Monster Island

Monster Island by David Wellington is an interesting take at the classic zombie survival formula and has made it his own. In this online blog novel, David Wellington has created a traditional story that not only follows through with preconceptions of the zombie that all the fans love, but has also brought in some elements of wizardry and sci-fi science to make it fresh. The story, at a good pace and never to slow or fast, did a good job of guiding the reader through twists and turns of an original story. Wellington however, did not clearly explain as to how the sickness or disease came to be and how it affected New York. This was something that would have been great to be explored and would have added a more complete picture to this world that he has created.

The use of magic in a zombie novel is not unheard of in most fantasy novels, but is refreshing when used in a novel grounded on the roots of zombie survival. The ability of Gary and the Scott to use magic and communicate with other zombies to create an army of slow moving zombies was interesting because it was something many readers have not read and thus, we could not predict what has going to happen. This gave us a sense of curiosity and interest, often used in horrors, to keep us going and wanting to uncover the secret of Gary’s power.

Gary himself was one of the most interesting zombies that have ever graced the zombie genre. Gary, who used to be a doctor or training at least was training to be, keeps his humanity by keeping himself on a respiratory machine. This created a being that was a zombie my nature, but had the brain of a regular human being. This allowed Wellington to explore the psyche of a zombie through the eyes of that zombie, his thoughts, his feelings about the need to feed, and we have here the first account of a zombie told through his eyes.

The main character of this novel, Dekalb, in more ways then one is the generic hero of the story, where through his experience with dealing with the zombie scourge, grows as a person and becomes the savior of everyone in the group. What Wellington however that was very out of the ordinary, was to make Dekalb a full character. Not only does Dekalb have his mission to bring back medicine, he has his own selfish tendency’s that guide him throughout the novel. The most notable, is in the very end of the novel where the typical hero would die, succumb to the zombie disease to save everyone else. In this case however, Dekalb decides to, just like Gary, to put himself on a reparatory device and keeps Gary’s head around to eventually find its secrets. This is interesting because this is the first zombie horror that I have read wear the main character succumbs to the very thing he was fighting against throughout the book!