The concept behind Flu is very simple. It’s another flu (just like with the avians and the swine) that hits, first provoking the usual panic, jokes and cynical dismissal that these things tend to do. Only it starts to get a lot worse. There are quarantines, deaths and eventually re-animations. You know how it goes from there.

The book’s setting is an interesting one, as it’s set in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The place has a rough history of political division and internal strife making it an interesting backdrop for a story with or without zombies. Wayne Simmons has managed to incorporate strong elements from the setting into the story, and Flu doesn’t feel like yet another foray into the generic US city that frames most zombie novels. There are bitter enmities and deep regrets as well as historical references and the like. The writer manages to write these into the story without being too heavy-handed. When criticism is levelled, it feels done by the characters and not the author. Personally I hate having a political ideology, religion or anything similar crammed down my throat when I’m trying to enjoy some zombie action, so I was happy with the way Simmons handled his subject matter. They serve the story’s purpose and not the other way around. Simmons hails from Northern Ireland, and it’s apparent he knows what he’s writing about.

Another thing I applaud is Simmons’ writing style. He doesn’t waste his pages and there isn’t a lot of empty filler in the book. In roughly 280 pages he manages to tell a good story, introduce the reader to a handful of characters and include the above mentioned themes into the mix. He drops nice hints here and there about how things went down when the flu struck, and there are some excellent little details there that make it hit a little closer to home.

The characters are a nice collection, too. None of them feel like cardboard cut-outs. The story follows each character’s perspective at some turn, and you get a glimpse or their motivations and inner workings. Nobody’s perfect, nobody’s a complete mess-up. They feel pretty much human, with their good and bad traits. At times it feels like Flu might make a nice movie, probably a Guy Ritchie one. The reason for this is the combination of a tragic situation, some dark humour and imperfect characters. It works wonderfully for me.

There wasn’t much in the book that irked me. A pet peeve of mine raised its head a few times. What is it with zombie book authors and firearms? Seriously. Once I know it’s a Glock 17, it can be referred to as a pistol. Do I even need to know it’s a Glock 17? This isn’t to say that the book is brimming with gun information, thankfully. There’s just a bit too much needless repetition at times. Also, the military strand of the story could’ve been developed a bit more as it felt a bit detached. Apparently this is taken further in the upcoming sequel Fever, which is a welcome piece of news.

Overall verdict: Flu doesn’t really bring that much new to the genre. A lot of the usual tropes are there – the tension between survivors, hidden agendas and friction between the establishment and civilians. Normally I’d view this as a failing on the book’s part. A book with nothing much in the new idea department needs to be pretty good otherwise to float, and luckily writer Simmons pulls it off. Flu is an intense, compact book, and well worth your reading. I ate it up in two days, and am still hungry for more.

I picked up my copy of Flu at the Book Depository.

You can check out Simmons’ homepage here.

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It wasn’t too difficult to form the following chain of thought: “Hmm, I really want to play this game again” to “I have loads of Colonial Marine and Alien miniatures” to “I wonder if the playing board accommodates 28mm miniatures – no” to…oh, you know how it goes. So now I’m looking to build a 3D gaming board to recreate the main – and in my opinion best – scenario from the game. It’s of course the reactor room one, where most of the CM squad is ripped apart. It’s a pretty difficult and brutal mission, but perfectly captures the feeling of the movie. Don’t believe me? Try the Flash version and come back!

With this in mind I picked up a sheet of blue foam and the Aliens game board and did some calculations. The original board is 14 by 25 squares. When I translated the squares to 30mm ones and left some extra room at the sides, it amounted to a 42,3 cm by 75,3 cm board. Perfectly reasonable size, only a bit larger than my Blood Bowl pitch. Storage is always an issue for me when it comes to wargaming scenery. Or rather, it has started to become an issue due to not being an issue before.

The Blood Bowl pitch project certainly taught me something, and that was to be careful with measurements and cutting. As a result, the Aliens board is much more symmetrical and the square grid much more even. I used the same push-pins and string -technique to build the grid, and used a felt-tip marker to mark the corners of the squares. Much more fun an easy than with the pitch.

