Review: Monster Island, by David Wellington

I've just finished reading Monster Island, which has to be one of the best, most unapologetic zombie books ever written. After the big brouhaha last year in which some NY Review of Books reviewer didn't "get" the whole zombie thing, looking desperately for allegory and meaning in the zombie genre (and to which David Langford gleefully pointed out "They don't have to be an allegory. They're zombies. They eat people. What more do you need?") it's refreshing to read a really gross, horrifying, not at all uplifting novel about zombies.

Monster Island begins six months after the End of the World. The Epidemic, in which the dead shamble along meaninglessly, trying to eat the living, has taken over. Our hero, Dekalb, is a UN Weapons Inspector in Africa when the Epidemic breaks out. Dispatched by a third world dictator to New York, holding his daughter hostage as ransom for reasons that I will not give away, Dekalb meets Gary, the world's smartest dead man, the last Prestident of the United States, and Jack, the last Special Forces operative in New York. Battling zombies (human and animal) and even encountering the long-mummified remains of Egyptian Kings and Welsh Druids, Dekalb comes to and understanding that the Epidemic is something more than merely a disease. And maybe, just maybe, he might understand it well enough to give the living a chance.

It was a fabulous read. I sailed along and loved every minute of it. There are moments in the book when the author intrudes with lines like "Sorry, won't be releasing this week, at a con," that made me understand exactly where we CC people are going. The battle scenes and adventure just move and Gary's really a very funny guy. Even if he is dead.

Monster Island is written by David Wellington and is licensed, much like the Journal Entries, under the Creative Commons 2.0 author attribution, non-commercial, non-derivative license. Highly recommended if you like your literature gory, gross, and undead. I ripped the whole book and stuffed it onto my Palm for easy reading. I'm doing the same with the sequels. Yay, CC licensing!

Bloody Frakking Hell!

So, apparently, my life not being confusing and crazy enough, Omaha and I both forgot that there is no school tomorrow or Friday for Kouryou-chan. I am now totally screwed; there's no way I can get my work done at the office and finish everything I have with Kouryou-chan at the house.

I hope I can get the VPN up enough to get a significant amount of work done tomorrow, and then Friday I'll have to ask if the YMCA's daycare program is running well enough to take one more kid.

Crud, crud, crud. I haven't been able to write much this week because of all the kid arrangement. I really should just have taken the week off.