Book Review: David Wellington's Monster Island

Logline: Set in New York City and full of blood and gore, Wellington's Monster Island is zombie novel creatively written, in part, from the perspective of the zombie.

While I might be 30-years old, my literary intellect oftentimes does not reflect the maturity assumed in one who has just left his 20s. There are occasions where I find myself wondering whether a book I have just completed was indeed meant for a man of my age or was rather intended for an audience who still leaves cookies by the fireplace on Christmas Eve. David Wellington's Monster Island is just such a book that had me reflecting more on the appropriateness of my having read the book than on the book itself. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised to feel this way given that one of my favorite genres of fiction is the zombie book replete with hordes of the walking dead who can think of nothing else aside from the consumption of the living.

Other than Max Brooks' World War Z, Monster Island was the most enjoyable zombie genre book I have read.

The Epidemic has ravaged the Earth, leaving the majority of the world's population dead but still moving and hunting for any persons unaffected by the virus. Dekalb, a United Nations weapons inspector, had been stationed in an African village when the Epidemic strikes and, together with his daughter Sarah, are eventually detained by the Free Women's Republic of Somaliland, a Somalian military-style gang of young girls led by Mama Hilama who have thusfar been successful in staving off attacks from groups of infected zombies. When Dekalb is told that Mama Hilama is suffering not from The Epidemic but from AIDS and that he, as a UN officer, can either procure AIDS medication for the dying leader or watch his daughter killed and then be killed himself, he has little choice. Knowing that the United Nations Building in New York City has a medical repository with the necessary medicine, Dekalb along with Ayaan, Hilama's first in command, and a group of teenage girl warriors set sail for New York.

What separates Monster Island from the more typical zombie books is its telling of the story not only through the eyes of the living but also through the eyes of the zombie as well. Before The Epidemic hit, Gary was a doctor living in New York City. As The Epidemic began its worldwide spread, Gary began to hypothesize that the cause of the zombies' mindless wandering without any sort of mental capabilities lay in the fact that in between the host's death and their coming back as a zombie, the brain was rendered useless from the lack of oxygen once the body's internal mechanisms shut off. Understanding his inevitable fate, Gary utilized his medical skills and infected himself with The Epidemic virus while ensuring that his brain would survive the time between his death and 're-birth'. When he emerges as a zombie, Gary is still able to think and talk like a human and, through his character, we are able to understand the feelings and thought processes that guide zombies. In allowing Gary to acquire the power to control all other zombies, Wellington has creatively established the two waring factions whose trials and tribulations guide the rest of the book.

Monster Island is not a complicated book wrought with character building or relationship formation. Predictably, once Dekalb's group arrives in New York, they engage in a number of battles with the now-organized group of zombies all leading to the final battle at the climax of the novel.

Not surprisingly, Monster Island is not a book for everyone. Those looking for an intriguing, thought provoking novel should look to pretty much any other book. However, for those who, like me, devour (pun intended) zombie books, I would certainly recommend Wellington's book. While the gruesome attacks are nothing new and the dialogue is not particularly interesting, the novel is short, the action begins pretty much on page one and the pace will make you want to continue reading.