Customer Reviews

Monster Island: A Zombie Novel

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Monster Island, which was first originally published in a serialized format online, finally got its print release due to the extremem popularity of the online novel, and its two sequels. The novel takes place six weeks after the epidemic, which turned the world to chaos run by the living dead. We follow Dekalb, a former UN weapons inspector who has found safety in Somalia, with a group of female warriors loyal to the warlord of Somalia. When the warlord informs Dekalb that she has AIDS and needs drugs, she sends him and her warriors off to
America to retrieve drugs from the UN building in New York City. Once the group arrives in New York, almost nothing goes right, and the readers is treated to a large amount of zombie violence and gore.

The thing that makes Monster Island stand out is the different take on zombies that author David Wellington uses. I won't give much of anything away, but I will say that one of the main characters in the novel is a zombie who killed himself but kept his brain intact by hooking himself up to a ventilator. This zombie can still think like a human and talk like a human, but he is still overcome with the urge to eat. While this is a totally new take on zombies, it also works against the book in some ways. Wellington takes that basic idea, which isn't all bad, and turns into something much more. It is very reminiscient of Stephen King's Cell, in which the zombies are basically all one being, and can all be controlled. I guess the only reason that I ultimately frowned at this development was the fact that I just wanted a good, old-fashioned zombie story, and this novel definitely is not that. It has some really good, intense moments, but I guess it just didn't live up to what I hoped it would be.

Don't get me wrong, though, I definitely plan to read the last two parts of the trilogy, which are still available online to read immediately.

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.

There was a lot to like in this novel and by the time I finished I was glad that I had read it. There are many unique takes on Zombies in this book from how they can be thwarted by surviving humans, to what they do when their food gets low (I disagree with one of the above reviewers, the thought of the dead eating bark because they have run out of other food sources was creepy).

Where I got disappointed was there was some spelling mistakes throughout the book. Made me feel like there was no proof-reader. Some of the characters logic seemed flawed and sometimes they did stupid things that just didn't seem to fit with their characters.

I do feel like this book is worth reading for horror fans though, it was definitely not just lifted from other Zombie movies/books and you could tell the author labored over it and I appreciated that. I have not decided if I will read the other books in the series yet, but I am not disappointed I read this book.

When I first began reading this book, I found the writing style to be quite good, mature really, unlike a lot of the sophomoric rubbish that gets published nowadays. Also, the Somalian ship visiting a dead New York, and a man who preserved his brain and yet became a zombi were quite intriguing ideas.

The first part of the book was good, maybe even very good. Then, in part two, things went bad. The writing seemed sloppier, and the author resorted to that old cheat for solving plot difficulties: a central character suddenly develops some sort of super power, in this case, control of a zombi neural-supernatural network of decayed minds. The character's personality also does a 360, sort of like in those movies in which a nerd girl loses her glasses and miraculously becomes Miss Popularity overnight. And mummies! Don't forget those mummies! And a druid smarter than anyone who is reading this! He has wondrous powers as well! And those mummies are none too dull witted- better watch out!

Part three of the book descended into middle school writing, and became so utterly inane that I could barely skim my way to the end. Parts of it actually made me sputter with outrage at the contrivances and overall foolishness.

Personally I like a little possible plausibility in my zombie reads. I'm not really into zombie fantasy. This book was more fantasy than plausibility from beginning to end. Now, having said that, the book was not bad, just not great. It is not scarey and will not give you the chills. Bottom line, this book is a pleasant read for zombie fans and does have a nice little suprise at the end.

Monster Island succeeds where many other survival/horror novels go astray by combing three elements exceptionally well. Mr. Wellington creates a situation full of narrow escapes and memorable battles taking place in a setting that is both instantly familiar to all of us, and yet transformed to something not of this world. The author's own personal knowledge of many of the book's locales contributes to the reader's feeling of fitting into an environment that many have seen portrayed countless times in movies and literature, but until now never really felt like a resident. This is truly a great example of fine action/adventure writing.

Mr. Wellington then adds an entire additional dimension to the book by his inclusion of dark horror elements, elements that are effectively written and full of cerebral fear and mystery, and yet he never looses touch with the reality of this story. He deftly avoids the cliched approach of many horror writers that results in a book full of terror, but not full of plot. In Monster Island the horror always serves to make the reader squirm while still advancing the plot itself.

The main agents Mr. Wellington uses towards this purpose are his characters, truly the best part of the book. His main protagonist is intelligent and quick-thinking, and yet illustrates the inability of those raised in the safe American lifestyle to instantly comprehend the near-end of civilization. The character's fear and caution remind of us ourselves, who though having the best of intentions oftentimes are unable to rise above our basic human infirmities in order to achieve movie star style bravado. The story's heroine does have a superhero quality about herself, and she is certainly able to fight her way out of situations with the best of them, but her humanity is also shown through her childlike respect towards her AIDS suffering leader back in Somalia, as well as her lack of confidence in her ability to formulate a plan for the expedition in spite of all of her physical prowess.

