When the murmurs of the internet brought forth the details of Defiance and that at the release of its maiden season a video game would co-exist in the same universe I may have been a little fast to judge it as yet another poor attempt at dual channel marketing for a quick-and-dirty money grab at the detriment of the avid fans of all things SciFi.

Well, I’ve been proven wrong before and I’m happy to say that I have been again.

Defiance isn’t the usual fair of aliens attacking Earth, its not the same Us v. Them game that has been flogged till not only the dead horse being bloodied and bruised but also the intelligence of anyone watching within fifty feet.

What Defiance is you might ask? Rich, the world it weaves is intensely rich.

If you haven’t seen it at all then let me recap the shows main premise, if you have seen it the you might like to skip ahead a paragraph or two.

Near future Earth is just happily plodding along when all of a sudden ships start appearing in our orbit and coming into low atmosphere of the planet. Turns out these ships are actually grand “arks” that are carrying the last remaining survivors of seven individual races of aliens after a stellar collision caused their home star to be annihilated.

After a bit of initial diplomacy everything went to hell after an alien dignitary was murdered on television by a human. Its enough to say the aliens were none too happy about this and decided to point large things that go boom in our general direction.

Once this all calmed down a bit there was an accident on several of the orbiting ark ships which triggered terraforming of the Earth on a massive scale, wiping out everything we hold sacred about our civilization, killing some, mutating others, causing weird creatures to rapidly evolve.

Generally a bad time was had by all.

Cue a new Earth and an even playing field for both aliens and Humans alike where we all must pull our weight to co-exist and survive.

The show gets its name “Defiance” from a myth about the actions of a few soldiers in the ensuing war where both sides put down their weapons in order to save some people. This causes the aliens and Humans to begin tolerating each other enough to call a truce. See it was the “Defiant few” that inspired peace, now in derelict St. Louis is a town named after that act… Hence both the town and show is called “Defiance”.

Ok, enough about the plotline, those who chose to skip it may resume here.

Anyhow, a lot of work has gone into this show to get it right. Not only has a good amount of design gone into the sets and storyline, but even the alien races. We see a good proportion of the show not spoken in American-English and instead in the native languages of the individual alien races.

Here is the kicker, the languages are actually good, not just a bunch of incomprehensible clicks and whistles but actual language. This is due to the fact that linguist David J. Peterson (who is also the creator of the Dothraki Language from the Game of Thrones television adaptation) is the inventor of these languages.

I’ve only seen two of the four episodes of season one (I’ll be watching the other two in the coming days) and I’m already hooked. Clear lines are drawn, characters are involved, the storyline is interesting which often keeps the pacing of the episodes tight and the inclusion of a cast of actors who are generally known for their work in other SciFi greats (Farscape, Warehouse 13, Sliders, Doctor Who, The Outer Limits) only bolsters the impressive nature of the show.

If you haven’t already seen the first episode of Defiance, then I suggest you drop everything (yes, even that third guy on the left holding the ugly baby) and do anything you can to watch it. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how good it is.

They’ve decided to reduce the size of the default scroll bars to two pixels wide…

Strange? Sure is, now its almost impossible to see both vertical and horizontal scroll bars.

So what can we do about it?

1. We can learn to live with the change.
2. HELL NO, WE’LL MAKE OUR OWN SCROLL BARS!!!

Hidden in the depths of your user profiles lives the Custom.css stylesheet, this allows us to change parts of the browser experience with a little CSS tweaking. I’ve gone ahead and created a new scroll bar in the Custom.css sheet to fix this glaringly stupid change and below I’ll show you how.

First we need to identify where your Custom.css sheet is, depending on your OS this will be different.

Windows:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\User StyleSheets\Custom.css

Mac:
/Users/YourUsername/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/User StyleSheets/Custom.css

Linux (most flavors):
~/.config/chromium/Default/User/StyleSheets/Custom.css

Ok so you’ve located your Custom.css file, when you open the file though it is blank? What to do?!?

Enter in some CSS magic.

Save the file, reload a website with scroll bars and hey presto you’ll have great looking scroll bars again that are just a little special. When you roll over the scroll bars with your mouse you’ll notice it change colour slightly and the ends become rounded.

For those that are too lazy to copy and paste the above code into their Custom.css stylesheet I’ve also attached the above Custom.css file to this post for you to download.

Right click and select ‘Save link as…’ to save Custom.css

Now of course the code above is just standard CSS so play with your hearts content. Want two-hundred pixel wide pink scroll bars? Sure, with the correct CSS you can do it!

