Domain of the Dead/Remains of the Dead by Iain McKinnon

I've never reviewed two books at once before but in this instance the decision to is fully justified. Once again, we're in zombie apocalypse territory. This time the story is set three years after the outbreak began. Domain of the Dead, which is the first in this mini-series, opens with a small group of survivors holed up in a large food warehouse, where they have remained throughout the apocalypse. They are surrounded by a vast horde of flesh-eating zombies and they have almost run out of food. The heroine of the novel, Sarah, is contemplating suicide, when she hears an unfamiliar sound. A helicopter has appeared and landed in their city, not far away from their location. She persuades the others in her party that their best hope of salvation is to make contact with the occupants of the helicopter. As they fight their way through the zombie horde some of them don't make it. Those that do find a small team of five military personnel. The soldiers are friendly and offer to help transport the survivors away from the zombie-infested city. But there is one big problem - the helicopter has a very limited passenger capacity and will only hold four passengers - five if a child sits on the lap of an adult. One of the soldiers, Bates, refuses to give up his seat. Another soldier, Angel, a female sniper was wounded and she had to return for medical attention. That left two seats. Sarah, her friend Nathan and young child, Jennifer are chosen to ride in the chopper.
It takes them to a research ship miles out at sea. The ship's doctor gives them a thorough examination and explains what has been going on in the world during the past three years. Humanity is surviving but the zombies vastly outnumber the living. They are introduced to the ship's captain and to the chief scientist, Cutler, who don't see eye to eye. Here we have a situation inspired by Romero's film Day of the Dead with the captain and scientist at loggerheads. Heck, the captain even calls the scientist "Dr. Frankenstein" just as Captain Rhodes did with Professor Logan in Day of the Dead.
On that very day when the newcomers arrive, Cutler makes a scientific breakthrough in finding a cure for the zombie disease. However, it proves to be anything but and when he injects himself with it, he soon turns into a zombie. In no time at all the ship is overrun with zombies, leaving just Sarah, Nathan, Jennifer and the two soldiers from the helicopter, Bates and Angel to fend for themselves in a desperate situation.

The sequel, Remains of the Dead, tells the story of the two soldiers, Lieutenant Cahz and Cannon the machine gunner, who were left behind with survivors Ryan, Elspeth and a baby girl. Another survivor, Ali, is separated from them but he manages to survive on his own. The two groups find refuge in abandoned buildings not far from each other. Cahz knows that the helicopter will return for them but that it will take many hours for it to reach the ship, get refuelled and return. Elspeth gave up her place on the helicopter because she was bitten whilst fleeing from the warehouse. She knows she'll die soon, so that is why she chose to stay behind.
Just as Ali and the others make contact, Cahz's group is forced to flee when their hideout is threatened by a neighbouring fire. Cahz leads Cannon, Ryan and the baby out of the city towards the coast in the hope of contacting the helicopter as it flies in, or if they miss it, when it flies back out. Things do not go well for either group but to say anymore will be to give away too much of the plot.
I really wanted to like these novels, as they had both garnered many positive reviews on Amazon, which is where I bought them. But sadly, I have to say, I was very disappointed with them. Once again, both books are blighted with numerous spelling mistakes, bad grammar and poor layout with sentences breaking up in the middle of a line before continuing on the next line. Whoever edited and proofread these books did a very poor job of it!
Secondly, I found the characters to be unsympathetic and I couldn't really care whether they lived or died. All of the lead characters in both books suffer.. a lot! Fair enough, in a zombie apocalypse people do suffer, but McKinnon really puts everyone through the wringer, both physically and emotionally. It just got too much for me.
Thirdly, there is a science lesson given by Doctor Robertson, Cutler's assistant, girlfiend and the person who examines Sarah, Nathan and Jennifer in the middle of the book as she tries to explain the zombie outbreak. It is long-winded and totally unnecessary. it just so happens that Sarah was a science student, so she understands most of the gobbledigook that Robertson spouts.
Fourthly, I was amazed at how quickly the infection spread on the research ship in Domain of the Dead. In no time at all a crew of about 100 are wiped out and transformed into zombies. I'm sorry, but I just couldn't buy that at all. Especially not when just under half the crew were military personnel.
Finally, is the ending of both books. I won't say much because I don't want to spoil them for you but be warned, the endings are bleak. Plus, when you read about what happens at the end of Domain of the Dead you know that there is no way that Remains of the Dead can have a happy ending. I must admit that my judgement of Remains was very much influenced by me not enjoying Domain. I suspected it would be more more of the same and it was, although if anything it is even bleaker.
As I said earlier, a lot of readers rate this series very highly, so maybe I'm in the minority for disliking them. I don't know if you've noticed, but I've added a number of page tabs to the top of my blog. One of them is for book reviews. I mark my film reviews with scores out of ten but I never rated my book reviews. Until now. If you click on the Book Reviews tab you'll see my ratings for every book I've reviewed so far. Up till now, all of my book reviews have been very favourable. Not so for this pair, however. I'll give them both a score of 4 out of 10.
They are printed by Permuted Press and cost me £10.95 each from Amazon's website. Not good value for money, I felt!

