Quick Review: Max Velocity's Patriot Dawn

With the ease of self-publishing, there are a LOT of survivalist/post-apocalyptic novels out there these days. Most of them a mediocre quality or worse. Even the 'big name' books from guys like Rawles can be a chore to get through.

Patriot Dawn is not one of these.

Folks who have been raving out Patriot Dawn for a while now and I should have listened sooner.

Once I picked it up, I plowed through it in a couple of days. It's taken a place atop my short favorite survival/post-apocalypse books and on the short list of books.

Quick synopsis: economic collapse, terror attacks and cyber warfare allow leftist extremists to seize control of the federal government. Quickly, they start setting up a socialist regime that would make Stalin proud, complete with RFID identity chips.

We follow former Army Ranger Jack Berenger as he bugs out with his family from the city, escaping Regime hit squads, and heads for the hills. There, he joins up with the Resistance and gets to work training up a force to fight a guerrilla war against the corrupt dictators that have taken control of the region.

Max's experience and knowledge of modern light infantry operations are what makes this book tick...and once it gets going, it is awesome. I've not encountered a book with Patriot Dawn's level of detail around small unit tactics...for someone who has not served in light infantry, it is eye opening and vastly instructive.

Lots of action, military firepower...and several great battle scenes with the outgunned Resistance facing off against the technologically and numerically superior Regime forces. Great stuff, with a constant pace that keeps the pages turning.

I never read books twice--seriously. I can count the books I've read multiple times on one hand. But Patriot Dawn will get another read from me, with a notepad handy.

Highly recommended.

Patriot Dawn is Available on Amazon >

BTW: I've got Max's Contact! traveling in the mail my way...expecting some similarly eye opening and instructive stuff.

Max Velocity's Patriot Dawn free this weekend!

Get it here on Amazon - free today and tomorrow. Doesn't get any cheaper than free.

I haven't read it yet, hoping to have time over the holidays to sit down and read it - I've heard really good things. Max is a career military dude and well regarded for his training in small-unit guerrilla tactics and light infantry ops. I have at least two books ahead of it in line, though. And, of course, before you remind me, I gotta finish my own book for self-publishing.

From the synopsis, looks like Max Velocity and I picked some similar enemies for our stories - like You Took Away Tomorrow, he's got Iranian terrorists and Chinese cyber-warfare. Not sure if the North Koreans and/or AQ make a guest appearance. There's only so many plausible international threats to go around these days :).

Those Ruskies need to pick up the slack.

The Last Ship - Surviving a Pandemic with Jayne from Firely

Well, it's got a pandemic, Phalanx systems, big explosions, a big budget and Jayne from Firefly (Adam Baldwin - also a great patriot and pro-2A guy). I'm in. Coming to TNT in 2014. What think ye?

Apparently, the show is loosely based on a book of the same name - The Last Ship by William Brinkley. Anyone read it? Any good? Amazon reviews are mixed.

Lights Out...the movie?

I remember reading Lights Out when it was posted online, free of charge at one of the forums back in the day. Don't think I ever got through to the end--but pretty cool to see that it will be made into a movie or web series of some kind. We'll find out details on the 18th!

Review: Day by Day Armageddon: Shattered Hourglass

This is the third book in author J.L. Bourne's Day by Day Armageddon series - here's links to my reviews of  the first and second books. The second book, in particular, is one of my favorites - I really dug the combination of first person, journal style narrative, behind enemy lines zombie survival mixed in with high tech military hardware - Predator drones dropping bombs on zombie hordes and what not. So I've been waiting for this book, the apparent wrap up of the trilogy, somewhat impatiently for over a year.

Shattered Hourglass is a departure from the previous two books, in that it steps back from the first person, journal style that was prevalent in the first two books to a more conventional 3rd person, character-hopping book. We still get the journal perspective of the main character, Kil, but it's mixed in with the perspective of other characters - John, his tech savvy bunker mate, members of two different special ops teams, and others. It's not bad, but it lends a different feel to this book over the previous two. I would personally have preferred sticking more closely to Kil, and sending him on more adventures (he spends 3/4 of the book inside a nuclear  sub), but the shift in story telling style wasn't overly jarring.