If you end up altering the above code then post it in the comments, I’d love to see the creative ideas people come up with!

WARNING: BELOW THAR BE SPOILERS.

So they are back, The Doctor and Clara Oswald in a new adventure across time and space… though I can’t help but wonder…

Is Doctor Who getting a little stale?

Don’t get me wrong I’m a loyal Whovian, give me Daleks or Cybermen any day of the week, but there is something not quite right in the Whoniverse.

I’ve waited for the latest episode (The Bells of Saint John) with baited breath ever since I’ve seen the trailers a while ago now and I’ve watched the episode tonight with anticipation.

New companion with a twist, Jenna-Louise Coleman has great on camera presence. She plays well against Matt Smith’s Doctor. So it’s not the paring of the principal characters that is emitting this bad taste the episode left in my mouth… so what is it?

Timing, its all in the timing.

No sooner was the episode opening credits over than we are greeted with our faithful Doctor holed up in a monastery attempting to figure out who Clara is when he’s disturbed by monks claiming that the Bells of Saint John are ringing. Clever title given that the St. John’s Ambulance emblem adorns the outside of the TARDIS, but was it clever to title an entire episode after? Probably not.

Once you make the connection between the title and it’s reason for being at approx. 5’30″ into the episode it all starts to feel a little forced from there on in.

The classic story elements are all there, The Doctor rides off to find his new companion, companion gets in trouble, he saves her then with her help they fight back the forces of evil with bold strokes till they disappear back into the darkness, then a quick trip back in the TARDIS to end the episode off with a flourish.

Which is exactly why it feels lack luster, we’ve seen this format before.

When we first see Clara in Asylum of the Daleks she’s all new and shiny, sure trapped as an insane Dalek but hey, you can’t hold that against her now can you. In The Snowmen, Clara is the inquisitive governess that’s a little too smart for her own good.  In The Bells of Saint John however she feels reduced as a character, initially she’s attempting to figure out how to connect to WiFi on her computer and making a ham-fisted attempt at it so calls a tech-support line… which just-as-it-happens to be, turns out to be a direct line to The Doctor’s TARDIS. Even later when Clara has been partially uploaded and re-downloaded returning with intense knowledge of computer systems it all feels incredibly rushed, Deus Ex Machina leaks out all over this storyline.

Steven Moffat, your best work this isn’t, I just hope that its not a sign of things to come. The preview at the end for episode two felt more exciting than this entire episode did… lets pray that it is just as exciting as the preview leads us to believe.

Today I’ve decided to give away chapter one to the masses, I’d love some feedback on the chapter if you read it!

DERELICT

— START OF CHAPTER ONE —

“What is that thing?”

“Its a T74-5A passive relay, just like the last one I removed.”

“This thing?”

“Yes Brin, yes, that is EXACTLY what I… ugrrrh…” the man furrowed his brow, brought his hand to his forehead and rubbed hard.

“Sorry, all these things look alike after a while”

Brin put down the relay, wiped a window of the salvage drone with his overall sleeve and peered through the little grubby porthole. Hanging in space not to far away was a derelict cruiser that had been towed into the salvage yard the day before. It had been over six months since a ship of its size was brought in, especially one that hadn’t already been stripped by pirates or raiding parties. He could just make out the serial number on the side of the ship as it was burnt off a little in places.

“Radial Cloud”

“What?” Brin turned in confusion “What did you say Scott?”

“That ship, its called the USMF… *NNNRRNGH* …Radial Cloud, well it was called that before it was towed in here to be stripped” Scott replied as he tugged on his ratchet spanner to free a particularly stubborn bolt. “Pride of the fleet she was, well until recently… something about being badly irradiated and had to be scrapped”.

Brin looked at a small device strapped to his wrist. It beeped softly.

“Woo! Break time!” he announced enthusiastically.

Sitting on a a red tool crate, Brin pressed a button on the wall and a small sachet that wasn’t orange but not quite green slid out of a chute.

#// SIX CREDITS DEDUCTED //# emitted a voice from the panel.

“Six credits? SIX?!” Brin looked at the sachet with disgust “I don’t know why we have to eat this sludge, what is it anyway? tastes like chicken, smells like fish but looks like… like…”

“Because its cheap you idiot, operations buys crates of the stuff directly from the military because it lasts for ages…” Scott unplugged a cable from a nearby console port  “…and the military doesn’t want it.”

