Monster Island

 
Blood, guts, maggots and bRRAaaaiiiiiNNNSS! Everybody loves zombies! They're stunningly soulless eyes and ways about peoples necks bring out chills of excitement when spoken about in these present times. Ironically it was very much the opposite when they were first introduced to the public in the late 20's and 30's. Then they were monsters shrouded in voodoo and ancient lore. Terrible creeping undead that knew where you hid and scared young, unsuspecting actors into catatonic states. Where as in current times you are the ex marine fighting for survival against fast, blood thirsty infected.
    Zombies have evolved over the decades with the early movies such as White Zombie and Night of the Living Dead. In these classics we see some of H.P. Lovecrafts original ideas of horror take root into film. Zombies were direct connections to the human consciousness of death and mortality. They were a symbol of the ever creeping, ever knowing end that strikes high keys on everyones piano.
    As years past and more and more movies were produced involving these creatures, and zombies became something else, instead of these mythical risings from the grave people gave them scientific explanations. Disease, infection, biohazard, air born germs. We started to see these concepts pop up in multiple facets of zombie culture and thus the meaning behind these monsters changed. It was no longer a mental tie to the ever coming death that befalls all of us but more of an example of human survival. From inching death they turned into sprinting, infectious death traps. This concept exploded - books like Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z, City of the Dead, Generation Dead, and the Resident Evil franchise spun into popularity thus spawning zombie walks all over the nation. Max Brooks had a lot of us planning our escape routes, armory list, who and how many people we feel the need to join our small apocalypse squad.

    The same can be said about this recent novel, Monster Island by David Wellington. He embraces the young concept of infectious, disease spreading zombie while putting some classic swing into the tango. We start out in Africa with a sir Dekalb and his young child Sarah being held prisoner by few Somalian child soldiers. Turns out they need crucial AIDS drugs and he is the only American/UN they can use to help them find it over in New York, Manhattan area. So he ventures forth  leaving his spawn behind to be taken care of by the dictator of these soldiers to find drugs. Already sounding amazing as a story, I know, but it gets better. After failing first attempt at finding drugs in the hospital we encounter an speaking undead named Gary. Gary, as it turns out, was able to save his brain due to him keeping it under oxygen during the dying process. Its at this point where we also start to see some of the old voodoo/good and evil show its colors in the novel. It turns out Gary has the ability to connect to other zombies through an unseen dark network called the eididh. Wellington also brings a clear sense of good and evil into the story. Gary can also sense other undead as dark energies while living things have a warmth and light energy emitting from them. Later in the novel we also discover an ancient egyptian willing to bring judgement upon the world. If this wasn't enough of a time mash up we basically end the novel on the steps of an almost erected broch (or alter per say) as Gary, the new head zombie, was preparing to farm humans for life source.
    Not only was this one of the better endings to a zombie novel (total brain rape) I thoroughly enjoyed this novel for its clear head nods to its undead roots as well as bringing new ideas and theories to the table.