The
bookgasm review intrigued me enough to go out and buy this, but when
David Wellington himself sent me a kind e-mail about Groovy Age, I decided this would be the perfect time to read it. In the interests of full disclosure, I should say he seems like a really groovy guy, and his example and encouragement have prompted me to post my own novel online, and yes I'm therefore prejudiced in his favor. Never mind that, though, because even if I were unfavorably prejudiced, I'd still have to say that
Monster Island is one amazing zombie novel.
Do I really need to explain, at this late date, how it started as an online serial, yada yada? No? Good. You can still peruse it
here, but if, like me, you prefer reading a physical book and rewarding a good author with real sales, you can probably find the paperback at your local bookstore or certainly at
Amazon.
Dekalb used to be a UN weapons inspector. Then the whole zombie thing happened, and now he's just fighting to survive with his daughter. He was in Africa when the outbreak hit, and ironically, that was a good thing. As Wellington tells it, the First World fell hardest. Dekalb's luck only runs so far, however--the tribal warlord who's taken him in has AIDS, and Africa (yes, all of it--a continent, not a "
nation," Mr. Bush) is all out of medication. Dekalb is certain the UN in New York will have the medication, so off he goes with a crack unit of Somali schoolgirl-soldiers to retrieve it. I have to admit, I never quite bought Dekalb's confidence that the UN would have come through the inevitable looting with its full stock of pills intact. It never struck me as a realistic expectation, nor as an expectation that anyone would realistically hold in that situation. As MacGuffins go, I suppose Wellington might have done better, but what matters is that a guy ends up running around in an apocalyptically zombified New York with a bunch of killer schoolgirls complete with uniforms and automatic weapons.
The first part is pretty straight-up zombie movie fare, very nicely done. The second part introduces a metaphysical wrinkle with a number of surprising consequences I won't spoil here, but let's just say it makes
Monster Island something truly new and interesting. Wellington tells a great story with a lot of style, and brings to vivid life (and unlife) the characters and the challenges they face. I highly recommend this, especially as perfect reading for this Halloween season.
Bookgasm also did a q&a with Wellington, worth checking out. Here's my own interview with the author:
1. What made you love horror in the first place? What were the major milestones and turns along the way from that to writing Monster Island?
My mother read about five books a week when I was a kid. She had very eclectic tastes, everything from Stephen King to the classics. When she would finish a book it went into one of two piles: the ones I was allowed to read and the ones I was not allowed to read. Obviously Stephen King and Peter Straub went in the second pile, and just as obviously, I would sneak them into my bedroom and read them when she wasn't looking. By the age of six I knew I wanted to be a writer and by thirteen I had written my first novel. It wasn't any good--but it was a start. I've been writing ever since and I've participated in endless writing workshops and seminars and even got a Master's in Creative Writing from Penn State. I started writing Monster Island to get some feedback. Posting a novel on the web meant anybody could read it and critique it. I didn't expect it to go so far!
2. Beyond zombie movies, what are some influences that found their way into Monster Island that might not be so apparent, and that might surprise us--from other media, other sub-genres of horror, and other genres altogether?
The main influences weren't from media at all. It was September Eleventh that made me really want to write horror--before that I'd mostly done science fiction. Then I got a job working at the UN and got exposed to what's really happening in the rest of the world. The Somali schoolgirl soldiers in Monster Island came out of a report I saw on child soldiers and the proliferation of AK-47s around the world. There are more assault rifles in Somalia than there are people.
3. How does your work affect your viewing and reading? Do you tend to avoid or immerse yourself in material that might influence you? What was that like as you were writing Monster Island?
When I'm writing a novel I'm careful to minimize the stuff around me that might influence my plots. Far too many times I've thought I had a brilliant idea--only to realize I'd just read it in some other book days earlier. Things get into your subconscious and rattle around in there, you know? Mostly when I'm actively writing I prefer to read really old stuff--nineteenth century ghost stories are a favorite. They're so different from what I'm working on, but at the same time they're well-written enough to keep me honest. I can't read a short story by Poe or LeFanu and then write a crappy book. It would feel like I'm betraying those who went before.
4. As a horror fan and creator, what do you specifically embrace and reject from the kind of material I cover here at Groovy Age--the trashier, more ephemeral horror of the sixties and seventies? How would you say horror has changed in the intervening years for better and worse?
In the eighties, when I was really learning how to write, I read voraciously from the tail end of the paperback revolution. That was a time when you could write a book with a niche audience and still make a living at it, and so many great writers thrived in that environment. There was a lot of junk, too, as I'm sure you know! Horror history can largely be broken down into eras that are conveniently (if not realistically) attached to certain names: the Poe Era, the Lovecraft Era (the pulps), the King era, the Barker era, etc. Groovy Age stuff falls between Lovecraft and King and it draws wonderfully from both of those eras--you have true, grisly, dark horror mixed with a certain demand on realism and modern settings. I draw a lot from, of all things, Gothics, which were a weird combination of horror and romance which is starting to see real popularity after a long fallow period. I'm probably more beholden to the pulp stuff, however, like Lovecraft and maybe even moreso Robert E. Howard (yes, the Conan guy, but he wrote a lot of other stuff as well). Realism and the naturalism of the eighties and nineties is a good place to start but I try to keep the "trashy" stuff in there as well--it's what makes a story fun, and I always set out to entertain my readers. In some ways I like to think I'm carrying on a semi-secret tradition, starting with the pulps, building through the really interesting groovy stuff like the Guardians, and adding some twenty-first century techno-horror elements. It's my job to gather up all the good juicy bits and separate out the terrible or just blah stuff.