“That makes no sense, why don’t they want it?”

“Because their people won’t eat the stuff.”

Scott sat down in a bulkhead across from Brin and tapped some details into a data pad. The data pad chimed and announced ‘Manifest Upload Complete. 400 credits will be available at next dock.’

A cargo tug passed by the small salvage drone, the wash from its engines illuminating everything purple for a brief moment and caused the interior to rumble. Scott stood up and moved into the tiny fore section, flipping a few switches as he walked through.

“Brin, get in here, I’m going to release the clamps”

Brin shoved the remaining packet of his rations into his jumpsuit and joined Scott in the tiny cockpit, the bulkhead hatch closed behind him. The air rushed out of the salvage bay as it depressurised, a loud ‘clunk’ and the craft released its grip on the stripped assault fighter they were working on. The small boxy ship floated freely and reoriented to face the docking station firing small jets to get under way.

The salvage yard was full of ships and debris, what couldn’t be stripped and sold would be fed into a bulk shredder and refined into new materials for construction. The last few months had seen a minor war between a few outer ring colonists so collecting bounties for hauling salvage had become a booming business. Only the most daring of salvage operators dared to fly into an war zone to collect wrecked ships and loot derelicts, those that have nerves of steel and the credits to buy specially customised ships with good weapons and ablative armours, Scott and Brin definitely weren’t those kind of guys.

They both felt incredibly lucky if their ship would go up and down most days.

“So… “ chirped Brin. “…do we get to go on that big ship?”

“Well I haven’t heard a thing out of the salvage authority, no one has. I think they are still figuring out what to do with it.” A screen lit below Scott’s hand which read PRIORITY RETURN TO PORT “Great… what did you leave behind this time Brin…”

“What? What did I do?”

“We only ever get a priority return call if we’ve done something wrong… and I don’t remember doing anything wrong… so by the process of elimination it has to be you.” The ships speaker emitted a low tone as the docking beacon latched onto their ship. “Last time you left a plasma cylinder attached to a hull and when they ran it through the shredder…”

“BOOM” replied Brin.

“Boom indeed… and a thousand credits later. It took them 3 weeks to clean up the mess, lucky they were going to decommission that shredder or we’d have been up for ten times that amount!” he tapped a few buttons on the console.

#300 METERS TO DOCK PORT – INTERLOCKS ENGAGED# announced the ships computer.

The ship slowed as it glided into the docking port, a clamp extended and gently gripped the outer hull. A minute later the boarding gantry had attached and they were walking down a grubby hallway towards the salvage authority office.

“We are so in for it, I can feel it in the air.” Scott said as he stared at Brin.

“I don’t think we are, I’ve done nothing wrong… I think, no no I’m sure!” spouted back Brin.

“HEY, YOU TWO… WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?” a large man, seven and a half feet tall, was staring at the two salvage workers. “Do you know you’re supposed to be in a meeting right now? They are handing out assignments for the Radial Cloud, you’d better get in there or you’ll end up being the poor bastards to disassemble the waste disposal.”

They both sheepishly turned and bolted down the hallway “Not again.. not again… not the waste disposal!!!” Brin spat as he puffed. Running as hard as they could they spotted the door to the office as it started to close, usually for meetings they locked the doors. Just as the door was almost closed Brin slid his hand in the gap…

“OW!” Brin shouted as the door closed on his hand… hard.

The door sensed an obstruction and slowly slid back revealing a room full of slightly surprised people, when they saw who was behind the door they instantly became mostly unsurprised.

“Scott, Brin, glad you could make it… do you mind if we start this meeting now or would you like a short recess?” glared the authority master.

“Oh thank you, a recess wou…” Brin started.

“NO WE’RE FINE” Scott said to Brin as he smacked him over the back of the head.

“Thank you, so as I was saying, on behalf of the United Space Military Force we have been commissioned to reclaim the USMF Radial Cloud. It is a great honour that this opportunity has fallen to us here at Outland Salvage. I hope I need not remind everyone here that as this is a USMF ship that the utmost care be taken when reclaiming parts as damaged items will not be accepted. Also, as there is much speculation around why this flagship is being dismantled I can inform you that it is not due to radiation as some may have suggested. If your team is selected for this mission then you will be informed further in your mission safety briefing.”

The authority master paused to take breath and look around the room, a slight look of disgust washed across his face when he saw Brin with his finger firmly wedged in his ear.

