On the Bookshelf

The video pretty much speaks for itself but I simply couldn't let Zombie Week pass by without digging this little gem up.

For anyone wondering, this is a clip from the 1940 movie The Ghost Breakers.

Terra

If you are interested in helping others, survivalism, and, most importantly, zombies, then the Zombie Squad is the website for you. The Zombie Squad is a community with a mission to help educate people about the importance of personal preparedness, self reliance, and to help you to be prepared to take on any disaster, whether it be an earthquake, flooding, terrorism, or, yes, even a zombie apocalypse.


A paid membership will earn you:

• An official ZS photo ID badge with your ZS membership number
• Your own yourname@zombiehunters.org email that forwards to your current email address!
• Your picture will be displayed on our site for the world to see (optional)
• Access to a special "members only" forum on the ZS boards where you can network with other ZS members
• Invitation to select "members only" ZS events and special merchandise offers
• You can participate in the Volunteers Award Program and get lots of cool free stuff just for volunteering your time
• You'll know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if the undead attack, we've got your brains covered

I would pay fifteen dollars a year just so I could have a badge that I can show people saying that I am an official member of the Zombie Squad. Just think of how useful it could be! When the undead rise, no matter how annoying you may be, you will be the last person that the members of your ragtag group of survivors conspire to kill off as you have a badge that tells them that you, and only you, are the only person there qualified to keep them alive.

But most importantly, Zombie Squad also supports other local and international disaster relief organizations/charities, helping people who's lives have been struck by disasters.

The Zombie Squad website and forums provides lot's of useful information to help you survive any disaster that may befall you. For example, do you know what you should put in your BOB? Do you even have a BOB? Do you know what a BOB is? No!? Then read this Zombie Squad information brochure to find out! Quick! Then when you are done, print it off and give it to all your friends. To think that the world as you know it could end anytime now and you aren't even ready! Tsk, tsk.

Terra

Imagine that you are in your car when you see a small horde of zombies shambling towards you. What do you do? Do you:
A) Drive away fast?
B) Attempt to run them over?
C)Leave your car and attempt to escape on foot?

According to the band Naked Ape, the correct answer is D) None of the above. Instead of fleeing for your life, park your car and make yourself comfortable. These zeds don't want to eat your brains. Oh, no. They just want to wash your car.

(Anyone who is put off by the concept of a scantily clad zombie ladies getting soaped up while washing a car may not be inclined to hit play.)


It turns out that not even the zombie economy is not doing too great at the moment either, prompting some of these zombie ladies to seek out a second job. They wash cars by day and by night they... pole dance? But be careful. Zombies that work hard also bite hard.


Terra

To kick off my contribution to the Zombie Challenge, I am going to share with everyone some free to play, online, browser based games that I once invested many hours into playing. It is rather strange that games that are relatively visually unstimulating and played on a grid map would be so addictive. But I suspect that anyone who has a good imagination and likes to develop characters and play with a community or perhaps once enjoyed good ol' text adventure games and the like could have an absolute ball with these.


Urban Dead was created four years ago by Kevan Davis. Enter the city of Malton where you will either exist as a human, struggling to survive the undead outbreak, or as one of the undead, hungering for the flesh of the living. One might strongly suspect that the NecroTech company is behind the unfortunate turn of events that has overcome Malton. You receive fifty action points over 25 hours with which to explore the city and to fight for your life (or to take the lives of others).

Citizens of Malton will find that, regardless of what their preferred status may be, there are going to be a number of occasions where you will die, nom on some brains, be revived by a living ally when you happen to shamble past a revive point moaning in undead misery, return to the living only at some point grow curious as to whether or not jumping out of a building window will really kill you. Splat. The whole cycle starts again.


Like Urban Dead, Christopher Wolf's Hell Rising takes place in a city that has been over run by the undead. Only in Hell Rising the stakes are raised by the inclusion of vampires to the list of what type of character you can play. In both games malls tend to be hot spots of activity. Humans huddle inside after using up all their action points after looting the shops for baseball bats, first aid kits, and alcohol while the vampires and zombie hoards tear at the barricades outside to get to the living within.

You can join a group of other players in both games. It is a good idea, especially for newer players, as a group can help you learn the ropes and increase your chances of living. When coordinating attacks, more seasoned human players might leave the kills for the newer players, while the experienced undead might volunteer to tear down the barricades so that their newly undead brethren might lead the charge inside and claim the EXP. Long time players will find that after maxing out their skills they can accumulate thousands of extra experience points while waiting for new skills to be released. Beware also of TKers (team killers). These devious murderers will turn on their own side without so much as a second thought. Indeed, you may encounter entire groups dedicated to killing their own kind as well as the bounty hunter groups who hunt them.

Both games also have detailed Wikis to help new players learn their way around the game. You will also find within these Wikis pages detailing the lives of significant characters, character diaries, group histories, and major attacks and battles that have taken place such as at Caiger Mall. Players will even create their own events, such as when the zombie hoarde takes off for a Mall Tour. Even player created businesses have a place. Raising a family in Malton? Take the kids down to McZeds for a Malty Meal complete with a free toy! At MickyZs they take great pride in serving only the freshest corpses to you and your family! In this way, the story of the game is very much written by the characters we add to it and what we have them do.


