger series, and only in recent Rogue Team International releases has the answer been becoming clearer, with the most recent release and the next release promising to reveal the rest... Jonathan Maberry has said something along the lines of having a deal with the publishers to reveal everything if more than 300 fans figure it out and share their accurate theories with him at fan signing / emails / Q&As / etc, and that threshold has been met...

I've forgotten stuff learned in Scroll 13, and haven't read Burn to Shine, but I hope it's the fan theory I stumbled into a few years ago that he's (view spoiler)[ the Count of St. Germain, a man who lived in the 1700s and claimed to be over 500 years old, with interests in alchemy and philosophy among other things:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_o...
(hide spoiler)]

In the meantime, you learn plenty of minor tidbits about him and his longtime foes throughout the Joe Ledger series... (hide spoiler)]

Ann-Marie wrote: "Question about the series overall [spoilers removed]"

I answer that up in comment 12... I'd just be copying and pasting to answer again here...

I am even more excited to read this series now!

That's what I like to hear... this is a great series...

Through Chapter 12 and enjoying so far! (view spoiler)[Fun setup: not-so-secret government division recruiting a talented newbie, plus zombies--but no apocalypse so far--and SCIENCE. (hide spoiler)]

I love how Nirkatze is like YAY SCIENCE adding to her enjoyment and meanwhile I am over her like UGH SCIENCE and enjoying it despite that lol

LOL we do seem to find opposite things to enjoy... don't even get us start talking on cozy definitions. ;)

Ann-Marie wrote: "Started, through ch 30 [spoilers removed]"

That was a great scene! (view spoiler)[When we hear the name of the team, I was like ooh, sub series! And I love all the nicknames. (hide spoiler)]

Through Part III, Chapter 68 I think? (view spoiler)[Man, the team's introduction to the walkers was brutal--kids getting bitten and them having to put them down... and then that happens more than once...

I like how Ledger essentially got the job because when asked what the worst cause of terrorism (or something like that was), he said everything always goes back to the money. And then we meet a "philanthropist" pharmaceutical entrepreneur, who is famous for dishing out cures... for diseases he caused. All the fanatics who Ledger is seeing on the surface, and it's all to pad someone's profit margin... (hide spoiler)]

Definitely a good successor to the Orphan X slot so far.

Mr. Church is like Stratt in Hail Mary.

Finished yesterday and I immediately read the shorts, I loved this so much. I agree with Nirkatze, this is a great follow-up to Orphan X, similar with the action but just different enough not to be compared directly because I think Orphan X would win but who knows as we progress?

LOL yes, still early days. We haven't had a chance to get attached to anyone yet--one of the things that makes Orphan X so good is the side characters and backstory, and we don't know Ledger's backstory, or the team, that well yet. Finished and enjoyed! (view spoiler)[Some nice twists! I was not expecting an embed in the team itself. And the scene with the VP's wife and learning about the new gen-10 & gen-12 virus were great.

I can't say I'm much attached to the romance. It moved a bit too fast, and--Claire?--seems kinda flat so far. Not sure if I should ignore her as a Bond-girl to be sacrificed later, or if she's here for the long run. (hide spoiler)]

that was why I recommended this next instead of Grey Man... Grey Man is alot more similar to Orphan X, with a few changes...

The main other thriller series I used to like was Jack Reacher, but that kinda started falling apart in the book 15-25 range and then the author semi-retired and his younger brother writes them now and I just abandoned the series...

I wouldn't mind giving the book series Dept Q is based on, that show was pretty terrific.

Nirkatze (view spoiler)[ agreed on the British chick. I thought she was stupid. (hide spoiler)]

I am also really excited about this series as a replacement for X.

We can hold out hope for better female representation in the future.

I think there might be some later on... maybe... the cast is like 90% male commandos, tho, I think?... until we get to Joe's 2nd love interest and a woman from Church's past, and any that appear as villains...

Woohoo, I’m 41 and I require love interests in all my stories , even zombie ones.

We can hold out hope for a Candy in the future...

I hold out hope for a Candy in everybody’s future, real and literature alike.

Funnily enough...

I think someone like that is introduced in Assassin's Code... (view spoiler)[vampire assassins... some good guys and bad guys... (hide spoiler)]

Noice!

Yesss!

I just finished Material Witness. That was a trip. I read the first Pine Deep book ages ago. I liked it but never finished the series. I’ve got to get back to it. Anywho, this short was very interesting because it references a bunch of stuff I barely remember. I’ve got to get back to that series since it’s obviously connected.