“I would also like to highlight to you that this information, the name of the ship and its whereabouts is of the utmost secrecy, as such all travel outside the salvage sphere has been denied, nothing in… nothing out… all external communication buoys have been disabled as of last cycle and will remain disabled until further notice. All external comms will be handled by the salvage authority office, no exceptions, if anyone is found attempting external communications through other means their contract will be terminated…”

Scott looked at Brin, held his thumb to his throat and made a cutting action. Brin nodded.

“We estimate that it will take us twelve cycles to fully reclaim the USMF Radial Cloud given the size of the vessel and the complexity of its systems, if you have any further questions please direct them to the main office reception. Teams will be selected at random and posted to the internal network tomorrow morning.”

With that everyone stood to attention, saluted the authority master, turned and promptly left the room. As Brin and Scott were at the back of the room they were forced out by the first wave of people trying to leave. Brin smashed his head into the door and they both stepped aside to let the throng pass.

“I sure hope we get picked!” Brin said rubbing a sore red patch on his forehead.

“We will, come on look at the size of it, as if we won’t get a posting. I bet we’ll be up on the bridge or in the command room taking apart the consoles. Or maybe we’ll be in the weapons bays carefully salvaging the weapons systems…” Scott puffed out his chest just thinking about good paying assignments like those.

“Or we could be in the waste disposal…”

“YEAH! The waste dis-… what? no, hell no, we won’t be doing that!” scoffed Scott, his chest deflating a little. “We’ll be up on the bridge, I bet…

“You’d be dismantling toilet roll holders if I had my way.” Sylas the authority master’s assistant sharply pointed out. “Actually, if I had my way you’d be both on the outside of the salvage sphere, preferably without pressure suits.”

“You threatening us?” Brin piped.

“Not at all, just daydreaming” Sylas said with a sideways glance.

Sylas was a bastard, not your typical bastard either, he was the kind of bastard that would pull the legs off insects and drop vinegar on the stump just to watch the poor creature squirm. If he had to list his hobbies first would be laughing at the unfortunate followed closely by punching orphans in the face before setting them on fire.

“Yeah well good thing you don’t have your way, someone would have thrown you out an air-lock by now…” Scott leaned against the wall nonchalantly.

“You know, you’re probably right” Smirked Sylas back at him. “Still, I am supposed to supply you with your current work detail. I could just as easily mix them up. I’d hate to do that now…”

He smiled at them, both Scott and Brin narrowed their eyes.

“No, you’ve been given the drive section… I don’t know what ever possessed the authority master to let you dismantle anything of value but evidently, here we are.” Sylas handed a data pad to Scott. “Just sign at the bottom, you know the drill, standard formalities.”

“As the Radial Cloud doesn’t have many external docking ports you’ll have to land in cargo dock seven, its a big ship so don’t go poking about, just get down to the drive section, dismantle the drive and get out of there… Questions?”

“Nope.”

Scott signed the pad with a flourish, Brin made a ham fisted attempt at scrawling his name next to Scott’s signature and handed it back to Sylas.

— END OF CHAPTER ONE —

Back when Facebook purchased Instagram back in September 2012 there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth that the service would fall to the strange and often detrimental terms of service that Facebook impose on their own services.

You know what? They just did.

In a move that has taken people out of left-field, Instagram has updated their Terms of Service to include changes to the rights of users and how Instagram can use content.

So the changes may not look like much to the average passer by, but as the NYTimes Bits Blog have outlined, these changes are dire for everyone. The major changes they have reviewed mean:

1. Instagram can share information about its users with Facebook, its parent company, as well as outside affiliates and advertisers.
2. You could star in an advertisement — without your knowledge.
3. Underage users are not exempt.
4. Ads may not be labeled as ads.
5. Want to opt out? Delete your account.

So what are people doing to combat these new changes?

They are leaving Instagram by the thousands.

Tech and Lifestyle blogs are alight with stories on how to download your existing photos and leave the service, Wired have written an article outlining exactly how, and why, you should take your photos, delete your account and run for the hills.

So why am I leaving Instagram? Is it because of the changes?

Yup.

I’ll unashamedly stand with the masses on this one. Instagram may have been a great ‘indie’ social network, but now that Facebook have added their spin on the terms of service it has taken away the high-gloss sheen it once had.