Foundry SWAT Troopers 03

For my third and final look at the Foundry 28mm scale SWAT Teams I'll be reviewing set SV056 SWAT Team Shadow and the bonus figure, Sergeant Hall, whom I received for ordering the "Into the Streets Collection" when they were first launched in the 1990's.

You'll immediately see that I've done something different with this set - they are all wearing black uniforms and black armour. These are not police SWAT troopers but FBI Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) officers. Their function is broadly similar to that of SWAT but they often get involved in higher-profile operations across a much wider geographic area. HRT are headquartered in Quantico, Virginia, and maintains nine tactical teams spread across the United States.

 At the far left of my two photos above is Bomber (names supplied by the Foundry team) who is firing a .45 Springfield M1911-A1 Bureau Pistol (standard issue for HRT and LAPD SWAT). He has a 5.56mm Steyr AUG Assault Carbine slung over his right shoulder (this is not standard issue).
To the left of him is Tweedy, a female operative, who is armed with the 9mm Heckler and Koch MP5KA5 Machine Pistol. She also has a .45 Springfield Bureau Pistol in a holster on her right hip.
The big guy in the centre of the group is Bone (stupid name!), who is armed with the 5.56mm M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, which, as I have commented on before, would never be issued to any SWAT Team or police force. This is a weapon for military operations and would only be issued to military personnel.
Next in line is Del'Orto, who is supposed to be female but who could be mistaken for a short male. She is armed with a 10mm Heckler and Koch MP5/10A3 Sub-Machine Gun, which is standard issue amongst FBI SWAT teams and is a slightly larger calibre than normal SWAT Teams' 9mm MP5A SMGs. His back-up weapon is the .45 Springfield Bureau Pistol.
The final figure in this group is Roddy, and he too, is armed with the MP5/10A3 SMG and .45 Springfield Bureau Pistol. He is posed in a firing position.

The final figure that I want to show you from the Foundry Street Violence SWAT Teams range is Sergeant Kevin Hall. This figure came as a freebie if you ordered the first eight sets from this range, but sadly he is no longer available. Still, I show him just for completeness, plus, some of you may be lucky enough to own him. His primary weapon is the 12 Gauge Ithaca Model 37 Pump-Action Shotgun, to which he has fitted an underslung tactical torch. If he is from NYPD SWAT, his back-up pistol will be a 9mm Glock 19, but if he is from LAPD, it will be a .45 Kimber Custom II Pistol (similar to the .45 Colt Government Pistol). I can't remember why I painted the word "POLICE" on his back, as I didn't on any of my other Foundry SWAT Teams.

If you like the previous Foundry SWAT Teams that I've reviewed recently, you'll surely like these. Of course, there's no reason why you couldn't paint them all in the same uniform colours to make a very large force of 25 figures (26 if you include Sergeant Hall). I just wanted to do something different with set SV056 SWAT Team Shadow, which is why I decided to paint them up as FBI HRT operatives. This set retails for £10.00 for all five figures. 