After doing the grid, I marked down or the obstacles on the board so I know what to build and where, and that’s where I’m now. I’m thinking of attaching the various bits and pieces of the game board – at least the larger ones – with magnets, so they can be removed for easier storage.

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(No, it’s not that irregular – the camera angle’s doing some nasty tricks there!)

What’s next? I’m thinking of buying a suitable plastic or metal mesh to use as flooring. While there are some nice stuff in resin and etched brass out there, I’m trying to optimise the cost/looks ratio. For the obstacles it’s going to be lots of scratch building, green stuff and some resin accessories I have stashed away. That’s one great thing about starting projects, especially thematically similar ones: you can use leftovers or stuff bought for something else easily. And of course I have all the Marines and Aliens I need already.

Ideas, comments, insight and encouragement warmly welcomed.

It’s a very, very simple scene: a helicopter with four survivors lands in a deserted city, looking for survivors. Two of them run outside while a third one operates the helicopter radio, calling for any possible survivors. Outside, a military man calls desperately into a bullhorn: “Hello! Hello! Is anyone there? Hello!” You can see from his face and hear from his voice that he’s near a breaking point.

We are shown shots of a deserted city. There’s an alligator at a bank’s doorway. Palm leaves, abandoned cars and newspapers (with the classic “The Dead Walk!” headline) litter the street. A wind whips dollar bills around.

Slowly the survivors’ calls are answered, as zombies start to shuffle from inside and between the buildings. A few at first, then more and more. The survivors flee to their helicopter as the street fills with the walking dead.

And that’s it. Simple, elegant, effective and amazingly bleak. This five minute clip manages to convey the horror of a zombie apocalypse better than many full movies on the subject. It’s not the zombies that are the horrific thing. Sure, they are bloodthirsty monsters, but that’s not it. The horror stems from the emptiness.

“Hello! Hello! Is anyone there? Hello!”

There isn’t. It’s a bright sunny day, it’s a decent sized city, they’re calling into a bullhorn in the middle of the main street, and yet there is no-one answering. The abandoned paper money lets the viewer know there hasn’t been anyone for some time. Never mind the buildings or the cars, the loose money is the best indicator. The palm leaves and the alligator suggest that nature is slowly taking the city over and it’s falling into ruin – an entire city. Its new occupants don’t care anymore. The sheer desperation of the survivor’s calls bleeds through heavily. He’s hoping for someone to answer, but there’s just a faint echo.

If ever there was a zombie movie scene to burn itself into your mind and epitomise the genre, it’s this one. Forget the eviscerations or the scares, this is truly terrifying. It sets the mood for the rest of the film. Day of the Dead is probably the most depressing zombie movie I know. While many zombie movies suggest that there are isolated pockets of survivors all over the world, weathering the crisis, Day does away with this idea. No such respite can be found.

When I was a kid, I used to be very anxious about going to bed at night. There was a feeling of loneliness as the world quieted down, as if there was no-one around. I got rid of that anxiety by reading a children’s book detailing what’s going on in the world while you sleep. I realised that I wasn’t alone: there were mailmen going around, plenty of people at the airport, cleaners, truck drivers, partygoers and parents kept up by babies. The opening scene from Day of the Dead triggers some of the remnants of this childhood anxiety. The survivors truly are alone in the world, there’s no safe idea of others to cling to.

This might explain my fascination with the zombie genre. For me it’s not really about the zombies, but about loneliness. Out of Romero’s original trilogy (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead), Day has often been seen as the weakest link. There is some reliance on gore effects and a couple of truly repulsive characters. There is the idea of an intelligent zombie, found near-heretical by some. These aspects should be overlooked, however. Day is a movie about loneliness, desperation and the last moments of the human race.

After we’re gone, the dead have their day.

