Review: Eden: Resurrection

Tony Monchinski, 2011, Permuted Press

Twenty years after the living dead swept the globe, the zombie wars are over. Whole continents have been cleared of the undead, but left uninhabited due to nuclear fallout. Humanity has begun to regain its footing in small, isolated communities around the globe. When a stranger carrying hints of Anthony's past walks into the tiny settlement of New Harmony, Anthony and his friends must set out on a life-changing trek that will swiftly degenerate into a brutal struggle for survival, as they come up against zombies, mutants, and the evil that humans still visit upon one another.

There is little I can say about Eden: Resurrection that I've not already said about Tony Monchinski's previous works (these being Eden, and Eden: Crusade): the plot is fast-paced, brutal, and completely engrossing; the characters wonderfully flawed, unique, and completely empathic (if not necessarily sympathetic); the prose and dialogue a joy to read. Also, rather than giving us 'more of the same', Resurrection refreshingly removes most of the focus from the zombie menace, and places it instead upon some of the more unpleasant human elements that have managed to thrive in the predatory vacuum left by the diminished undead population. Throw in a cliffhanger conclusion, which promises one hell of a follow-up novel, and you have what I can only refer to as an 'instant classic' of the genre.

Regardless of the almost ridiculously large volume of zomfic being produced nowadays, there's a comparatively small number of authors whose work falls almost exclusively into this genre, and a smaller number still who consistently produce work of truly literary quality (in the most admirable sense of the word). Tony Monchinski is definitely one of these authors, and his work should be compulsory reading for serious fans of zombie fiction.