I was asked recently how many police figures I own and I wasn't too sure but I knew it was more than 100. So I counted them all and the total came to 160. Here is the breakdown -

U.K. and U.S. Detectives = 48

U.K. Street Cops = 15

U.S. Street Cops = 32

SWAT Troopers = 48

HRT Troopers = 17

That's more than enough for my needs but I wouldn't bet against me adding to those numbers!

Foundry SWAT Troopers 02.

Here we have the next two sets of SWAT Troopers from Foundry's 28mm scale Street Violence range - SV021 SWAT Team Suppression and SV028 SWAT Team Hammer.

The photos directly above and below this caption show the figures from set SV021 SWAT Team Suppression. Note that these are not new sculpts but conversions of the figures in the two sets that I reviewed last time. All five have had head swaps and are now wearing helmets and gasmasks. Note that I have painted this team and four out of the five in the next team with gloves on.

At the far left of these two photos is Connors. As before, I'll use the names given to them by the chaps at Foundry to identify them. He is firing a .44 Desert Eagle Pistol and has a 5.56mm Steyr AUG Assault Rifle slung over one shoulder. As I mentioned last time, neither of these weapons are standard issue SWAT firearms.
Next up is Dell, a female officer. In addition to the head swap, Foundry have made one other change to this conversion and it's an important one. Dell is firing her 9mm MP5KA5 Machine Pistol correctly, unlike Officer Lords, the figure she's based upon, who was firing it "gangsta-style" to one side. It's just a simple alteration but it's one that I approve of.
Standing a good bit taller than his colleagues is Bleach, who appears to have raided a military armoury and got himself a 5.56mm M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. SWAT Teams do not possess SAWs and have nothing heavier than Assault Rifles in their arsenal. Please take note, Foundry!
I have no complaints about the fourth figure in line. This is Dean, who is holding his 9mm Heckler and Koch MP5A Sub-Machine Gun at the shoulder. Most SWAT forces use the MP5A SMG as their primary weapon, although some forces replace it with the 5.56mm Colt Commando CAR15 Assault Rifle.
Last in line is Harris, another female officer, although it is hard to tell. This is my favourite figure out of this set, as she has been very cleverly converted by giving her an entry shield (entry shields are much larger than riot shields). I just love how she is resting the barrel of her 9mm Heckler and Koch MP5A SMG on the top lip of her shield for extra stability.

These next two photos, shown above and below, feature the five figures from set SV028 SWAT Team Hammer. Apart from one figure, these are also conversions from SWAT Team Alpha nad SWAT Team Takedown.

Leading this group at the far left of my two photos is the only unique figure in these two sets, i.e. he isn't a conversion of a figure from the first two sets. This is Sergeant Baker and he is a two-piece casting. His bullhorn is a separate component that had to be glued in place. He is not wearing his gasmask, presumably to make using the bullhorn that much easier. He holds a 12 gauge Ithaca Model 37 Pump-Action Shotgun in his right hand with the butt resting on his right hip. The shotgun has a small tactical torch fitted just beneath the barrel.

To his immediate left is Rosina, another female officer. She is equipped as standard and is a rather average figure. She's not badly sculpted but nothing about her is outstanding.

Next up is Scott. I dunno if that's his Christian name or surname. He carries a one-man ram (heavier ones require two men to use) used for breaking down doors. Rams are colloquially called "keys" by many teams. Replacing the SAW with a Ram is a good choice and more in keeping with a SWAT Team. So, another good conversion by Foundry and I'd nominate Scott as my favourite figure out of this set.

Taff is the fourth figure in line and she is yet another female officer but I wouldn't blame you if you made her male. I mentioned last time that female operatives are exceedingly rare in SWAT Teams and yet Foundry have made four in these two sets of ten. That's far too many! Taff is firing her 9mm MP5A SMG from the shoulder.

The final figure in this group is Beale and he is armed with a single round 37mm Grenade Launcher. Its most likely munitions are a plastic baton round, or a tear gas or smoke canister. It's an interesting choice of weapon but not out of place in a SWAT team.

You'll notice that I've painted these in the same colour schemes that I gave to SWAT Team Alpha and SWAT Team Takedown, featured last time. This means that I can combine all four sets to make a very large contigent of SWAT troopers.