Like the previous two books, Shattered Hourglass continues the mix of zombies with military hardware and gun savvy author that has made the series so much fun. Heck, Bourne has some sort of ties to Larue Tactical, one of the top AR manufacturers in the world, and Larue 7.62 rifles get a shout out in the book and put to good use mowing down the undead. Gun nuts rejoice.

The two special forces teams introduce a new level of awesomeness not possible with a single character surviving by the skin of his teeth in the zombie wastes. The spec ops dudes are accordingly well equipped with NODS (night observation devices/night vision goggles), suppressed M4, grenades, tomahawks and overhead drone support. They're HALOing or riding Zodiacs into zombie territory on covert, high priority missions. Think one of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games with zombies as the baddies instead of terrorists and you've got a pretty good idea on what to expect--it's a lot of fun.

My main beef with this book - the ending. It comes too soon and leaves you wanting for more. Kil arrives in China for what we expect is the epic final battle...and there's no epic final battle. For all the talk of "suicide mission," it's pretty anti-climatic. The big mystery is left somewhat unresolved, and the rest of the plot lines are quickly wrapped up in the epilogue. It seemed like the ending was rushed or the book not completely finished, which was a problem I also noted with the first book in the series.

So, there's a lot good in Shattered Hourglass, but I didn't think it was up to the quality of the second book in the series (Beyond Exile), which remains probably my favorite zombie book to date. Overall though, definitely a fun zombie blasting ride that's worth the price of admission - just over $10 on Amazon.

Review: Founders by James Wesley, Rawles

Ya, I know, Founders came out months ago. But, given how much I disliked Papa Bear Rawles' last book, Survivors, I wasn't chomping at the bit for this one. This month, I had some extra credits for Audible and figured what the heck.

Unfortunately, Founders is more like Survivors than Rawles' original book, Patriots (the only one really worth reading, IMO). All over the place with minor characters. Lots of recapping stuff from books 1 and 2. The most significant story line - and the one I found most interesting - was essentially a more in-depth version of Ken and Terry Layton's cross country bug out. Yes, it's the same story told in Patriots. Told all over again, with a few more details.

There's the same POV that you expect from Rawles--Libertarian, very Christian, loves rural retreats, .308s and .45s. Big Berkey's, too. He hasn't changed and he doesn't have anything much new on the survival side to add over his other books.

Like his previous books, there are still long, boring passages where Rawles deep dives into odd, technical tedium--the operating routines at an army base or the virtues of a specific cattle breed, for example. He explains the Crunch again here, in the THIRD book, and does it at least twice within this one book. Yikes. There's a lot that you'll probably want to skim.

Worse yet are the long, boring back stories that he feels compelled to dive into when introducing a new character. We learn about their childhood, college years, lots on their religious beliefs and courtship. It's all boring, vanilla stuff, and tells us nothing about the character other than the fact that they are a generally bland, very religious type.

Brushfire Plague Winner!

Using a random number generator, the winner of the Brushfire Plague giveaway has been chosen!

Commenter Jinxed is the lucky winner. Please contact me at teotwawki.blog@gmail.com to claim your prize.

If you didn't win, you can still check out Brushfire Plague on Amazon - the first few pages are available as a preview. Click on "Click to Look Inside" to get there.

Thanks again to author R.P. Ruggiero for arranging the giveaway!

Giveaway: Brushfire Plague!

Tribe -

Author R.P. Ruggiero wants to give you a chance to win a free copy of his new post-TEOTWAWKI survival book, Brushfire Plague. Entry is simple - post a comment with "I'm in!" in the comments section. We will randomly pick a winner on Friday.

