Monster Island: A Zombie Novel (The Monster Island Book 1)

First in the cult classic trilogy: “A fantastic zombie novel . . . There are many layers to this zombie apocalypse, and this book just gets things rolling” (Booklist). Welcome to New York City, Population Zero? The power grid has collapsed. There is no running water, no light, no heat. The massive neon signs of Times Square are dark now, and the subway trains crouch silent in their tunnels, waiting for commuters who will never return. An epidemic of staggering lethality has passed over the city and left nothing living in its wake. And yet the city is not deserted. The dead have returned to life, and they're hungry. The millions of people who once worked and lived in New York have been turned into cannibalistic monsters whose only function is to consume. No living person would dare enter the city--it would be suicide. Dekalb doesn't have a choice. He must protect his daughter's future, and that means retrieving vital medical supplies from the UN building in Midtown. A cadre of teenage girl soldiers have been recruited to help him find what he needs, and get back alive. They're well armed. They're devoted to their mission and willing to sacrifice anything to pull it off. But the odds against them are staggering. Especially when it turns out that not all zombies are created equal. Deep inside the city a medical student named Gary comes back from the dead different--his mind is intact. He can still think and feel. He's hungry, just like the rest, but unlike them he can plan, plot, and scheme. He can even lead the others, bending them to his will. Soon he has a small army at his command, a growing mob of rotting corpses all devoted to one cause: to find meat for their master. When Dekalb and Gary cross paths sparks will fly, destinies will clash--and the future of humanity will be decided, one head shot at a time.

From Publishers Weekly

In Wellington's energetic horror debut, the first of a promised trilogy, Manhattan has become Monster Island after a plague has turned all its denizens into shambling, rotting animated corpses, except for a couple who have kept their intelligence and also acquired psychic powers. When an expedition from Africa arrives, composed of teenage girl-soldiers and a former U.N. weapons inspector, the zombie masters mobilize their forces to kill or eat the living humans. Page by page, the story is inventive and exciting as Wellington exploits his familiarity with New York's nooks and crannies as settings for flesh-chomping battles and narrow escapes. As a whole, though, the book satisfies less since the author selectively forgets anything about the situation or the characters that would inhibit further gross-out episodes. Still, the novel offers some provocative thoughts about the purpose of life and death underlaid with some ultra-dark humor. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

This is a zombie novel--a fantastic zombie novel. Most of the world has fallen to the undead, with pockets of survivors clinging to a precarious existence. At the behest of the leader of the Free Women's Republic of Somaliland, a shipload of those makes the ludicrous trip from Africa to New York in a desperate quest for medicine. New York is a wasteland, and everything depends on a small, incredibly dedicated band of teenage girls, armed to the teeth, and native guide Dekalb, formerly a UN arms inspector. Also, in NYC there is Gary, a zombie who, completely unexpectedly, retains live human mental faculties. The questers get ringside seats for some of the apocalypse's finest moments, and no matter how prepared they thought they were, something worse awaits in the depths of New York. When zombies have already overrun everything, that's saying something. There are many layers to this zombie apocalypse, and this book just gets things rolling. Stay tuned. Regina SchroederCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

David Wellington was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1971. He attended Penn State and received there an MFA in creative writing. He works as an archivist for the United Nations in New York City. In 2003 he began work on the website www.monsternovel.com, where his novel Monster Island was serialized on-line over the course of five months and quickly became an internet cult phenomenon. Two sequels to Monster Island have since also been serialized in the same fashion.

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