Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15981 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

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 Schroeder
Copyright © 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.

Customer Reviews

Complex for a zombie thriller
I got the whole trilogy and read them in order thankfully. The writing style seemed a bit complex compared to other "undead" based books I have read.
The trilogy one was more in depth and had a supernatural flavor to it. I was looking for a brain-smashing mindless zombie book but this one gave me a different experience. I feel indifferent as it did not satisfy my mindless need for human on zombie violence.

I would definitely read all 3 of the books to get full satisfaction but if you have not read ANY zombie books read this one first so you are not "disappointed" that it is not similar to the other undead books out there.

If you want brain-bashing go elsewhere but if you want interesting characters and a departure from the norm this is a great book.

Outstanding Zombie Novel!!
I've read many horror novels before, but never one dealing with zombies. Okay, a bit of a lie there. I read Cell by Stephen King. Loved it. And I've seen 90% of the zombie movies made (the legit ones, that is), and am a huge Romero fan. This book was something different. Not better, not worse. Just different.

Wellington has a great, easy style that's quick to pull the reader into his world and consume you completely. This was one of the few books that I just couldn't put down. And when I had to (for sleep, food, work), I was missing the book. Not since reading Ketchum's The Girl Next Door was I sucked into a story. Though Wellington didn't clobber my emotions as Ketchum did, Wellington did succeed in catching me off-guard with some twists that I wasn't expecting at all. The ending was simply brilliant, and made me wish there'd been more.

As a horror fan I couldn't get enough of Wellington's style, his book, his world. I look forward to reading more from this author.

Great concept, crumbles a little towards the end.
An entertaining take on zombie tales. Where he went with the story made it less of a horror book and more of an "us vs. them" or good guys vs. bad guys story, but the characters were kind of interesting and it kept the plot moving along. Worth the read. Also, google the books and you can find them for free online.