Edited to add: I'm going to leave entry open until around 8pm EST tomorrow night, then the comments will be closed and a winner randomly selected afterwards.


Here's the run down:

When a virulent plague erupts across the globe, Cooper Adams faces a daily battle for survival as society unravels at a dizzying pace. As he organizes his neighbors for self-defense and strives to save those around him, he soon discovers the first clues about the origin of the Brushfire Plague that is killing untold millions around the world. In his pursuit to learn the truth, Cooper must combat looters, organized gangs, and those protecting the Brushfire Plague's secrets. When his son falls ill, his search to uncover the plague's origin and a possible cure transforms into a race against time. Ultimately, Cooper faces a paralyzing choice between exposing what he has learned with potentially shattering consequences, or abetting a horrible secret and giving his nation a chance to recover and rebuild. This decision is made even more compelling because Cooper—whose life was sundered by lies in his childhood—has an unwavering adherence to truth. Will he abandon those principles to give his son a better chance to live in plague-ravaged America?

Cooper Adams is an everyman hero, full of common human frailties while possessing an inner resolve that inspires those around him. Paul Dranko, his neighbor and friend, is a long-time survivalist who provides both knowledge and supplies critical to their neighborhood’s defense. The two form the core of an intriguing cast of characters in the neighborhood who must come together during a horrible crisis and defend themselves amidst the escalating, and rampant, violence.

More info at www.brushfireplague.com or on Amazon.com.

Remember - "I'm in!" is all that's needed to get a chance to win a free copy!

Tip of the Week: Kindle App & Survival Manuals

If you've got a smart phone and a slew of PDF'd survival manuals (military field manuals and others), Amazon's Kindle app and Send to Kindle make it very easy to load your iThing up with valuable content--yes, beyond Angry Birds and Facebook!

• Download the Kindle App for your device
• Install the Send to Kindle app on your computer
• Follow the instructions on both programs to associate them with your device & Amazon account
• On your computer, navigate to your survival PDFs
• Right click on the ones you want to add to your device. The right-click menu should have a new icon - Send to Kindle.
• Click on Send to Kindle, select your device in the subsequent dialog Window, and then "Send".

The app uploads the document to the cloud, and then loads it on your device the next time you open the app. For off-grid use, you'll want to download the document to your device.

Don't have any digitized survival manuals? Military field manuals are the place to start, and you can find a whole slew of 'em here or via a simple Google search. Thanks to Bro. Randy for the link.

Of course, the best place for survival knowledge is in your brain, but having a library in your pocket isn't anything to sneer at. You will find yourself reading up on obscure topics while waiting around.

If you don't have some kind of smart phone, it's a worthwhile upgrade--on my iPhone, I've got a slew of books and manuals, a road GPS app, topo GPS app, weather radar, emergency band scanner, compass, alarm clock, as well as the usual camera, music, videos, web browser and other good stuff. Don't go anywhere without it. If you hate dealing with cell phone sales reps like I do, buying online is a good option.

Quick Review: Without Rule of Law by Joe Nobody

Full Disclosure: I was provided a free copy of Without Rule of Law for review purposes.

I found the last Joe Nobody book that I read, Holding Your Ground, to be a mixed bag. Some good thing to think about, some bad and a lot of information that is glossed over and done better elsewhere.

Without Rule of Law aims to teach readers how to hide, evade, infiltrate and scavenge--and by infiltrate and scavenge, they largely mean looting. Unfortunately, it doesn't succeed in teaching any of these categories. Don't get me wrong, it's not a terrible book, but Without Rule of Law is much like its predecessor, Holding Your Ground. There's some good things to think about, some bad and a lot of information that is glossed over and done better elsewhere (often for free!).

Good, bad and ugly after the jump!

