Warning: today’s post is about a horror author!
David Wellington is one of my favorite authors of horror fiction. The first book of his that I read was Monster Island.
Honestly, they weren’t bad, just different from most zombie books I’d been reading at that time. The premise of the first book is a group from Africa must get into New York City to get medications for treating an HIV+ warlord in Africa.
After I finished that series, I decided to try his vampire series. I loved vampires as a teenager and got away from them when Twilight came along. No, I did not read that crap! I just felt like vampires had became too much of a fad. So it was with trepidation that I tried 13 Bullets.
This series is based around a Pennsylvania State Trooper named Laura Caxton. She is recruited into a secret force with the purpose of eliminating vampires from the world. Wellington’s vampires do not sparkle. They are hairless, with teeth like sharks and they will rip your head right off. Fabulous! Caxton is a badass and I always wanted more books about her.
One of my favorite things about Wellington’s writing is his crossover characters. A family from the Monster series plays a big part in the Laura Caxton books. I did notice that the storylines for that family don’t quite match up in the two series, almost like they are alternate timelines.
Since I loved the Laura Caxton series so much, it was a no-brainer to read his werewolf series.
Frostbite and Overwinter are about a young woman who is accidentally scratched by a werewolf who has haunted her nightmares for years and he is obliged to take her in. She is not happy about the situation and the two must find an uneasy peace in the far northern woods of Canada.
I liked these books a lot and I was bummed out that the series is only two books long.
Wellington got his start with a book called Plague Zone that he published a chapter at a time as an online serial.
I read it online, and it was good! The main character is away on business when the zombie plague starts in his hometown. He sees video on the national news of the outbreak and the video shows his wife being attacked by a former neighbor. He decides that he has to find and destroy that single zombie, but to do it he must walk back into the plague zone.
So, as you can guess, I can hardly get enough of Wellington. I’m still trying to get all those new children’s books done for that class I’m teaching, but I needed a break and do I checked the library catalog and found Posi+tive.
Posi+tive takes place twenty years after the zombie plague hit, but it’s not over yet. The remaining population live in protected enclaves like Manhattan, where Finn lives. Unfortunately, the virus that caused the zombies can take up to twenty years to incubate in the host’s brain. Finn’s world is turned upside down when his mother turns into a zombie one night at supper. Finn is branded a positive, he could have caught it from her as a baby.
It’s not supposed to be a death sentence to be branded a positive, but Finn finds out the hard way that life outside his little city is very different than he expected. Being a positive doesn’t keep him safe from zombies. Or road pirates. Or death cults. Finn is going to have to find a way to forge a brand new world.
I’m not finished with it yet, but something wonderful happened in this book! Laura Caxton showed up!! I think this is a third alternate timeline, but it doesn’t matter, she’s still Laura. Thank you, David Wellington, for throwing me a bone!
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