But where does this leave Instagram? Many tech pundits are currently debating the possibility that Instagram may have just buried itself with the recent changes. I’d have to agree that its not only a possibility, but a likely eventuality. People have been aware that Facebook has often changed their own terms of service usually under the thinly veiled guise of ‘user security’ which has now formed a precedence where even the average joe is more conscious of the issues caused when these sorts of changes are made.

One thing is for sure though… this leaves a hole in the market, the thousands, hell, the hundreds of thousands of users Instagram is set to lose over this change now need a place to call home… and that may be Twitter itself.

In what seems an almost pre-emptive strike, Twitter released updates to their mobile apps that allow for Instagram-esqe filters to be applied to photos when they finally severed all connections to Instagram earlier this month. Of course the success of Instagram is largely due to the ease of sharing your photos out to both Twitter and Facebook, the Twitter app changes only post to Twitter however…

I’ll suggest as a solid alternative would be Pixlr-o-matic by Autodesk

Pixlr-o-matic is available both on Android and iOS, and while it doesn’t have a dedicated network to post your images to, it does have more filters than a die-hard Instagram hipster could ever wish for and is just as free.

Yes it displays ads… If you are looking for something without ads and a whole more clout then Pixlr Express is great and also available on Android and iOS.

Have some thoughts about the new Instagram Terms of Service changes or want to recommend an alternative app? Then share the love in the comments!

Bendigo is a great place to both live and work, plenty of opportunities here in Central Victoria, lots to do, lots to see…

One of the things I feel we’ve been missing is a central point where people can find out information about local producers of fine goods and services, local events and activities, review of local locations and activities and more!

So today I launch… MadeInBendigo.com

The above logo isn’t the final, but its pretty close to what I expect it to be.

If you are a producer of goods or services in the Bendigo region then I want to hear from you!

To submit your information for inclusion in MadeInBendigo.com please use the Contact form!

Ever want to go to sleep to an MP3 or internet radio stream or that podcast you dearly love? Isn’t it stupidly annoying when you’re just off to sleep and the next track or a part in the audio you are listening to screams out and you wake up?

Yeah we all hate that…

So here is a solution I’ve just written, its for Windows only (sorry Mac/Linux people) and it’s called VolumeOut.

What does VolumeOut do? Glad you asked…

VolumeOut v1.0 has one function, it reduces your audio to zero in a set amount of time.

Yes it is that simple, start it up set the time in the settings (Right-Click taskbar icon to access menu) and then hit ‘Start Countdown’. Lo and behold it will start dropping the audio calculated on the amount of time you selected in the settings.

…pause for shock and awe…

Anyhow enough of that. You can download it by clicking the BIG DOWNLOAD LINK below.

Download VolumeOut from Softpedia

Download VolumeOut Directly

If anyone has problems / comments / stories to share then throw a comment on this post and I’ll get to it asap.

Email is a system that hasn’t really evolved over the last decade other a shift from thick client like Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird to web based access systems like Gmail. But fear not, no matter the system you access your email you can still instigate and successfully operate a zero inbox.

First I want to dispel a few common myths of zero inbox…

Myth One – It’s difficult to start a zero inbox.

This is possibly the most pessimistic of the myths I’ve heard about a zero inbox as you have already resigned for the system to fail before you start.

It’s not that hard, pick a time when you know you get the least amount of mail throughout the day and get to work. You need to start by drawing a line in the sand, that doesn’t mean you have to complete every outstanding email you have… far from it.

Myth Two – It’s hard to keep a zero inbox policy working.

Bzzzzzzz… Wrong.

Usually its the other way around where once you’ve started its hard to stop as you’ll be so amazingly efficient at processing your email that its become almost second nature.

Myth Three – I can’t start a zero inbox because of (insert excuse here)

Because why? There isn’t a single reason I can think of other than sheer laziness as to why you can’t start a zero inbox, what’s more interesting is that once you start its an addictive process to finish all your emails and file them accordingly.

Having an inbox is one thing, being able to lay your hands on a specific email, sent by a specific person on a specific date about a specific topic? That is just sheer gold, and it will make you look like a productivity genius to others (and you’ll turn into one soon enough!).

How to get started.

The first step, and possibly the hardest step is to draw the line in the sand and stick to it.

You need to grab all those thousands of emails you’ve been hoarding in your inbox for far to long and decide what you want to do with them. Archive them? Set up folders for each year of email? Shove them in one big folder marked old? DELETE THEM!?!

Okay so don’t delete them, you’ve collected it all for a reason, its conversational history you have had with people and companies over time so if you believe you can do without it then sure go ahead and delete it, if its an invoice, receipt or personal email then keep it around.