Review: Makeshift Workshop Skills

Being able to repair and create from basic materials is an important skill for the survivor, both to save money today and for after a collapse, when you can't just stroll down to the hardware store or punch in an Amazon order when you need something new. James Ballou's Makeshift Workshop Skills for Survival and Self-Reliance provides a great starting ground for developing these kinds of skills, using basic scavenged materials and simple hand tools.
A lot of this information is old-school techniques and information used by previous generations and largely forgotten in this day and age of power tools and disposable junk.

Makeshift runs through a variety of useful info, repair techniques and field expedient tools--stuff like improvised welding with a car battery, building simple tools out of scrap material and so on. It's an easy book to dive into and put to work--there are pictures and illustrations throughout, and the writing style is simple and accessible. It's a quick read, but one that you will refer to fairly often when working on these kinds of do it yourself projects.

Whether you're looking for some interesting projects, need some assistance on household repairs or planning for keeping things working post-collapse, Makeshift will have lots of useful information for you. If you're already a seasoned handy man or improvising pro, you'll still find some new ideas and clever designs. There's lots of good stuff.

Here's a short list of just some of the ideas and projects you'll find within Makeshift:

• Homemade cordage and useful knots
• Makeshift metal working, with plans for a makeshift forge, blower and other tools
• Improvised tools including hammers, drills, axes, knives, saws, files, vices and clamps
• Expedient repairs with things like super glue, tape, rawhide, pegs and rivets
• Doing your own welding, including field welding techniques
• Useful items you can make out of common things like hangars, saw blades, coffee cans and rebar

Makeshift can't make you into an expert all areas in just over 200 pages, but it's a good resource and starting point for exploring other areas. There's a recommended resources page at the end to help point the reader in the right direction for further study--a nice addition.

Overall, if you're looking to improve your makeshift repair/crafting skills, I'd definitely give this book a look. It won't turn you into a Randy Church-like guru, but it will help show you a few tips, tricks and projects to help make you more self reliant today and in times to come!

Makeshift Workshop Skills for Survival and Self-Reliance on Amazon >

Review: The Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook

Based off our recent open thread about skills development, many you are focusing on increasing your medical skills. If that's you, then this book is right up your alley. Blog friends Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy of DoomandBloom.Net recently came out with what is the most comprehensive guide to post-collapse medical concerns that I've ever seen, The Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook.

The Handbook is the best effort that I've seen on the subject, covering a huge breadth of issues including stocking medical supplies (including antibiotics and natural remedies), hygiene issues, infections, treating a variety of injuries (includes a primer on suturing, treating fractures), coping with chronic medical conditions, and a variety of other topics like child birth, treating hypo or hyperthermia and more.

I would not go into this book expecting to become a true expert on any one topic--that will take additional study, training and practice. But, with the knowledge contained in this book and some supplies, you will have an excellent foundation for responding to a wide variety of potential post-collapse medical problems.

What's more is that the Doom and Bloom handbook is written by actual medical professionals! Dr. Bones is an actual M.D. with 25 years experience and Nurse Amy is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner. They're avid preppers and exceptionally friendly, outgoing and eager to help the survival/preparedness community.

The handbook is a little bit pricey--$34.99 for a paperback book--but it is also in limited production, probably actually print-on-demand. Costs are a lot higher on this level of production versus say a big 100,000 book print run. It's a hefty 440 pages of info and well worth the asking price, in my opinion. A welcome addition to your survival bookshelf! 

Get The Doom and Bloom Survival Medical Handbook >

Update: Dr. Bones sent over a discount code, just for you guys! It's good for $5 off the cover price. The info:

Purchasers can go to www.createspace.com/3697264 and plug in the code:  XNEN7538
to get the book at the discount price.  This code will be good
until April 6th, and is nowhere else at present.

Book Review: Lucifer's Hammer

Lucifer's Hammer was written way back in the late 70s--around the time of the first Star Wars movie. It is the prototypical comet/asteroid destroys the Earth book. It's generally well reviewed and almost always mentioned when people discuss post-apocalypse favorites.

