REVIEW: Eden: Crusade by Tony Monchinski
Millions of flesh eating zombies roam the land, seeking out the last survivors.
Buddy, a pregnant Julie, Gwen and Bear are refugees from Eden, seeking a better place. Along the way they face adversaries living and dead, and befriend new survivors, whose sole hope lives in the complete annihilation of the Undead. Yet none suspects that the true threat lies within their ranks.
The only chance humanity has is a total war ‘a crusade’ against the zombie hordes. In a war of the living versus the dead, the stakes are high and only one side can emerge victorious!
I had been waiting to read this book ever since I finished reading Eden. The review I gave for Eden was positively strong because it was one of the greatest zombie books I have ever read. Now I hold in my hands a book much better than Eden. This book is a superb read and it tops Eden with ease. I could barely put this book down, it was a riveting and exhilarating read that just cries out Movie.
Plot: This story’s plot is amongst the best for any zombie novel period. ( I might even consider if the best out there) He stays away from all the old clichés and he creates such an unpredictable and amazingly fresh story. He utilizes the same style as Eden where he writes through different POVs situated in seemingly random spots on a timeline. Except this time round he creates longer chapters and less of them, instead of the short and abundant chapters in Eden. This makes it much easier for the reader to piece together sections of the timeline, even though the timeline structure acts as a projection for a theme and tone to his world. In the original Eden, All the chapters and everything was seemingly random and unorganized. You can even say that the structure of the story was chaotic. And the author is trying to reflect themes about Chaos through the way he structures chapters, and that is a clever way to present this story. He almost disorients the reader with the structure of the chapters, so that the reader can feel an almost chaotic and order less feel to the story, hence the parallel to the fall of order in the apocalypse! A very strong and unique way to through a message at the reader and this reflects tone very well, as well as making this stand out from everything else out there. The Plot and premise to this story is well composed and where he positioned the chapters is also noteworthy. The story starts off with a huge action scene and this scene is hands down THE BEST action sequence I have ever read in a zombie novel. The beginning scene might be a bit lengthy but it will hook you in.
Gore: The author creates some morbid scenes that just reflect a dark tone to the story very well. The tone of this story is so dark, so much that the situational horror in this book would give some readers night terrors. This story reminds readers about the repercussions involved with living in a post apocalyptic world. He shows the reader that the apocalypse wont be all fun and games and that you will go through Hell itself just to survive. His action scenes are well written, and I noted that the author has a strong confidence when he writes action sequences and his confidence projects well on the pages.
Characters: The greatest aspect of this book is the characters. Tony Monchinski creates real characters and their personalities are well reflected in his witty dialogue. His ability to write excellent is admirable and remarkable. I haven’t seen an author yet that can write dialogue quite like Tony Monchinski can. I would recommend aspiring authors to take special notice to how he utilizes dialogue to reflect his characters, because it is the best around.
Writing: The writing in this story is fairly strong and the strongest uses of his writing abilities are spent into his fight sequences. (Which I commented highly on earlier) His writing is clean cut and keeps the story moving at a strong pace.
Realism: The story is realistic in a lot of ways, even more so with the characters’ personalities. The people in this story are so incredibly realistic and because of this his story stands out from other zombie novels.
Overall: This is possibly the greatest zombie novel out there. He creates such a dark story that he reminds people what terror is. He has excellent characters and the story doesn’t hold any strong flaws. I can’t wait to see what Tony Monchinski has to offer with the next book. He is a great horror author with a lot of talent and he can only get better. (I also highly recommend his vampire novel “I kill Monsters: Fury”) Tony Monchinski revolutionizes horror and reminds us all what evil truly is. This could be the evolution of what could be the next greatest horror writer.
P.S -with this book, Tony Monchinski has elevated to become my favourite horror writer.
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