So you’ve cleared your inbox at this point yes? Nothing in it at all? On to the next step…

Congratulations on your new Zero Inbox.

Hooray! Well Done!… now sit down, shut up and listen.

While it may be a pristine desert void of an inbox right now, it won’t stay that way. You’ll need some help keeping like that and the two most powerful things you have at hand are email filter rules… and sheer discipline.

Email Filter Rules.

You know those things that really productive people use? What was that? No not that bloody special little pen they use… EMAIL FILTER RULES.

First off you might already use them, you may already know how to employ them but I’m guessing that even if you do you’ve got a ton of them and all for the wrong reasons.

An email filter rule isn’t there to file away your email into a folders sub-folder where it will never see the light of digital day again, they are there to help automate the fiddly repetitive tasks you have to do in order to call it complete. An example of this is auto categorisation of incoming emails.

If you get regular incoming email with the same subject line you could construct a rule that says:

• When I see an email come in.

• If it contains in the subject the word ‘important‘
• and it is from: ‘thisemail@address.com‘
• then flag the email as ‘high importance‘ 
• and move into the ‘URGENT‘ folder.

Now while this is a simple rule you can also create heavily complex types of rules that may auto-respond to the incoming email, it might automatically add the person as a contact, forward a copy of the email through to other people and so forth. The limitation of filter rules really depends on your email client.

Lets take a simple system of rules that you could apply to your emails right now.

Create the two folders listed below:

• Receipts
• Invoices

So we have two folders which we will categorise incoming emails, now lets look at what the rule for ‘Receipts’ will look like.

• When I see an email come in.

• If it contains in the subject the word ‘receipt‘
• then set the category to ‘receipt‘
• and move into the ‘Reciepts‘ folder.

So with the above rule you should be able to work out the rule for Invoices.

Now this of course only deals with two email possibilities, but rules that categorise and move your email into areas other than your inbox are key to an efficient zero inbox.

Self Discipline.

So you’ve got a set of rules that auto-tag, categorise, label and move email from your inbox… great work, but without self discipline to process all the other email cruft you get during the day then your inbox will soon be full of crap.

So how do you gain email self discipline? Well it’s pretty simple really, here it is in a nutshell:

• If you want to keep it, ARCHIVE IT!
• If you’ll never need it, DELETE IT!

One Last Tip.

Do yourself a favour and set up a final rule, do it for yourself, do it for the children, hell do it for the lack of atmosphere on the moon for all I care but do it none the less.

The rule is called ‘BULK’  and create a folder to match it, in this rule tag all of that crappy crap-mail you get and delegate it to forever live in this folder. Crap-mail is best for when you have some time to kill and you want something to do, think of it like reading the catalogues you get in your snail-mail, it just takes up useless space and mostly you’ll never purchase anything from these companies again but never the less we all give weight to it because you might get a good deal one day.

Which is completely true, so if you’re looking for a new something-or-other search away in the minefield of your ‘Bulk’ folder.

Otherwise, let the rule auto-handle it for you.

No not with other Vamps, but Zombies.

The world has gone to hell in a hand basket, the living population of New York City and indeed the world has been turned into slavering mindless dead that roam their bloated corpses searching for a semblance of what once was life.

Coburn awakes to find himself barely sustained by a trickle of blood, his body a dried husk of cracked leather… and hungry.

Now he has to fight across the familiar wastes that was once New York for a few drops of precious blood. That precious blood that resides in the bodies of survivors of the Zombie hordes.

Coburn has to make the ultimate choice, protect the Humans that are his last hope from starvation or gorge himself silly in the last grand feast of his unnatural life…

Chuck Wendig is a formidable writer and Double Dead really does showcase the visceral world in which Wendig constructs around Coburn and his struggle to survive.

This is survivalist horror thrown on its head and given a good hard kick to the testicles. I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who is sick of reading supernatural stories about how bad it is to go through high school and get a boyfriend. I would also totally recommend this book to those who would enjoy a blood and guts romp through the rotting core of a diseased world.

This one is not for the faint of heart as Wendig doesn’t hold back on the blood and guts, gore and mayhem.

The few words that I can put in this review can’t even begin to equate how good this book is.

Pick it up and get reading!

4 out of 5 stars

Purchase it from:

• Amazon (US)
• Amazon (UK)
• Barnes & Noble
• iTunes