Monster Island: A Zombie Novel (Paperback)

by David Wellington (Author) "OSMAN LEANED OVER the rail and spat into the grey sea before turning again to shout orders at his first mate Yusuf..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Central Park, Times Square (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In Wellington's energetic horror debut, the first of a promised trilogy, Manhattan has become Monster Island after a plague has turned all its denizens into shambling, rotting animated corpses, except for a couple who have kept their intelligence and also acquired psychic powers. When an expedition from Africa arrives, composed of teenage girl-soldiers and a former U.N. weapons inspector, the zombie masters mobilize their forces to kill or eat the living humans. Page by page, the story is inventive and exciting as Wellington exploits his familiarity with New York's nooks and crannies as settings for flesh-chomping battles and narrow escapes. As a whole, though, the book satisfies less since the author selectively forgets anything about the situation or the characters that would inhibit further gross-out episodes. Still, the novel offers some provocative thoughts about the purpose of life and death underlaid with some ultra-dark humor. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
This is a zombie novel--a fantastic zombie novel. Most of the world has fallen to the undead, with pockets of survivors clinging to a precarious existence. At the behest of the leader of the Free Women's Republic of Somaliland, a shipload of those makes the ludicrous trip from Africa to New York in a desperate quest for medicine. New York is a wasteland, and everything depends on a small, incredibly dedicated band of teenage girls, armed to the teeth, and native guide Dekalb, formerly a UN arms inspector. Also, in NYC there is Gary, a zombie who, completely unexpectedly, retains live human mental faculties. The questers get ringside seats for some of the apocalypse's finest moments, and no matter how prepared they thought they were, something worse awaits in the depths of New York. When zombies have already overrun everything, that's saying something. There are many layers to this zombie apocalypse, and this book just gets things rolling. Stay tuned. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press; 1st edition (April 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560258500
• ISBN-13: 978-1560258506
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #13,074 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Picking up the torch lit by Romero, March 21, 2006

By	Senecal (Columbus, OH United States) - See all my reviews

Monster Island is, hands down one of the most original and compelling reads to come along in a very long time.
Wellington injects the genre ignited by Romero and championed by Fulci with a supercharged boost of creativity at every turn.

Vivid descriptions and well researched details meet in an unrivaled example of story telling.
So natural is the world that Wellington weaves that at times, Monster Island is less like reading a book and more being witness to a movie playing in your mind.

You'd be hard pressed to find another book out now that can grab a hold of you and show you with flesh shredding convincingness, the details of what a nightmare made real looks like.
If you did find such a book it's a safe bet that Dave Wellington wrote that one too. My final recommendation is to stop reading this and go buy Monster Island right now.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable and interesting take on the zombie story..., April 21, 2006

By	A. Sandoc "sussarakhen" (San Pablo, California United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I've been waiting for awhile now for David Wellington's zombie novel. I read some of the early chapters on-line and I thought it had a very interesting take on the zombie apocalypse story. Now that I've finally bought and read my copy of the finished novel, I have to say that the novel didn't disappoint and was a fast-paced, entertaining read.

Monster Island is really straightforward in setting up the world David Wellington is trying to convey. Most zombie novels that deal with the end of the world usually tries to start things from the beginning of the crisis. Monster Island doesn't go that route. Wellington drops the reader right on top of a world already lost to the flesh-eating zombies. This makes the book's pacing much faster with little or no slow spots trying to explain why things are happening the way they are. The book also takes on an interesting form by telling it from the point of view of two different individuals: Dekalb and Gary.

Dekalb's character I enjoyed abit more than Gary just for the fact that he seemed more fleshed-out as a character. From start to end, Dekalb's motivations remain the same, but his principles and attitudes from his pre-zombie days slowly change from something less idealistic to something more practical. He never fully loses his idealistic tendecies as the ending will show, but in the end he's more willing to understand and condone why certain hard choices and decisions have to be made for the survival of mankind. Gary, on the other hand, was interesting at first, but quickly became the big baddie was too fast. The way he keeps himself from losing his humanity when he turned into a zombie was a great effect. I just wished his losing grip of his humanity didn't happen so quickly and so final. I actually thought the Mael character had more promise as a counterpoint to Dekalb, but either way Gary's transformation into a full-fledge monster helped prod Dekalb to accept the situation and to take matters into his own hands.

The zombies themselves are not so different from the ones laid down by George Romero in his Dead films. Wellington's hive mentality addition to how the zombies really operated may seem similar to Stephen King's Cell zombies, but the similarities seem cosmetic at best. Wellington describes the many different zombies with excruciatingly, disgusting details which should make him many fans within the zombie-genre community. Wellington doesn't skimp on the details of flesh-eating. Actually, the way the novel is written and with its fast-pace it could translate well into an adapted film version.

Monster Island is a rare zombie novel that sticks to the tried and true rules that George Romero set down and at the same time adding some new wrinkle to the mix. Wellington's zombie novel is not perfect and being part of a trilogy still has alot left to tell, but it's better than most zombie novels currently out not written by Brian Keene and David Moody. I can't wait for Monster Nation and Monster Planet.

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Monster Island: A refreshing approach at the Zombie genre, November 21, 2006

By	Eddie Lancekick "A Regulator" (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

David Wellington has started something great here. With Zombies being a part of our pop culture for quite some time now, they tend to get put on the back burner when it comes to true fear, horror, or intelligence when compared to say, Werewolves and Vampires. With the older Romero movies looking more like cheese that creates yawns instead of intrigue and intensity, it one of the harder genres to tackle in modern day literature.

Enter Wellington's "Monster Island". Wellington breaths new life into the old zombie norm by adding a little bit of intelligence and science to the realm. There is much more to his story than just a bunch of corpses moaning and walking around aimlessly with their arms outreached!

Wellington applies the theory that when people die and come back as "undead", they are almost a walking dolt due to the fact that their brain has gone without oxygen for several minutes. Enter Gary, a man who was a doctor in a hospital and knew the hopelessness of his situation during the "uprising". If you can't beat them, join them! Gary hooks himself up to various machines and units so that his brain can continue getting oxygen while he goes through the deadly process of becoming "undead". When he wakes up, he is one of them, but has the capability to speak as well as still having full function of his motor skills. With balance and coordination intact, he embarks into the streets of Manhattan to see what the world has in store for him.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a man who is a former U.N. peacekeeper and helper of third world countries is facing a larger dilemma. Needing AIDS medicine for the Somalians leader, he embarks with a collection of female Somalia fighters to New York in hopes of retrieving the medicine from there...barring New York is still even accessible. Pushing his efforts is the fact his daughter is being held as collateral by the Somalian leader in the event he does not succeed.

The boat reaches New York, Gary makes his way among the dead, and an even greater supernatural evil lurks that could soon be the official "nail in the coffin" of the human race.

Wellington is a great storyteller when it comes to suspense. Despite that, he never gets over the top with detail but is able to blend in enough description that the overall tale flows well. One thing he does that really impresses me is the ability to make things different from the norm. Whether it comes to zombies in general, fighting scenes, survival strategies and ponderings of Earths past before the dead rose, he breaks away from the clichés and gives you a fresh, new portrayal of the zombie apocalypse.

Monster Island has characters that you will connect with. At times I will admit, there were a few occurrences where reality was stretched too far (particularly a quick showdown between an Army Ranger and the Peacekeeper) but I can let that slide, after all, it's a fictional tale and Wellington is someone I think we'll be hearing from for some time to come.