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Title: Monster Planet: A Zombie Novel |
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Review of Monster Planet: A Zombie Novel
- Set twelve years after the shambling zombie masses have overrun Manhattan, America, and the world, Monster Planet is the mind-blowing conclusion to what must be the scariest trilogy ever. Oceans of blood, scattered limbs, wanton violence, and general mayhem abound, along with revivified mummies, a Welsh sorcerer, and Wellington's signature brand of cool high-tech weaponry and sly humor â zombies, after all, are the ultimate consumers. What do the undead want, aside from fresh meat? Do the steadily diminishing number of humans who have somehow managed to survive over a decade of living hell stand a chance on a planet where they've been reduced to the status of prey? It all ends here, on Monster Planet.
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Comments for Monster Planet: A Zombie Novel
- Posted on 2008-06-09
Good book so far
I haven't finished this book yet but it is good so far. I am reading it to finish the Monster trilogy. Overall, the trilogy is OK. It is a little far-fetched or supernatural. i was expecting a standard zombie-type book.
Score: 4
- Posted on 2008-05-27
A good end to a good series of books.
I started this series by happenstance. Which is to say I was going to try another book from David Wellington, but wanted to start with his first book written, which is Monster Island Monster Island: A Zombie Novel. I had never read a zombie novel before, but was immediatley grabbed by the story. After devouring this book I had to have the second Monster Nation Monster Nation: A Zombie Novel. At the start I was put off by the time line presented in the book, but was again drawn in and read through as quickly as possible. When I picked up this book to finish the trilogy it was with anticipation of finding out how he was going to wrap it all up and disappointment that it was going to be over. This book had all the roller coaster emotions that had drawn me into the other books and had the finale that I was not really expecting. I never would have picked up a "zombie novel" if not for my strict self order of going from first to last, but I am glad I did. I think his style of writing is paced right to keep people involed and the chapter size makes you believe that you are making a great deal of progress as you read. You will not be disappointed with this book, but since it is the third in the trilogy start with Monster Island.
Score: 4 - Posted on 2008-05-08
I thought I was fairly intelligent.....
but this book through me for a loop. This book is a classic example of far too many characters that are never fully fleshed out. I could never tell if the bad guys were really bad or kind of bad or maybe just pretending to be bad but are really good. That's a problem. I don't need everything spelled out for me because I've read many a book, but this is too convoluted. My other major qualm with this book is that I didn't even feel a connection to the protagonists. It's disappointing to me that I could've cared less what happened to them. That's the sign of a disjointed book to me.
Score: 2
- Posted on 2008-05-03
Disappointing ending
I had read the first two books in the trilogy and thought that they were ok. However I found the ending in this the final installment to be hurried and very disappointing. Therefore I cannot recommend the trilogy to anyone. I was so disappointed in the ending I felt as though I had wasted my time reading the first two books.
Score: 1
- Posted on 2008-02-10
A well written end for the trilogy
Some people consider George A. Romero to be the father of the modern Zombie genre. I don't know if that's true or not, but his influence on the genre cannot be disputed.
Over the years we've seen many different take on the genre, but when it comes right down to it, zombies, for the most part share one unaltered trait.
The hunger for human flesh.
We've seen comedies, pure horror, apocalypse, you name it involving zombies. For the most part, there is little or no difference in these books and movies. They all share the same theme - the dead come back to life, hungering for the flesh of mankind, and are for the most part slow moving and totally mindless.
The variations of these zombies have included sprinters (fast moving and exponentially more dangerous), intelligent (return of the living dead), indestructible with the exception of total destruction (again, return of the living dead).
They've also been created through various means. Virus's, (Max Brook's World War Z & The Zombie survival guide), demonic possession (Brian Keene's Rising and City of the Dead), negative energy (Dungeons and Dragons role playing game, or the David Wellington's Monster trilogy) magic (traditional voodoo, again Dungeons and Dragons), chemical (various sources, not to mention Return of the living dead).
Just to name a few.
Now, the things that most of these books and movies have in common are the fact that it's pretty much put your head between your legs and kiss your rear goodbye, and that they hunger for human flesh.
It seems that only after a couple of movies or novels, you'd get bored of these undead horrors. But, like Vampires and Ghosts, Zombies have become indelibly burned into our culture.
Look at the rash of novels and movies that have surfaced since the turn of the Millennium. There have been at least a dozen zombie movies produced, of varying degrees of quality (I'm still very partial to Romero's works, and I'm eager to see Diary of the Dead), and recently there has been a virtual tide of zombie novels to choose from. Again of varying degrees of quality.
What it comes down to is the basic story, the characters involved and how the author or director handles the zombies.
Sometimes they add their own twists to the genre. Occasionally this works, other times, it doesn't.
When it comes to personal taste, I prefer what is considered classic zombie stories and movies. You know, the rising of the dead for no explained reason, the fact that they are slow and relatively harmless unless they show up in large numbers and hunger for human flesh.
So, I was quite sceptical when I picked up David Wellington's Monster Island last year. Although it did deviate greatly from what I consider to be the true aspect of the genre, I ended up enjoying the novel enough that I picked up the second novel, Monster Nation.
I recently finished reading the final novel in his trilogy, Monster Planet.
Now, this really won't give away too much when it comes to the novel, but you're probably asking yourself - just how does it deviate from what this clown considers to be the typical genre?
Well, it deals with magical powers, ghosts, and intelligent zombies. Although in the first two novels the intelligent zombies were exceedingly rare. In fact there were only at the start three of them.
Each novel deals with one of these intelligent zombies, and how they came to be. In fact, it isn't until the last novel that they're given an actual monster name. They're known as liches.
So, you're probably wondering about the magic that I mentioned. There is no way to describe it. It is magic. Pure and simple. These liches possess powers that seemed to have been granted to them upon death. The degree of the power varies from lich to lich, but it sets them apart from all the other ghouls (what he calls the zombies).
Ok, down to the meat (pun intended) of the review. 12 years have passed since the events of Monster Island. Humanity is on the brink of extinction, as every nation on the planet has been over-run by the undead.
A small band of survivors in Egypt discover that a huge band of zombies have arrived on the shores of the country. What separates these undead monsters from the rest of those who roam the desolate countryside is that they are driven by intelligence, an evil and powerful intelligence that is able to control the undead so that they can work side by side with the living.
The leader of this motley band is the Russian lich known as the Tsarevich.
The novel spans not only Egypt, but returns to Manhattan and eventually ends up at the source, where the apocalypse began.
Several characters from the previous novels make a re-appearance in this novel and the fates of others is discovered.
Lastly, the novel does end the trilogy nicely. The story is brought to a conclusion, even though if Mr. Wellington desires, he could write yet another story in the world he has created.
Did it end well? Did the undead win? That I'll leave up to you, the reader, to discover. Did I enjoy it? Yes, indeed I did.
Despite my misgivings about how much it deviated from the traditional zombie genre, it was a refreshing and well written deviation. If you enjoy this subgenre of the horror genre, then you won't go wrong reading the trilogy.
5 out of 5
Score: 5