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$0.99

As the World Dies: Siege: A Zombie Trilogy: Book Three (As The World Dies Trilogy)
$5.99
I bought and read all three books of the trilogy in the last two weeks. I really liked the way plot started. Missis Frater is a good writer which can not be said for the majority of zombie genre writers and her books are joy to read. Her style is very fluent.

That being said I have to say what really disappoints me in the third book. Author clearly did not do any research into mechanics of the modern world and does not have even the basic knowledge about how stuff like as computers, cars, guns work or from where does energy come from to make all that stuff work.

Fact that The Fort was having electricity for more then a year in a world without people is hard to believe. Power plants need maintenance, power grid needs maintenance, cables need maintenance. All that maintenance demands spare parts and a lot of skilled personnel.

Fact that construction machinery like bulldozers, cranes or trucks would work without any problem after one year of heavy usage without proper maintenance is ridiculous. Construction machinery demands constant maintenance with expensive parts and fluids and these machines break a lot because they do some really heavy lifting. Also the amount of fuel these beasts expend is great. Fleet of 10-12 machines and 20 trucks working just a few hours a day expend around 20.000 gallons of gas a week. By working around the clock that number would be at least 5 or 6 times greater. That is 100.000 gallons of fuel every week. Large gas station holds that much so people in The Fort would need to salvage some 50 gas stations (full) to make the Fort as it was in the third book.

The biggest deviation from reality are helicopters. Those machines demand constant maintenance. For one hour of flight engineers and technicians need to do some 4-6 hours of maintenance. Spare parts, expensive lubricants and fluids are used a lot when those machines work according to specifications. For every helicopter comes a pilot and some 6 - 20 ground crew personnel. Since spare parts for helicopters can not be found in the mall those helicopters would probably stop flying after just couple of days of use.

Fuel that runs all those machines is gasoline or diesel and those fuels break apart after some time. They can be stabilized for a few years using special chemicals but gas stations do not use those chemicals since they sell fuel so fast.

I also do not get the part with improvised weapons. It made sense to make crossbows and spears in the first book when all the weapons The Fort had were from one gun store but after raiding a National Guard depot stuff like mortars and land mines would have been much more effective against a sea of zombies. Droping one old washer could maybe kill one or two zombies but firing a mortar shell into the crowd would mince at least 50-100 zombies and mortars are very small, easy to transport and very precise. Since there were a lot of military men in The Fort choosing a weapon that was rarely used a thousand years ago because of it's inpracticality is ridiculous.

I know there are things like writers freedom and I could disregard minor technical improbabilities in the first book, even some in the second book but in the third book (as time goes by) those are hard to ignore. Since mrs Frater has so much talent to write she should do just a little more research to put some credible infor into her books. I believe it would make them much better.

I totally did not like the part about ghosts of the killed characters. Third book is more ghost story crossed with love story then an action zombie novel. If author did not like for some characters to be gone she shouldn't have killed them. I am not into mixing my horror genres so ghosts didn't sit with me well. Since zombie fiction fans are going to read this book I believe they should know this.

Aurora AS810SD 8-Sheet Strip Cut Paper/CD/Credit Card Shredder with Basket
$29.99
The basket isn't that big and it doesn't cross cut... If you can live with that as I can this is the deal!!!

As Good As It Gets
$14.94
Calling this fantastic film a romantic comedy is misleading because it is so much better than what we typically label as romantic comedy. Helen Hunt is fantastic as the nice waitress to Mr. Mean Jack Nicholson who gives a stellar performance as a sharp tongued obsessive compulsive unable to find any joy in life. Greg Kinnear and Cuba Gooding Jr. also do a great job in this film. This makes you examine what makes a good couple and how two total mismatches can come together. Power Path to Love