Customer Reviews

Monster Nation: A Zombie Novel

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I found Monster Island first and really enjoyed the dark desolate overtones that novel put out. So reading the next book in the series was a must.

While Monster Island takes place after the world has been overrun, this novel takes place before and during. The book starts with a bang and just keeps on going at a pretty good pace. There's not too much talking nor is there excessive action. It's a well balanced novel in my opinion.

The author does put his own spin on the rise of the zombies which jives with his first novel. I thought it worked out pretty well given that every zombie novel wants to always deal with "why did this happen?"

I would definitely recommend this novel. And you don't have to start with Monster Island either.

Like some of the other reviewers I really enjoyed Monster Island. (If you live in New York City it is interesting to read about the city post-zombification!) I was disappointed with Monster Nation.

The whole idea of the Nilla character being able to become invisible at will was never explained at all and just seemed at odds with the rest of the story. Without giving too much away, the ending was pretty weak and seemed to have no basis in reality. Fine if the whole book was a great big fantasy but most of the time Wellington bases the action very firmly in reality. Some of the characters were well written but most were two-dimensional and didn't really ring true.

This is probably worth reading only if you are interested in learning more about the world Wellington is trying to create. Hopefully the third installment will be better.

I read Monster Island and this is a good side by side story along with that. It is a flashback to the beginning of things, providing a clearer idea of why the undead have started walking and a little more detail on our ancient scottish undead chap that was in the first novel.

Unlike the first book, this one really cannot stand on its own as I am sure the series of events will be completed in Monster Planet, the third and final (I assume) installment in this series.

Mr. Wellington does a good job of creating a realm where the supernatural is the cause of the dead rising as opposed to a virus or a more scientific reasoning. We are slowly given an idea of how this threat developed and where it came from. Even thought it came from human actions, ancient gods are behind the desire to see the human race wiped clean off the planets surface.

This book is even more focused on a specific undead character than Zombie Island-Nilla, who chose her own name after becoming undead because she cannot remember her name, nor anything of her own past before being bitten by a zombie herself and dying. She continued to take in oxygen while dying and thus her brain did not deteriorate. The story pretty much follows her storyline as well as Clark Bannerman, a Captain with the National Guard who is forced to become the lead in the military battle against the undead in the western states. He pursues Nilla after realizing that she is the only undead person that can still speak. He knows that she is a key to resolving this issue, even though he does not know why.

Overall, the story flows quite well and is definitely entertaining. I liked how the author put a small blurb on nearly every page that blasts out a news report/personal commentary that interupts the ongoing story with information on what is occuring to people all over the country. Pleas for help, reports of mysterious killings, etc.

I feel the author did a better job of explaining the undead relationship with animals-how they become undead, etc. than in the first book. It seemed then that it was just a minor point. It is not fleshed out completely here, but seems much more natural as a part of the story.

Given that this series of books takes a supernatural slant, I am much more accepting of the ancient scottish zombie here than I was in the first book. I was a little taken aback by Nilla's "special ability" which seems out of place and makes little to no sense-how does she have that particular talent and why? Perhaps it will be further explained in the final book.

Overall, the details of this book made the me understand the first book even more and appreciate it better now that things seem to be coming together more clearly. I look forward to reading the third book and seeing everything resolved (or at least resolved...for now).

David Wellington can tell a frickin' zombie story! Monster Island was terrific, but Monster Nation goes a shambling step further to provide a deeper, more passionate story that possesses a strangely lyrical quality while at the same time managing to send shivers right up the spine. That takes talent.

If you've read Monster Island...then read this right now. If you haven't read Monster Island (and...what's the matter with you?) then get that one and this one. This is the Grand Epic of the Zombie mythology.

I liked this one better than I liked the first one, as the writer gains confidence and skill in his storytelling. Here, he mixes it up by giving truly unexpected twists and turns to the story, by making some of the humans unsympathetic and some of the zombies almost human. Some of the flaws remain; you get the feeling that some of the plot twists are undertaken for shock and novelty value rather than for the internal integrity of the story, but given the fact that there's a lot of, well, crappy zombie novels out there, this is complaining about riches. All in all, a definite improvement on the first, wihch was quite good on its own, and a fresh take on an old subject.

The 2nd book in David Wellington's zombie trilogy, (which actually should be the 1st), isn't nearly as great as Monster Island was.

Monster Nation actually takes the reader back to the zombie outbreak, showing readers how this all started. Unfortunately, even though David Wellington is a gifted writer, this didn't capture me and keep me as rivited as his 1st entry. It is still good, but just seemed more ponderous to me. Monster Island starts out with a gripping event, and just never let up in solid horror action/adventure. Nation just didn't seem to have the same qualities.

I still look forward to the last book in this trilogy - Monster Planet - and hope for overall better storyline and characters that Wellington gave us in his debut novel.

Good luck David Wellington. See you in my next review of Monster Planet.

The overall story is interesting, and the action is great, but the author's knowledge of the military is horrible. So poor that it begs the question about his research ability and his desire to write the best possible story. While I understand that the whole story is science fiction, one of the main things of writing stories like this is to have as much as possible correct in order to make the fiction part believable.

In the preface the author thanks an individual for helping him with military issues. I don't want to name this "helper", but he should be fired if he is responsible for verifying Wellington's knowledge of military issues and activities.

Virtually every item about the military is incorrect or based on very outdated procedures.

