REVIEW: Eden by Tony Monchinski
Overnight the world transforms into a barren wasteland of ravaged by plague and overrun by hordes of flesh-eating zombies. A small band of desperate men and women stand their ground in a fortified compound in what had once been Queens, New York. They’ve name their sanctuary Eden. Harris– The unusual honest man in this dead world– races against time to solve a murder while fighting to maintain his own humanity. Ultimately, the danger posed by the dead and diseased masses clawing at Eden’s walls pales in comparison to the deceit and treachery Harris faces within.
The story starts off with the main character, Harris, Getting bitten within the first two sentences of the book. The story starts off strong with a battle between the inhabitants of Eden and the Undead. Whenever the battle has ceased, they quickly learn that the undead must have been let in through one of their exit doors, because the wall they have constructed was far too elaborate for any undead menace to find its way through. Harris’ house was adjacent to the door that was left open, so Harris concludes that whomever let the door open must have done so knowing that Harris’ home was closeby. Harris ponders the idea that somebody in the town of Eden was trying to kill him by letting the undead in the compound right next to his home.
This was a great starting point for the novel, it really set a foundation for the story. Than came the structure of the story. The timeline of which the story goes through is completely random in its order. Each section of the book seems to be a random time from a certain character’s ‘point of view’ in the story. A lot of sections are of Harris and Buddy before they found Eden and there are a lot of them from the time they spent in Eden. A character can be dead in one chapter, than alive in the next chapter due to the ‘unique’ structure of which the story is set. I have read plenty of books where they run two different ‘point of views’ from the same character in different time frames, but even those stories have had some order in those two different POVs. It’s as if the author finished the book, placed a number on a card signifying the point in time this chapter has taken place, than he threw the cards on the ground and organized the book in order of which he randomly selected said cards. This time line can be difficult to interpret to many readers because of how seemingly random and uncoordinated it is, but I have to say that some slight planning was required to set the tone of the story and to draw the reader in.
The characters within the story are probably the strongest aspect of this novel. All of his characters are well drawn, excellently concieved and composed perfectly. All of his characters are presented with such realism that I felt as if I personally knew every single one of the characters. What I admire the most of this novel– and it involves the characters– the dialogue is one of the strongest I have ever read period. Not only for this genre of horror, but one of the best I have ever read, period. Each character’s mannerism of speech are well developed and they permeates well within the reader’s mind.
The gore: The gore is excellent. Along with the gore section of this review I would like to relate it to the action sequences within the story. The action scenes are in a word, Incredible. Some of the fight scenes are so vivid that I felt as though I were watching a movie. The gore within the story should satisfy the blood craving of any gore hound. The author also displays a variety of weapons and firearms throughout the novel which definitely would bode well with readers.
Now there was something odd I found with the story. There was a few chapters where the story was scene from the POV of what seems to be a character unrelated to the story itself. But I suppose it does relate to the tone of the story very well. The tone of the story is that of disdain and hopelessness. These snipets of these seemingly unrelated characters relates to the tone of the story because there is no hope or order to the Apocalypse. I feel as though the random sequence of events was structured to fit around this idea. There is no order in an apocalyptic world, none at all. And these snipets of scenes really portrait the despair that some people must endure in order to survive.
Overall, this is one of the greatest zombie novels that I have ever read. The only thing that may throw off many readers is the unique structure of the timeline that I mentioned earlier. This unique timeline structure can sometimes disrupt the flow of the story but otherwise it is an amazing read. I would most definitely consider this one of the best zombie novels currently published. I HIGHLY recommend it.
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