Response to: Monster Island

Monster Island was an incredible story. If I described myself as not being a fan of the zombi-apocalypse I probably would be lying to myself. I have seen a wide range of what pop-culture has to offer as far as movies and games go, so the general plot line of Monster Island wasn't anything new to me.

What was new to me, and what excited me the most was Gary. That is not to say that one person in un-life controlling the undead is anything new to the multiverse that zombies exist in. Gary's entry into un-life, for this story, brought an opportunity to explain most of the behavior of the zombies in Monster Island. In my experience, most stories don't and can't go into the psyche of zombies because zombies are stupid in almost all cases. You certainly don't normally have a main character be a zombie (at least not for the whole story, they should all be zombies in the end or at least zombie food).

I did read all of it, and I enjoyed all of it. I’m not sure what I have to say about it, but I’d like to try to relate it to what I know. Gary reminds me of Arthas for the Warcraft universe, there, I said it. Mael is Ner’zul, the warlock/lich mentor who calls Arthas. The two eventually merge, Arthas becomes the lich king and Gary becomes not only the smartest zombie but also the leader of all the zombies in New York. When Arthas/Gary dies, Bolvar/Dekalb takes their place. Last but not least, everybody else things that Bolvar/Dekalb died, but they didn’t they are both in un-death.

That is what I was thinking while reading Monster Island, I was thinking about Warcraft. Rightfully so, both have amazing stories with amazing characters. Both have undead, and close enough for compassion plotlines.

The last of the last things I can think to comment about is this: the Egyptian mummies? Maybe I missed it somehow, but I don’t get why they got thrown into the mix. I would guess they are only there because Mael is there, and he was a mummy as well. I almost feel it could have worked well without the mummies, but I guess, who would have held off the undead throngs while the survivors escaped? /shrug