Some examples:

- Clark frequently refers to CSM Horrocks, who is describes as the "Platoon Sergeant", as "Chief". Command Sergeants Major are not platoon sergeants and are definitely not called "Chief" - which is a Warrant Officer.
- there is no way - even in the National Guard - that an officer of Clark's age would still be a Captain, and there is no way that a Captain would have his job. Mandatory retirement and / or up-or-out policies would have put Clark out a long time ago. His position within the Colorado National Guard would have been filled by a Lieutenant Colonel or Colonel.
- Clark wears a "peaked" cap. We don't wear peaked caps in the Army anymore, except in our formal dress uniforms - which Clark certianly would not be wearing. We wear berets with our combat and office uniforms. I think that he would have switched to BDUs (and more recently ACUs) very quickly from the Class B uniform he appears to have been wearing at the beginning of the story.
- the whole sequence of the platoon giving him a boonie hat as some sort of sign of respect is silly. This "tradition" that the author refers to for this segment is unknown by anyone I've asked in the last couple of days.
- Clark addresses the co-pilot of a Blackhawk as "Specialist", which is an enlisted rank. Warrant Officers and Commissioned Officers are aviators in the Army.
- the author's understanding of the internal layout of a Blackhawk is confusing at best, idiotic at worst. It appears there was no research at all about helicopters and what would have been best for the story. I would have used a Chinook instead.
- the author's description of the internal layout of a HEMMT is also wrong.
- I never did understand how a Major from the Regular Army (Clark's Indian friend) becomes subordinate to a Captain in the National Guard. On top of that, if the two of them had come into service at the same time, how is the Major still a Major on active duty. He also is long past mandatory retirement and time-in-service maximums.
- the military doctor from USAMRIID is a First Lieutenant???? Someone with her advanced degrees and training would have come into service as a Captain at a minimum.
- throughout the story Lieutenants are addressed as "First Lieutenant" or "Second Lieutenant". In reality Lieutenants are addressed as just "Lieutenant". Military doctors are adressed by either their rank or "Doctor", not "Doctor First Lieutenant..." as in the story.
- in 22 years of active duty service, I have seen only one Sikh who was allowed to wear his turban and beard - and he was a Reservist with language skills. I just can not believe that there would be a Sikh in USAMRIID. 2010 UPDATE: The Army now has two more Sikhs, who get to wear their turbans. Both are in the Medical Corps, where one would expect allowances to be made. Not sure they would have been allowed to wear the tuban if they had been infantrymen.

The errors go on and on. In virtually every story segment that involves Clark, there are numerous errors in service life and military activity.

I know that some of this may appear to be nitpicking and unimportant to the overall story, but Clark is one of the major characters and his actions drive much of the story. It shows respect to both the story itself as well as the reader to ensure that background information and character development are as correct as an author can make it. The errors in military information could easily be corrected without detracting from the story itself. All I see is an author who was lazy in his story research.

I volunteer to help the author in his next story about anything military-related, and I ask for no renumeration.

This is actually the prequel to Monster Island. Frankly I liked Monster Island better as it had better characters and created a lot of unanswered questions.
This second novel reads more like a sort of Night of The Living Dead sequel than a fully formed original work. It's hard to articulate but this book just doesn't engage the reader as its predecessor did.
It doesn't answer any of the questions from Monster Island and was disappointing.
That said, I am still looking forward to the third novel in the series.

David Wellington's online novels (Zombie Island, Zombie Nation and Zombie Planet) have received excellent responses from his readers on the internet and it seems as if the printed books will do equally well.

For those that read and enjoyed "Zombie Island", this is a "must". This is a prequel to the events of that book. Some of the events and history that effected characters in "Zombie Island" are developed in this prequel.

And for those who didn't read the first book yet, I would think that you could easily read this book first and then pick up "Zombie Island" after that. Even so, if you can read them in the order intended by the author I do believe it works well. Any fan of Zombie horror will enjoy these books. I mean, how often have you read anything with undead sheep that want to eat people?

The concept of the zombie uprising has been popularized since the advent of movies like "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Living Dead". However, David Wellington has given us a nice twist in this with a fairly clear (albeit fantastical) reason for how this horrific event was begun. He also presents us with a very unique and interesting character in Nilla who is one of the few victims who managed to die and still come back as one of the undead with fully functioning minds. Nilla's plight is very interesting as she learns what exactly has happened to her and as she tries to make sense of what is going on. Her "situation" came about by accident versus the character of Gary who was more or less self-created as one of the consciously undead in "Monster Island".

This book has plenty of action tied to Nilla as she treks over the countryside and interacts with humans, zombies and animal life (dead and undead). The reader also get insight into the overall response of the government and the general public as they begin to react to the crisis. For me, reading about characters in the process of trying to find or establish a safe place is one of the more appealing aspects of zombie novels and this story definitely has that element although it's not as prevalent as it is in some other stories. Even so, I greatly enjoyed the story that is told as the charaters who make up the government team assigned to the problem attempt to ascertain what is happening and then as they try to deal with it.

From a slightly negative standpoint, the story becomes a little mystical towards the end, and there are some aspects of it that don't quite jibe with the details of "Zombie Island" although they aren't signicant enough to matter. This book is definitely a good prequel to "Zombie Island" and it is a definite must for anyone who plans to read the third book in the series, "Zombie Planet"

I will have to agree with some of the other Amazon reviewers: "Monster Island" was SO much better than this book. David Wellington had a terrific way of creating a zombie story complete with interesting characters and suspenseful situations. Every chapter seemed to end in a cliff-hanger fashion that practically forced you to flip the page and keep reading.

Hungry for more, I picked up, "Monster Nation"... and was disappointed.

To me, the 2nd book was basically a rehash of the first minus the suspense. A meta-zombie brought back, being led by some enigmatic figure... wasn't that in the first one? Sure, in "Monster Island", the zombie was a man and it took place in New York, but it just felt too similar to me, and that's the ironic thing about, "Monster Nation". It's a story about zombies, people that were once alive returning to life, yet the story itself is "zombified"... already used once and brought back to be used again.