I've had a paperback copy of the book for several years, and have tried to start reading it at least three times, but was unable to get very far. The first half of the book is pretty boring--a slow build, establishing a broad cast of characters before the inevitable comet collision. It was a challenge though, and after seeing many of you list it as a favorite, I figured it was about time to get through it. I picked up an audio version of the book and had better success in plowing through the slow beginning to get to the post-comet strike goodness.

Lucifer's Hammer certainly takes its time to get rolling, and unnecessarily so. The initial cast of characters is too big, with too many stories woven in for extra texture or detail. It's too wide of a net cast in the beginning stages of the book. We all know the comet is going to eventually hit--there's no suspense--so the slow build to the collision has little pay off. Some generous trimming up front would have been beneficial.

However, once the comet strikes, things start to get pretty good. The main storyline follows the "bug out" of different survivor groups from comet-ravaged Los Angeles to a rural "stronghold" community, and then that community's efforts to survive. When an army of fanatical, technology-hating cannibals comes after the community, things get interesting.

Interview with the Union Creek Journal

By popular request, we've reached out for an interview with the author of The Union Creek Journal, Toby/Mudinyeri. 

Toby's a great writer, good guy and a fellow prepper. He had some interesting thoughts on the Journal--why he got started, what he has planned for the future--as well as some of his thoughts on prepping. Worth a read!

Toby, thanks for taking some time to talk with us. A number of our readers are big fans of the Union Creek Journal and were curious to learn more about the man behind it all and what makes him tick. What got you started writing the UCJ?

Thanks for reaching out, Alexander.  The Journal has really been fun for me.  Most of my readers know that I started The Journal as an experiment.  I’ve been writing for decades.  I started writing stories as a kid.  My undergraduate degree is in journalism.  I’m published as a non-fiction technical editor by Que Publishing and I’ve published more than a dozen professional white papers. 

With all that behind me, the blog format, as a basis for a fictional work, caught my interest when I began reading Adrian’s Undead Diary.  The first-person, journal approach in Adrian’s Undead Diary also intrigued me.  I was working on a different book at the time and decided to set it aside for a bit to try out the almost-daily, first-person blog format for a fictional work.

Honestly, it’s been much more successful than I’d imagined.  I’m very grateful to my fans and readers.  Many of them take it upon themselves to “promote” my book in their own circles of friends.  To me, that’s one of the greatest compliments anyone can pay a writer.

The Value of Books Post-Collapse

In the comet/apocalypse classic Lucifer's Hammer, one of the survivors takes the effort to cache hundreds of books--individually sealed and then buried an a cleared out septic tank. They're books on a wide range of topics--science, industry, history--with the intent that they could be used to one day rebuild civilization.

No survivor should be without a library of useful books, be they military manuals and survival guides, technical manuals, religious texts, histories or more theoretical. They can teach useful skills and knowledge pre-collapse, and help with survival and rebuilding efforts if/when the collapse comes.

In this day and age of easily available internet info and digital readers, physical printed books are often overlooked. Unfortunately, in a collapse scenario, this information would quickly become unavailable. Good luck getting those how-to's on YouTube when the grid is down.

Book Review - Tough Times Survival Guide Vol. 2

This book is a collection of snippets from other Paladin Press works. I picked it up on the positive Amazon reviews, and because of the supposed content it contained--a diversity of topics like medical, caching ammo, transportation and so on. I was hoping for a "Greatest Hits" type compilation, but unfortunately that's not the case.

Most of the articles are very short in length--3 to 4 pages in length--and, as a result, are unable to provide more than an overview of the subject at hand. Some are only one or two pages of basic advice--things like seek out Red Cross for CPR training or a few bullet points on materials for improvising medical gear (using socks for bandages!). Really not a ton of interesting or compelling content, overall. Really a let down.

The best articles come from good ol' Ragnar Benson--some reprinted material on survival poaching, makeshift gunsmithing and a few pages on survival medical kits, which I found the most useful in the book. However, these entries just left me wishing that I'd spent my money on a complete Ragnar book, instead of this compilation--for example, the medical kit article was adapted from Survival Nurse.