If you order these sets from Foundry they retail at £10.00 per set for five figures. I must admit that I'm a big fan of Foundry's Street Violence range. Their figures are just perfect for using in a zombie apocalypse campaign.

Foundry SWAT Troopers 01

One set of figures that Foundry make a lot of for their Street Violence range are SWAT Teams. I'll be reviewing all five sets over the next week or so, starting with set SV011 SWAT Team Alpha and set SV012 SWAT Team Takedown.

These five figures are from set SV011 SWAT Team Alpha. All of my SWAT Troopers have navy blue uniforms and helmets with black body armour, elbow pads, knee pads and boots. Firearms are painted in metallic black.

 I'll use the names given to these figures by the Foundry team to identify them. Starting at the far left of the two photos above is Riggs, who is aiming a .44 Desert Eagle pistol in a two-handed grip. This is not a normal police-issued weapon. Slung over his right shoulder is a 5.56mm Steyr AUG Assault Rifle. Again, this is not standard issue amongst SWAT Teams.
Next in line is Lords. It is true that females are allowed to join SWAT but their numbers are very limited. In 2000, they made up a mere 0.5% of the total workforce. Frequently they are used as hostage negotiators or in crisis management. A disproportionate number of the Foundry SWAT figures are female. Lords is firing a 9mm Heckler and Koch MP5KA5 Machine Pistol "gangsta-style," i.e. held to one side.
In the centre of this group is the extremely large Cook, armed with a 5.56mm M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, also known as the FN MINIMI. This is most definitely heavier than anything that SWAT Teams currently have in their armouries. It would seem that Foundry are taking some dramatic licence here!
Next up is Beck, wearing her baseball cap back to front. She is armed with the standard SWAT firearm - the ubiquitous 9mm Heckler and Koch MP5A Sub-Machine Gun. This is standard issue to all SWAT Teams.
Finally, we have Ed the SWAT Team sniper. He is armed with a 7.62mm Remington M24 Sniper Rifle. He wears a Nomex hood with a set of night-vision goggles perched atop of his head.

These five figures are from set SV012 SWAT Team Takedown and all are identically armed and armoured.

At the far left of my next two photos is Frank. All of his team are wearing helmets over their Nomex hoods. Nomex is a fire-retardant material. His primary weapon is the 9mm Heckler and Koch MP5A Sub-Machine Gun and he carries a 9mm Glock 19 Pistol in a holster as back-up.

From left to right the other four are Johnny V, Tesh, Kelly and Kathy. Note that Kelly and Kathy are female. I normally like to see females as part of a group but in this case I do think that Foundry have over-compensated.

I learnt a lot of useful information about SWAT Teams from the GURPS SWAT supplement, which ties in with GURPS Cops to form a pair of excellent supplements on all things police. Whether you like GURPS or not, there is no denying that their books are jam-packed with useful information usable in any game. This following quote from GURPS SWAT should give you a clear indication of what SWAT is and isn't - 

"Cops, not Soldiers"

"SWAT officers are ultimately law enforcement personnel, not soldiers. They follow strict guidelines that dictate when and how to apply force of any kind, but especially deadly force. They are under the same restrictions as "regular" cops, and the GM should not hesitate to dole out appropriate in-game discipline for officers who insist on pushing the limits."

"The goal of any SWAT operation is peaceful resolution whenever possible. Crisis situations should end in the arrest - not the death - of any suspects, making SWAT operations especially difficult for the individual officer. He must identify threats, order compliance and attempt to resolve the situation without resorting to deadly force unless absolutely necessary."

I think a lot of gamers are guilty of treating SWAT Teams as the paramilitary wing of the police and shoot first and ask questions later. However, having said that, if you're using SWAT officers against a zombie horde then survival becomes the number one priority and in this case I'd say that deadly force is "absolutely necessary!"

These two sets, containing five figures each are a worthy addition to any contemporary gamer's collection. They retail at £10.00 per set. Even though they come with too many females and the fact that SWAT Team Alpha has too many non-standard weaponry, I can still recommend them.

Vampifan's Views 19 My Monthly Musings part 6

Vampirella by Joe Jusko. Note his name on the gravestone.

