Monster Island (novel)

Monster Island
Author(s)	David Wellington
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	David Wellington's Monster trilogy
Genre(s)	Horror novel
Publisher	Thunder's Mouth Press
Publication date	August 2004 (online) April 2006 (print)
Media type	E-book & Print (Paperback)
Pages	272 pp
ISBN	1-56025-850-0
OCLC Number	64772295
Dewey Decimal	813/.6 22
LC Classification	PS3623.E468 M68 2006
Followed by	Monster Nation

"Zombie Island" redirects here. For the Scooby Doo movie, see Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.

Monster Island is a novel of the zombie apocalypse horror sub-genre by David Wellington, published in serial online in August, 2004 and in print in April, 2006.

Plot introduction

Monster Island takes place in Manhattan one month after New York City has been completely overrun by the undead.

A former UN employee named Dekalb, whose daughter is being held by a warlord in Somalia, enters the zombie-infested island with a band of East African child soldiers in order to retrieve precious AIDS medication. After surviving numerous zombie attacks, the group encounters Gary Fleck, an undead medical student who has managed to retain a high level of consciousness and self control unlike other zombies.

Release details

• 2004, USA, Brokentype e-book
• 2005, USA, Thunder's Mouth Press ISBN 1-56025-850-0, Pub date 28 March 2006, paperback

About the trilogy

Monster Island is the first in a trilogy of online serial novels.

The second novel, Monster Nation, is a prequel and tells the story of the origins of the epidemic and its rapid spread across the United States.

The third novel, Monster Planet, describes the results of the global outbreak.

In Monster Island, Mael, a reanimated bog mummy, makes reference to the two other characters later in the trilogy:

[Gary asks] “I can’t be the only one, though. You found me from a distance, you must know if there are others like us.”

Mael nodded. "A few...There’s a boy in a place called Russia. Very promising. Struck down in a hit and run. He suffered for months with machines pumping his heart for him but his parents wouldn’t let the doctors pull the plug. Another one here in your country. In California...A yoga teacher hiding out in an oxygen bar..."^[1]

Critical commentary

Booklist called Monster Island "a fantastic zombie novel," and wrote, "There are many layers to this zombie apocalypse, and this book just gets things rolling." ^[2]

In a review that was chiefly positive, Publishers Weekly praised the book's visceral impact, describing the plot as "inventive and exciting". They also commended Wellington for his knowledge of New York and the Monster Island's touches of dark humor, but felt that he displayed selective memory at times in composing the narrative.^[3]

The Washington Post gave the novel a strongly negative review, criticizing it for a lack of background information on the origin of the zombie menace, as well as what the reviewer considered to be nonsensical or absent motives for many characters' actions.^[4]

External links

• Text of Monster Island online
• The author's site
• Monster Island publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Footnotes

1. ^ "Monster Island, Chapter Eleven". brokentype.com. Archived from the original on 2006-08-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20060827214002/http://www.brokentype.com/monster/000304.html. Retrieved 2006-09-05. 
2. ^ "Wellington, David. Monster Island.(Brief article)(Book review)". Booklist. March 15, 2006. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-144104722/wellington-david-monster-island.html. 
3. ^ Staff. "Monster Island: A Zombie Novel", Publishers Weekly, March 13, 2006, p. 47.
4. ^ Wooster, Martin Morse. "The Dreary Dead", The Washington Post, page BW 08, published May 28, 2006, accessed May 15, 2007.

• Horror portal
• Novels portal