The most effective character however, is Gary, the story's villain. Any good horror story deserves a good villain, and Gary delivers in spades, quickly becoming a favorite character when he easily out-evils the more traditional villain figure, a resurrected druid who wants to crush all life remaining after the undead plague. Gary decides he has better plans for humanity, and from that point proves that a Machiavellian combination of raw intelligence and a total lack of moral scruples make for a far more sinister enemy than one who simply wants to kill for the sake of killing.

Monster Islands characters, plot, and dark horror will have the reader turning quickly through it's all-too-few pages, and then leave them waiting for the remaining two entries into the trilogy with baited breath.

There are some very negative reviews for Monster Island on Amazon, but I have to give this five stars. This is a fantastic shoot-em-up zombie novel. I mean come on, it's a zombie novel, Wellington knows the genre and he's out to give you an entertaining story within the constraints of this genre - there's only so much you can do with the walking dead.

Wellington delivers, the book has great pacing, fantastic action scenes, and at the end he does - brace yourself - come up with some very original takes. He ADDS to the genre, I bet that some of the things he's created will be copied in the near future.

Manhattan is a great place setting for isolation (Escape from New York, for starters), and it serves as a key character in this book. If you like action, I can't recommend this book enough.

Why am I so positive? BECAUSE I HATE ZOMBIE BOOKS, AND I STILL LOVED THIS ONE. Wellington won me over, plain and simple. This book is a blast, and if you like monsters or action, pick it up.

I actually enjoyed the pacing and didn't mind the grammatical errors that so many of the bad reviews focus on. I also liked many of the characters. I just was very annoyed with all the utter nonsense. Sure, I'm reading a zombie novel, I understand that, but how much does this guy want me to willingly suspend my disbelief? Zombie pigeons? Mummies? A zombie highlander with a Trainspotting accent?

And so much of this book contradicts itself. Zombie hordes that can pull down buildings? It just isn't possible by the laws of physics. Yet in some scenes the zombies are so weak they can hardly walk. And one zombie at the zoo can even fend off all the other zombies while he eats every animal in the zoo. Hey, my brain isn't dead! And how does a zombie eat a lion anyway? He can't think so how does he get in the cage? Even if he does get in the cage somehow, he doesn't have reasoning to wait until the lion is near death and weak before he attacks it. If the zombie waits until the lion dies, which again he doesn't have the ability to do since zombies don't have restraint, isn't it then a zombie-lion that will eat the zombie? Or at least rip it to shreds? And zombies don't eat dead things anyway so it wouldn't even bother with the zombie-lion. I can't believe I even typed the phrase "zombie-lion" but that is the kind of stuff we're dealing with here. Complete and utter nonsense. The author writes some sort of gibberish about not many zombies being attracted to the zoo. These are the same zombies that can smell anything living from a great distance. They can't smell a zoo!?!? And they are so desperate for food they eat tree bark, but they have no interest in the zoo in the same park with the tree bark (not too mention stockpiles of animal feed). Puh-leeze. I'm just using the whole zoo thing as an example. The book is chock-full of other examples equally as lame.

As one reviewer said, he's a zombie freak and couldn't stay away. Neither could I. But I will be available to avoid the sequel. I think.

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.

I'm not a huge fan of zombie novels (the shuffling dead eating the living just grosses me out) but this was a bit different. A worldwide epidemic occurs that wipes out the majority of the population leaving hungry, mindless zombies. In New York City, Gary chooses to become one of the zombies before he is caught and eaten. He was a medical intern prior to the epidemic and so he kills himself via submering himself in ice but manages to keep his brain active by hooking himself up to a dialysis machine. Meanwhile, DeKalb and the teenaged Glorious Girl Army of the Free Women's Republic of Somaliland has sailed to NYC in search of AIDS medications for Mama Halima, the leader of the teenaged girls. Mama Halima is keeping DeKalb's daughter, Sarah, hostage until he returns with the medicines. Their plan is to go to the U.N. building and get the medicines but they were unprepared for the numerous zombies in NYC. They meet up with Gary and initially allow him to live- that is, until he eats their dying teenaged leader! He is shot in the head and therefore supposedly dead but Gary discovers he can suck the life force out of other zombies and regenerate when a mysterious Benefactor assists him. Gary meets up with his Benefactor, Mael, and together they begin plotting the demise of all survivors. DeKalb and Ayaan (one of the teenaged warriors) stumble upon a group of survivors in NYC and are caught in a power struggle between Gary and Mael. This book definitely kept my interest and the author avoided focusing too much on the sheer nastiness of zombies eating people and instead created a story that is definitely worth reading.