5. As someone on the forefront of online horror, what are some of the more interesting ways you see the internets contributing to the genre's evolution?
It used to be that editors at publishing houses were the only people who ever saw the majority of books. They would pass on what they thought couldn't sell. Now anybody can put a book online and get some attention. Yes, the majority of those books are still going to be unreadable--but at least now some really interesting books with limited but real appeal will see the light of day. I'm hoping that will encourage people to write more niche stuff, more personal stories and especially more weird stories, which are my favorite kind! The internet is going to have a major impact on the business side of writing, as well. Five years ago, people used to ask the question "Can the internet help sell books?" That was like asking if a baby can run a marathon. It didn't work and people thought it was a dead end. In hindsight that seems really dumb. What we're seeing now is the question has become "Who will sell books via the internet?" The main thing to keep in mind is that people who read books tend to be internet savvy. They read blogs and they keep up with what's on the web. For very little money you can get your book in front of the people who might actually read it--that just wasn't possible in the days of print-only marketing.
6. You obviously don't shy away from monsters, nor do you impose reductively naturalistic explanations on them. Why is that, and what do you think of horror that does eschew the supernatural and aims for maximal "realism"? To what extent do you think these tendencies trend back and forth, and to what extent have they simply branched apart and formed their own stable, independent fan bases? How have more realistically-oriented horror fans received Monster Island?
I started out with one premise: the Surrealists have already won. We live in a world where the fantastic is commonplace, if only in our fictions. If a foaming toilet cleanser bottle started talking to you tomorrow about how much better it is than the next brand, would you scream and run away? Probably not. You've seen that happen a million times on tv. So I always start my books with the premise that the monster is real--there's no scientist standing around saying "There must be a rational explanation!" because he's too busy firing a .50 caliber machine gun into the horde of bat-monsters currently attacking his lab. Cops who refuse to believe in ghosts or little kids who can't convince their mom that yes, there really are swamp mummies eating the neighbors--gah. That's so eighties! I actually play with that idea in Monster Nation, where a vitally important character is the only one who doesn't accept that the zombies are real and that they're dangerous. His folly ends up costing everyone dearly. On the other hand, I try to keep the real world details as precise as I can. If somebody's holding a Glock 23 handgun I want to know how many bullets are in the magazine. If the characters are raiding an abandoned convenience store in Barstow I want to know what street it's on. The response has been extremely positive. Nobody really liked the way Scooby Doo shows always ended. They wanted it, just once, to be a real ghost. If you start with a real ghost you've already accelerated the plot and got things moving, which is key.
There's a cycle to these things. In one decade people want realism and serial killers in the next they get bored with gritty sociopaths and instead they want crazy whacked-out monsters. Then the monsters get too campy and people cry out "can't you say something about the real world where I live?" and you get serial killers again. Genre writing is a pendulum and it swings between two poles: realism, best defined by the cyberpunks of the eighties who wrote naturalistic stories with dense characterization, and action-oriented pulpy stuff, which can get abstract and expressionistic and take you on a wild ride. Stephen King made his reputation when the demand for realism was at its height, at the end of the Groovy Age. He took the monsters out of Transylvania and put them in suburban backyards. I feel the pendulum is swinging back, now, toward expressionism, which is where I think I fit best.
7. What were some of the biggest surprises for you in the readership that formed around Monster Island, and in the feedback they gave you? How many self-identified as horror fans, and how many made it clear they weren't horror fans? Which group was harder on you?
Honestly I was most surprised anybody did read it--and that they told their friends, and their friends told their friends. I got a core group of really intelligent people who read a lot and who weren't going to put up with shoddy writing. They kept me on my toes. Very, very few were hardcore horror fans. Instead they were people who just liked fast-paced, exciting stories. I had to scramble to give them what they wanted. The true horrorcore demanded lots of blood and guts, which I was happy to provide.
8. Of the projects you've completed, which fall into the category of "stories I needed to tell before I die"? Do you have any other stories in mind, still to write, that you'd describe that way?
Every book I write is something that is boiling inside of me and has to get out. If I have an idea and I don't write it down I get weird dreams that haunt me until I start writing again. I have so many ideas for future projects that it'll (hopefully) be a long time before I need to go hunting for inspiration again.
9. In terms of what you're watching or reading, are you on any special horror kick at the moment?
The Guardians! Thanks to your blog I've discovered this amazing series. Also I've been reading The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton and loving it.
10. What's on tap for Halloween?
We'll probably visit a haunted house or two, and I'm taking a trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to do research for an upcoming novel. There are always tons of great halloween parties in New York City so I'll probably take in a few of those. Meanwhile, my latest serial, "Frostbite", will run through the rest of the year so anybody looking for a good Halloween read might want to check it out at www.davidwellington.net. If they want to read a print book, I have two I could recommend--Monster Island and Monster Nation, both of which are in bookstores now.
That's it. Thanks, Dave!
Thanks, Curt!
