I will not negotiate with the undead!

Monster Island.

I chose to read "Monster Island" because access to it, being an internet novel, was much easier to obtain than the alternative, "Zone One"; also, a friend of mine back home had tried once to get me to read it, so I figured why the hell not? Unfortunately, my busy schedule in the computer labs rendered me unable to finish the book, which I believe will be a very, very common problem through the duration of my being in this class, but I was able to take in some pretty decent content in what I WAS able to read. I was stopped just after the group ran into Gary Fleck, an interesting character indeed -- as a zombie who had somehow managed to retain his consciousness, he stands out as quite the unique character in this genre. This was a huge relief to me, as I must admit I have a very negative bias towards zombie comics/books/movies, as they all appear to be roughly the exact same thing, and it's been done to DEATH (oh ho ho! a pun!) over the last few years. It was refreshing to see funny little story quirks like a main character who was a weapons inspector instead of a ex-marine (or triple-blackbelt, fighter pilot, etc.), and a group of Somalian schoolgirls instead of a rag-tag multi-racial group of attractive 20-35 year olds, one of which is always potentially retarded. Unlike Frankenstein, which I've learned I cannot stand due to Captain Depression monologuing the whole time, I'm actually looking forward to finishing this, probably over Christmas. Dekalb seems like a pretty likable protagonist to follow around, and I'm really liking David Wellington's writing style -- I audibly laughed (very rare for me) at "I will not negotiate with the undead!".

--William Avery