This is a guest editorial that I wrote for the new service StreamUniverse.tv. It’s a service providing legal, licensed streaming movie and TV content for free – including Day of the Dead. I definitely suggest you check out their site – see especially the section “Chaos”, as there are some nice movies on offer.

So here we go, new additions to the lineup: Martin Eyedigger, Friedrich Dark-Engels, Immortal Kant, Gore Marx, Gut-lob Frege and Hurt Gödel. Of these guys poor Marx and Gödel never made it past their first match and Frege is yet to make an appearance.

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While we’re talking about the match, man…it was for me Blood Bowl at its worst. Or no, not really, so let me rephrase that. It was a good game of Blood Bowl, with my luck at its worst. Let me just put it this way: the most amazing moment of the match was poor Ludwig Wightenstein missing a trivial block against a weaker opponent, going down on a roll of double skulls, re-rolling those into another set of double skulls and receiving a shattered hip permanent injury. I should at this point note that the probability of such a chain of events is considerably less than 1/100 000. Needless to say, my opponent Joonas (of Dusty Gamer) had a field day.

To use a quaint expression, the lizards tore me a new one. A whole bunch of new ones, actually.

Oh well. At least my team is pretty. In a ghoulish, dead sort of way.

Here are my Predators, sans the wonderful Hürn from Heresy, who sits almost finished on my painting desk.

Weird how you sometimes just hit a wall with a particular miniature, even if it isn’t annoying to paint. For some reason this happened with the Hürn. As usual, once I finished it I was left wondering what was so difficult. It’s a neat model, and turned out just fine!

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This version of the Hürn has unfortunately sold out. I’m considering buying the new, helmeted variant for different weapon options. As if I didn’t have enough Predators already.

As it happens, entrant number seven was none other, than one Colonel Shofer. The good colonel has been notified and will receive his prize in due time.

Thanks to all participants!

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From my review:

French resin miniature manufacturer Fenryll has six more or less obviously not-CMs in their science fiction range. It has to be said right at the start that these miniatures are very big. While the Fenryll site lists them as 28mm, the models actually measure 33-35mm from top of base to top of head. The size is a real shame, since the miniatures are very nice. The sculptor Dominique Seys has done a nice job with the troopers’ faces and gear, and resin produces beutiful, crisp detail. There is one thing about the first pack that bugs me a lot, and it’s the way the troopers hold their pulse rifles. They’re all holding them one-handed (two of them are holding a grenade in the other hand), and the guns look entirely weightless. This gives the troopers of the first pack a very action figure-ish look, which I’m not partial to. The troopers in pack 2 hold their guns much more sensibly with two hands, and I prefer this pack to the first one. The models come with separate guns and backpacks, and they’re all on square integral resin bases, with some sculpted detail and texture. There were some casting flaws, with quite a lot of flash and mould lines/misalignment.

The size of the Fenryll troopers will probably put a lot of people off. As the comparison pictures below show, they’re very tall, standing head and shoulders above most other miniatures in this review. While this might make them unappealing to a fair few gamers, their large size does mean that they’re a perfect match size-wise for the Horrorclix Aliens or the Heresy Hurn, which tend to be pretty big compared to most 28mm miniatures. In terms of price the troopers are at the higher end in this review, with a pack of three models costing 10 EUR, which amounts to £8.40 at the time of writing, or £2.80 per miniature.

The latter part is why I’m giving them away. While wonderful minis, they’re simply a bit too large to fit in with my other models. They’re still very nice, and really should find a nice home.

How to get them? Simple, just drop me a comment on this post. Using magical powers (and a random number generator) I’ll pick the lucky winner and notify them. The winner will need to pay postage, which should at most amount to 2-3 EUR or something similar even for overseas delivery – the Finnish post office is quite cheap and very reliable. Payment via PayPal is preferred.

Good luck!

Aliens/Predator/Colonial Marines

I really did most of the work on these during 2010. Still, in 2011 I kept the project alive, and painted most of what was still unpainted in my stock of Alien and Predator miniatures as well as a whole bunch of Colonial Marines. I also did a very thorough review of the latter, and it has actually become my third most popular post ever, with close to 4000 direct clicks and probably a whole lot more through the front page.

