Monster Island: A Zombie Novel by David Wellington Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Monster Island: A Zombie Novel
Book Review: Good entry in the genre
Summary: 4 Stars
This one's all about setting and individual attacks. NYC landmarks are worked into the narrative in a very engaging way, and the battles use a fascinating variety of impromptu weapons and tactics - RPG, flare gun, homemade bombs, a tottering pyramid of zombies standing on each other's shoulders. A quick, thrilling read. Book Review: Zombie apocolypse - good times for all!
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: Please save your money for a real Zombie novel!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
This book was the worst zombie book ever!!!!!
Not even worth the review.
Book Review: *sigh* I really hoped for something far better
Summary: 2 Stars
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.
Book Review: He must have ate the elephants.
Summary: 5 Stars
As an, ehem, Connoisseur of anything remotely zombie I eagerly awaited my copy of Monster Island to arrive. I really wanted to see if David Wellington could add a tidbit or a morsel more to the genre, or if he would just serve up the same old Amuse Bouche and leave me wanting for more.
Immediately I noticed it was different, told from the POV of a Former UN Weapons Inspector Dekalb, and from a former doctor now turned zombie Gary. Dekalb is in Somalia and the dead have risen, now he and his daughter are guests of former school girls turned rebel soldiers and their hosts. A peacekeeper/Warlord needs medication for her supposed AIDS symptoms and Dekalb thinks the only place left that would have any is in Manhattan. He leaves his daughter, jumps on a boat with the bloodthirsty school girls and off he goes. We also have Gary, who we quickly figure out is a zombie, but a zombie with brains. Not like Bub, who in Romero's Dawn of the Dead could scrape up some memories of telephones and military service or in Romero's Land of the dead where Big daddy has the where with all to organize a zombie horde to some semblance of an army.
Gary can talk, walk, reason, organize, and is connected in some way to a spiritual disembodied voice who shows him that he also can suck the life force out of living things to rejuvenate, and control other zombies movements. I wanted to like Gary for some reason, especially when I find out that he basically figures that New York is doomed and will be turned into a zombie anyway, so he kills himself but makes sure to hook himself up to oxygen so that his brain is never dead, therefore waking up a zombie but without all the slack jaw and one track mind. Brilliant. What ensues is a book that goes back and forth and can get a little confusing at times you just have to stick with it and it will all make sense.
Wellington does a good job with describing the walking dead, in all of their putrid clumsiness, my favorite zombie besides Gary had to be the "zombie that ate the zoo" gross. He also includes zombie animals, zombie mummies in the museum, a group of human survivors who wear "hi my name is" tags, funny pop culture references, and many more new aspects. I won't give it all away, but I will say that the plan Gary comes up with is shockingly amazing and I gleefully smiled at his tenacity. So for anyone who loves the undead like I do, right down to their maggoty brilliance I seriously recommend this book, and cannot wait to read the second.