Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not the best zombie book ever, but enjoyable., 11 Nov 2007
OK, so I guess you've read Monster Island and decided to read the sequel - or prequel in this case - to David Wellingtons first zombie novel. Though new readers to this series please note that this book is more than suitable to read as the first in the series before moving on to Monster Island.
Maybe I am in the minority of people out there reading zombie novels, but when I started hunting Amazon for zombie novels I bought a whole host of them by various authors in the hope of some good old zombie nosh entertainment. But what I find is that the books I bought all seem to have either thinking zombies, talking zombies, zombies with rocket launchers, animal zombies and now in this book INVISIBLE zombies. What happened to good old Romeo 'Dawn of the Dead' zombies ? Maybe I am stuck in the past and that Zombies have evolved in the last 20-30 years !
Don't get me wrong the book is entertaining, but what sticks out in my mind after reading the book is not so much what I enjoyed about it, but what I did not like about it - or found confusing. I hated the thought of Invisible zombies and I was confused by there seeming to be two different reasons for the dead coming back to life - Mael's God and the mad scientist Vronski working to save his wife Charlotte. And the introduction of psychics seemed to push what could have been a great book a little further over the top.
Wellington does do a great job in telling the fall of humanity to the undead hordes from start to finish in the book, and that to me is what saves this book. From the first sporadic outburst of the dead returning to life through to the eventual full on zombie apocalypse. The military jargon is easily understandable, and the little notes make fun reading at times.
The book is split once again - like Monster Island - into following a few characters through the outbreak. Bannerman Clark - the military official, Nilla the thinking and invisible zombie, and Dick - well, lets just say he's pretty `armless.
If you enjoyed the first book, your pretty much guaranteed to enjoy the second. But to those people saying this is the best zombie book ever, well I'll have to disagree with you on that. I'll give it 3 stars.
I have already bought Monster Planet to finish the trilogy, and I just hope that Wellington can tie up any loose ends in the final book - though to be honest I think he is going to probably give me more things to be puzzled about !
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
zombie-tastic!, 12 Oct 2006
well, the easy thing to say is that if you loved Monster Island then you'll love Monster Nation... but let's face it, if you loved MI then you'll already have this on pre-order. In fact, you'll probably already have read it, loaned it out to your friends and are currently taking legal action to get your copy back (that might just be me tho).
so this is aimed at people who've not read MI (and let me just say, shame on you, where have you been??). Nation is a prequel but also a fantastic stand-alone read, with brilliantly realised characters and more gore than you can shake some kind of gore-seeking stick at. It's a classic zombie-tastic read - never has human suffering and the end of society as we know it been so damn entertaining. Buy it. You won't regret it.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Author Should Write Screenplays, Not Books, 2 Jun 2009
I've never read anything by David Wellington before, so I have no point of reference - not sure if this is worse than Monster Island: A Zombie Novel, or better...not sure if I want to read anything else by this author, but don't get me wrong, Wellington is definitely talented. I'm thinking that this book was simply the wrong choice for me. It was something I had on my wishlist for a long time, and I finally bought it one day, thinking it was a zombie novel.
It does have zombies, but it's not a straight-up zombie story. There were a lot of supernatural elements in this book, which I like, but not necessarily all together. It's enough of a reach for me to accept the latest trend of zombies that think, etc., but a zombie that can control her aura, or zombies speaking psychically were too much.
While I'm used to apocalyptic stories with more than one point-of-view, this book switched between three POVs, and it was a little hard to follow at first. It did get easier the farther I read into the story. To be honest, though, between the "invisible" zombie effects and the constantly switching between POVs, I actually considered not finishing the book.
This brings me to the last problem I had with this book, the ending. After sticking it out, and reading all the way through, that had to be one of the worst endings ever written. Ironically, if Wellington had ended the book after Nilla walked away from everything, I wouldn't have a problem with the ending. I didn't care if I ever found out her real name, since I never found out more about Mael (not sure if I want to buy Monster Planet: A Zombie Novel just to find out)...and I was also wondering what happened to Bannerman...but cramming Nilla's arrival at the East coast in a few sentences just for her name - well, the author could have literally wrote "blah blah blah," and it wouldn't have made a difference.
This book, based on what I have read in the past, is like a cross between The Rising and Demons. However, this novel is extremely original, and Wellington should be given props for that. It was also the most detailed gore I have ever read! I might be ripping on it as a book, but I think it would make an excellent movie. I seriously think he should be writing screenplays.
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