I also managed to use them in gaming as well. While Triton-4 is on an undefined hiatus at the moment, it was important for me personally to actually get some use out of all the stuff I’d painted and the scenery I’d made. While somewhat time consuming, the games were a lot of fun, and I’m sure(-ish) we haven’t seen the last of the campaign yet.

Blood Bowl

The second part of my miniature gaming year consisted of a Blood Bowl league. I managed to almost complete an orc team, and I’m currently hard at work on an undead one. As for the games…weeell, most were pretty solid whippings for yours truly, but that hasn’t deterred me in the least bit. 2012′s league is starting up, and there are a fair few skulls to crack. Some might even be in my opponents’ teams.

Zombies

This was a good year for zombie media reviews. I reviewed four different zombie book titles as well as six different movies. I was more than happy to do my share of promoting indie and short films.

I managed to keep up my “Upcoming zombie goodness” series of posts, keeping people (myself included) up to date on what’s happening in the zombie pop culture world. You can definitely expect to see those in the future.

What’s next?

I’ve no idea. The Blood Bowl project will continue, as will the Alien vs. Predator one. I’m hoping to get more gaming done, as usual, as well as more stuff painted. I purchased hardly anything this year, and I’m in no hurry to bury myself in more unpainted miniatures. It’s been satisfying to paint and use minis that have been sitting in boxes and cupboard for years. That’s what they’re for, anyway.

I like how the blog has turned out, and have no intention of stopping writing it. I’ve garnered a pretty solid base of followers, and whether you’re one of them or just a random passer-by, I wish to offer my heartfelt thanks for making it worth my while.

Happy New Year 2012, everyone. Let’s hope we skip the apocalypse part.

Unless it's a zombie one. That might be awesome.

Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “Not another NotLD re-hash – what’s it this time? 4D?” At least that’s what I was thinking. What the producers had to say (via Dread Central) changed my mind a bit for the positive:

Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection is aiming to serve as an entertaining companion piece to the original film rather than attempting to do the impossible and improve on it. This project is being produced by a group of filmmakers who are genuine fans of the horror genre. We have fresh ideas for how to revitalise the zombie sub-genre and have created a story that combines modern elements with the classic premise. We are sure genre fans will be happy to see a modern horror film which focuses on genuine suspense and tension, utilises practical FX rather than CGI, and provides characters that the audience will actually care about.

Of course that’s what they always say.  The trailer looks very nice, though, so I remain optimistic about this project.

[REC]³ Génesis

[REC] is one of my all-time favourite zombie movies. [REC]² was okay-ish, though poor in some parts. Now there’s [REC]³ on the way (set to premier in Spain March 30, 2012), and it’s looking tasty indeed. I’ll just let the trailer speak for itself.

Zombie Dawn

This Chilean low-budget venture has actually been doing the festival circuit since 2009. It’s really been travelling under the radar, as I only recently ran into it via a friend’s tip. The movie centers on a group of mercenaries entering a quarantine zone to investigate the roots of the whole catastrophe. I have a strong feeling that things don’t go quite as planned. I’ve always been a sucker for these military-squad-vs-monster-of-choice (like Predator, Aliens, Dog Soldiers or Outpost), so I’m looking forward to this one. For more information, see the film’s official site.

The Upcoming zombie goodness series will of course continue in 2012.

Both are ghouls from Mantic (reviewed here), and lovely miniatures to paint. What made them even easier to paint is the fact that I made the conscious decision to leave the uniform colours without shading to convey something of a game piece vibe as opposed to something more realistic. So, plain black and purple it was. To counterbalance this, I did some extra work on the skin and the self-inflicted wounds, trying to make the former deathly pale and dirty and the latter nasty and infected. I’d love to hear your comments on whether it worked or not.

Here are my new players, along with their thoughts on their existence.

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Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.

- Karl Eye-Popper

This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.

- Oswald Strangler