Monster Island: A Zombie Novel | David Wellington

Monster Island: A Zombie Novel | David Wellington | Who Doesn't Love Zombies???

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Monster Island: A ...

	Monster Island: A Zombie Novel David Wellington Running Press, 2006 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 80 reviews view larger image
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new twist on zombie fare

this is a wonderful novel that takes what could be the same old stale zombie fare and offers great new twists , none of which i will go into for fear of giving away any plots. one of the best qualities of this book is its ability to convey the horror and desolation of what would happen to society if something like this actually happened. that makes this more of a horror novel than the zombies running around eating people. and there is a wonderful subplot involving mummy zombies, how totally cool and how come no one has thought of this before. i've had friends who have read this on my recomendation and have totally loved it.

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Who Doesn't Love Zombies???

OK....well maybe I don't LOVE Zombies, but I love the genre!! Starting with the cheesy Romero movies, all the way to the new "Dawn of the Dead" and "28 Days Later", I have a passion for them. But I have to say, I haven't read a lot of Zombie books. Enter Monster Island by David Wellington. This is the first in a trilogy of Zombie books that Wellington originally published online.

Some time in the very near future, the Epidemic hits our planet. What is this epidemic? We never find out: but it causes the dead to rise again. Dekalb used to be a weapons inspector for the UN working in Africa. After the Epidemic took his wife, Dekalb and his daughter were captured by a band of female rebels in Somalia, led by Mama Halima. Normally, a man wouldn't have a chance with this group of females. But Dekalb has special knowledge that the Somalians need: he can lead them to the UN hospitals. Mama Halima needs AIDS medication. After a lengthy search through many of the countries in the area, no meds are found. All the hospitals have been raided. There is only one place Dekalb can think of that will have the much needed medical supplies: The UN Headquarters in New York City. With his daughter being held as collateral, Dekalb and a band of teenage school girl rebels set out on a ship and sail halfway around the world to find the drugs.

Now we meet Gary, a man who used to be a doctor in the city. Gary decided the old philosophy "if you can't beat them, join them" was the only way to make it. With his medical training, Gary felt that the reason the Zombies were so slow and stupid is because of a lack of oxygen to their brain when they dead and before the reanimated. So Gary hooked himself up to machines to keep everything flowing through the death process. When Gary "awakened", he was still able to think logically and move better than the rest of the zombies. The only real difference is the hunger that is unquenchable.

This book was fun!! The best part of the novel to me was the change in Dekalb. He had to rewire his way of thinking: from a peace keeper to a survivor. It was really hard for him to pick up a weapon against others, even if they were already dead. But when it came down to it, Dekalb became the hero that he needed to be to save his daughter. Wellington tells a great story and doesn't go too over the top. The suspense level was high from page one all the way till the last page. Although, I must say, he left us hanging, BIG TIME, by the end. So I guess this means I'm going to have to read Zombie Nation now!!

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Good... mostly.

To me, there are a few rules to zombie fiction.
Everyone has their own peculiar tastes about the genre - some people have a real problem with running zombies (they don't run in this book), for example.
I really don't like mind-melding psychic junk in my zombie fiction, and I don't typically like intelligent zombies (a real problem I had with Land of the Dead - it felt like Romero had sold himself out somehow allowing for the learning undead, and interpersonal hiarchies within their ranks).
D. Wellington has psychic mind-melding zombies, intelligent zombies and hiarchies in this novel - and the plot is dependant on these elements, which I see as 'broken rules'.
That being said - he did it in creative ways, and who the heck am I to make up rules about such things. He dared to take some new ground and throw a spin in there. The Samolian girl army easily cancels out my protests on some of the zombie points.
It felt a bit like Brian Lumley's Necroscope books - if you want straight up vampire fiction and you aren't willing to be flexible, those books are really irritating, but once you relax and let the author take you on a trip - you find that its very enjoyable and that you really want to learn where its going.
There are three parts to this book - I rate part one a 5, part two a 2, and part three a 4 - ultimately leading me to favor it with a 4 for my rating.
I'm very picky about these things - and I end this review by letting you know that I fully expect to read the second and third books in this trilogy (unless I find that Plague of the Dead and Dying to Live blow it out of the water and I don't want to return to Wellington's canon). Good stuff, but I won't be entirely surprised if it takes a turn that I don't ultimately like as much.

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Kind of random plot devices

Monster Island is a well-paced and enjoyable read, but I found some of the plot a little too over the top. Some elements reminded me a little of Stephen King's The Cell, such as the zombies gathering and telepathy. There are definately better zombie novels out there.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

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