You can have multiple characters in both games, (or alts, as they tend to be called,) but are not allowed to have any of your characters working together. There are also no NPCs (non-player characters) in either game.

I don't play very often anymore but I've played with some great people and encountered some great characters in these games that they will always hold a special place in my little geeky heart. If you ever encounter in Urban Dead Scarlet Rowan, Ava Ridley, or find someone called Cheshire Kat chewing on your arm then that is me. By all means, say a friendly hello before taking a swing at me with your trusty fire axe. Likewise, if you ever find one Winter Devalos sipping on your blood as you wander Twilight City then I thank you in advance for the donation. ;-)

Late onto the band wagon as I usually am, the Zombie Challenge commenced today. As a fan of all things zombie I couldn't just let this event pass me by.

This challenge has been set up to tie in with Zombie Week.


Keep an eye out over the next couple of days for some posts containing some good ol' grr, arg, braaaiiinsss fun!

I am sure that many of you have noticed the trend as of late to publish or republish books with covers that echo that of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I am going to be completely honest and say that I do not like the Twilight books. I won't go in to detail here seeing as if I were going to do so, I would post a proper review analysing the books.

Anyway, here are just a couple of examples of what I am talking about:


Yup, both these covers mimic the red, black, and white colour scheme of the Twilight books but also a flower to be likened to the New Moon cover. There is also no missing that both editions have the words "Bella and Edward's favourite book" stamped on them along with the phrase "Love never dies..."

Then there is the Vampire Beach series. I haven't read this series but I didn't mind the old covers. They looked like they would make a nice colourful patch on a bookshelf and contributed to the novel nature of the concept of vampires on a beach. At the moment I think that many a YA reader's bookshelf must be threatening to turn into a wall of black. Such is the case with the new rereleases of Vampire Beach:


Then there is my current love, the Study Series by Maria V. Snyder:

No longer able to stay in Ixia unless she wishes to be executed as a magician, Yelena leaves behind her life as Commander Ambrose's food taster and travels south to Sitia with Irys and the other orphans rescued from General Brazell's "orphanage", all of them now seeking to be reunited with their long lost families.

Getting away from Ixia and having to get stuck into studying how to harness her powers doesn't mean that Yelena's life will now be anything but eventful. While Yelena's parents greet her with open arms, not everyone in the Zaltana clan is happy to see Yelena returned to them. Even her own brother seems to want her dead. Her Ixian upbringing makes others regard her with suspicion and accuse her of being a spy. Although eager to begin her lessons in magic, she struggles to adjust to the Sitian way of life. As if that is not enough, she encounters the lost prince to the Ixian throne and becomes involved in the search for a magician trying to gain more power through the brutal murder of young girls.

In this second instalment in the Study Series, we are given the opportunity to learn more about the nature of magic in Synder's world. I really like the subtle nature of how she has portrayed magic. It is not all flashy or over the top and I think that this subtlety very well suits the overall tone of the series. I also like that Snyder has not made Yelena all powerful. She has abilities that make others wary of her but she is unusually limited in other areas which other magicians might think to be basic. I think that Snyder has struck a great balance in term of Yelena's abilities.

Yelena seems to has grown from the events that took place in Poison Study and I cannot help but to like her even more. She is strong and independent and tends to take the approach of "rush into a situation and hope for the best", a method that is frowned upon in Sitian and although no longer a prisoner to anyone, she is not truely free in Sitia. Her struggle to find her place in Sitia and her isolation felt real. While Valek features little as he is not welcome in Sitia, Yelena misses him. He is rarely far from her thoughts and despite the distance between them, Snyder manages to believably maintain their relationship.

Despite her struggles, Yelena does makes some new friends but do not worry, Snyder still finds a way to bring back characters that we came to love in Poison Study. Among them being Irys, who is mentoring Yelena in magic at the Magician's Keep. After seeing Irys in the previous book as a Sitian magician having crossed the border to deal with the threat of Yelena's building powers and attempting to kill her, it was interesting to see a different side of her as a mentor and teacher to Yelena. Ari and Janco fans will also be happy to see the duo make a return. (I know that I was!) Then there the new characters such as the spiteful Master Magician, Roze, and also Cahil, who claims to be the rightful heir to the throne of Ixia. The interaction between Cahil and Yelena is a great addition to the book and I even found myself groaning out load when at one point it seemed that things between them could potentially turn romantic. There is just no way Cahil could outdo Valek.

In my review of Poison Study my only complaint was about Snyder occasionally using words that seemed too modern for the world she had created. I am very pleased to say that I did not pick up on this issue in Magic Study. This time around my only complaint is that it was over all too soon! Expect a Fire Study review in the very near future.

Terra

Today I have to say a big thank you to Jessica from A Booklover's Diary for giving me my first ever blog award and a serious case of the warm fuzzies.

There were no rules posted but from my understanding this is an award for other new bloggers and for the blogging friends we have made. In the past month of running this blog I have come across so many great blogs out there that it is really, really hard to pick out just a few to acknowledge. I have decided to pass this award along, in no particular order, to:

Rhiannon Hart
Mindful Musings
The Sweet Bookshelf
The Magic Thingamajig

Terra