Monster Island: A Zombie Novel
by David Wellington
Thunder’s Mouth Press, 288 pp. $13.95 (paper)
Zombies are inherently boring. Unlike their monster brethren, zombies lack all pretense of human emotion, intelligence, or fallacy; automatons that eat brains and can only be killed with the destruction of their own feeble minds. In Monster Island, David Wellington attempts with varying degrees of success to address these issues fictionally, all while the creatures have somehow become more popular than ever.A former UN weapons inspector, Dekalb, along with his wife and young daughter, was in Somalia when the world ended. A virus of unknown origin decimates a majority of the world’s population (including Dekalb’s wife) and transforms the dead into an army of zombies. In order to ensure the safety of his daughter, Dekalb agrees to travel to New York City, home of millions of zombies, to acquire the only known stash of AZT drugs on the planet. An AIDS-stricken tribal leader sends along several of her personal shock troops, primarily teenage girls.
In NYC, this odd group first teams up with and then challenges Gary, a young doctor who discovered a procedure that enabled him to become an intelligent zombie. Gary realizes that the zombies function with a hive mind, and he begins to manipulate the undead. As it often is with these types of stories, there is something nastier and more powerful at work. In this case, it’s a resurrected mummified Celtic druid that controls Gary and the zombies, ultimately gaining control of much of Manhattan. Dekalb and his band are trapped in the middle.
Originally published on the Internet, Monster Island is Wellington’s first novel – he has since written five more e-books, including two sequels – and it often reads like one, with clunky sentences, illogical character actions, and overly long fight scenes. While some of his ideas – especially the politics of this new world – show some promise, he squanders most of them in a series of predictable events and stereotypical characters. Throw in a clunky, vague ending, and ultimately he succeeds in only maintaining the boring zombie status quo.
As we went to press, the University of Texas announced that professor David M. Oshinsky has received the Pulitzer Prize in History for his Polio: An American Story (Oxford University Press, $16.95). The Chronicle offers its congratulations.
This article appears in April 21 • 2006.