Seeing as I normally post my monthly musings at the end of the month I should have posted this yesterday but, hey, I'm a day late. So what? January was a very busy month for me. On the figure painting front, I have finished 12 Black Cat Bases 28mm scale African-American gangstas (5 males, 5 females and 2 mascot dogs), 4 Recreational Conflict 28mm scale survivors and 2 Battle Bunker 28mm scale zombies. On my desk at the moment are the following 20 figures - 4 West Wind bikers, 4 West Wind vampire rock stars, 4 West Wind zombie rockers, 4 Studio Minis Left 4 Dead zombies, 1 Studio Minis Hogan the Santa survivor, 2 more Battle Bunker zombies and 1 Eureka Victorian schoolboy.
Good news for those of you wanting to see my WWG Mayhem City Police Station - the end is in sight. All being well I hope to finish it this month. Yeehaa! I've been making a lot of office furniture for it and I have just five rooms to decorate - four detectives' offices and the large squad room. I only have a bunch of book shelves to make and then I'll be able to complete all four detectives' offices. The squad room will be the last to get made but fortunately, I already have a lot of the furniture for it already constructed. This has been a mammoth project, by far the largest card building I've ever made. I can't wait to finish it and then move on to something else. Don't ask what just yet. I have loads of options available.
I finished reading one vampire novel and two zombie novels in January. The vampire novel was Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer - the final part of her Twilight series. It was easily the best book in the series. The one character who has annoyed me the most in this series has been the petulant Bella Swann, the heroine of the novels. However, my opinion of her changed once her new husband, the vampire Edward Cullen, transformed her into a vampire. Vampire Bella is awesome!
The first of the zombie novels I read was As The World Dies: The Untold Stories by Rhiannon Frater. This was a short anthology featuring three of the peripheral characters from her As The World Dies series. If you're a fan of the series you'll probably like this one but it's not an essential purchase. Once again, we have a book that is badly let down by poor proofreading. Five times the word "soldier" is spelt "solider" including twice in one sentence. Unforgivable!
The second zombie novel was one that I bought after reading Zombie Ad's interview with the author, Iain McKinnon, on his Zombie Shop blog site. http://zombieshop.blogspot.com/2012/01/20-questions-with-iain-mckinnon.html The novel in question was Domain of the Dead. It's not a very long novel at 184 pages and I'm afraid I wasn't very impressed with it. Most of the action takes place on a research ship, which gets overrun with zombies, far too quickly and far too easily in my view. I really couldn't empathise with any of the characters, which is a major failing for any novel. Yet again, the book was let down by too many proofreading mistakes. My friend, Joe/Zabadak, states that this a curse of zombie books and I must agree with him.
I'm currently reading Remains of the Dead by Iain McKinnon, which ties in with Domain. At the start of Domain, a small group of survivors are found by a helicopter crew from the research ship. However, the helicopter only has a limited passenger capacity, so some of the group are whisked away and Domain tells their story. Remains concentrates on the group left behind.
As I mentioned in previous monthly musings, the last three months of 2011 saw me making no trips to the cinema. Here in January 2012, I've been three times. First up was to see Twilight: Breaking Dawn part 1. This follows the first part of the novel I mentioned earlier and ends with Bella's transformation to a vampire. Not very exciting but it serves its purpose in setting up part 2, due out later this year. The novel runs to 700 pages, so I wasn't at all surprised that the producers split the film into two parts.
Secondly, was the excellent Underworld Awakening in 3D, which I have already reviewed on my blog. The third film I saw was Haywire, which has nothing to do with the undead. It tells the tale of a female black ops agent who is double crossed on a mission in Dublin. She survives the assassination attempt and goes after those who set her up. Gina Carano plays the betrayed agent and she is very good in this film. As a champion mixed martial artist, she is excellent in her fight scenes. The film drags in places but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. There's just something about hard-ass females kicking butt that I like.
That's almost all for now, but I would like to make a special mention to Johnny/Lord Siwoc for his wonderful survivor's house he made, dedicated to Vampifan. See it on his blogsite, Brains and Guts! here - http://lordsiwoc.blogspot.com/2012/01/house-of-desurvivor.html if you haven't done so already. Johnny, you really made my day with that. Thanks once again, mate!