In this day and age, with the wealth of information available on the 'net, publishers have to provide real value to make the cover price worthwhile. Tough Times Survival Guide Vol. 2 fails here.

Can't recommend this one, but if you're a die hard Paladin fan, it's under $14 on Amazon.

If anyone wants to swap for another survival-type book, J-frame speed loader or a pair of old-style wood/medallion grips, let me know.

Heads Up: The Union Creek Journal

We all enjoy post-apocalyptic fiction, and free post-apocalyptic fiction is probably even better. The Union Creek Journal is an ongoing account of one community's struggle to survive in a post-collapse world. It's written in a journal/blog style, ala the Day by Day Armageddon series.

Definitely worth checking out--I've only read a few of the most recent entries and it looks pretty good. I've got it in my reading "queue" to start from the beginning and work my way forward. Just need to finish a couple books first!

If there's any fans of The Union Creek Journal out there, chime in with your thoughts in the comments section! 

Read the Union Creek Journal >

Review: Holding Your Ground - Preparing for Defense if it All Falls Apart

The best stocked home or retreat won't do you any good if a band of thugs can take it from you on day #2 of TEOTWAWKI. Holding Your Ground: Preparing for Defense if it All Falls Apart aims to help you keep your refuge, preps and your loved ones safe.

Holding Your Ground takes a broad approach to looking at retreat defense - it's a high level view of a multitude of topics--things like concealment, visibility, exterior and interior firing positions, perimeter security, early warning systems and so on.Unfortunately, Holding's broad approach is also its main shortcoming.

Instead of focusing solely on defending a retreat, it reaches into other areas--a bug out bag packing list, a chapter on firearm recommendations, and so on--and doesn't provide the depth of coverage on the issue at hand, defending a retreat. A lot of this information comes across as little more than filler--generally sub-par and not really on topic. A newer prepper would probably find much of this information useful, but a seasoned prepper will skim over it or pick out flaws or points of disagreement (you will have a few).

The actual content focused on retreat defense is hit-or-miss. For example, Holding does a great job of explaining how to reduce visibility and establish angles/overlapping fields of fire. In general, the maps/diagrams are excellent and do a great job of visually explaining the author's point.

On the other hand, there is no discussion of securing your actual home/retreat--nothing on doors, windows, home construction, security systems, etc. The big revelation for setting up fighting positions? Sandbags. The book also entirely skips over observation posts, which I found odd. A definite omission.

Holding Your Ground incorporates an Excel spreadsheet to help you assess your group's "defense rating"; the spreadsheet is a little confusing to fill out and the copy that I downloaded wasn't 100% functional (one of the cells that was supposed to auto-calculate didn't work). Really, you'd have to be pretty out of it to need a spreadsheet to tell you if you have a defensible position--I'd hope we'd be able to assess our strengths and weaknesses without Microsoft's help. It is an amusing exercise, though.

Would I recommend Holding Your Ground? It's around a 3 out of 5--some good stuff, but missed opportunities, too. I would really have liked to see a more thorough, in-depth discussion of the topic. Cut down on the filler and add in content on securing a home against intrusion (doors, windows, alarm systems), fighting fires, observation posts, building fighting positions, hides and caches, post-TEOTWAWKI fortifications and so on.

If you're starting out, looking for something to read and have the cash to spare, you'll get more out of Holding. If you're a more seasoned prepper, I'd read through the various military field manuals on the subject that are available for free on the Web first, do some other background research/reading and then, if you're interested, pick up the Kindle version of Holding.

Prepper Press, publishers of Holding Your Ground, provided TEOTWAWKI Blog with a copy of the book for review.

Pick up Holding Your Ground on Amazon >

Open Thread: What's your favorite work of post-apocalypse fiction?

Thought I would poll the Tribe to see if there's any good stuff that I need to catch up on. I've read a bunch, but there's always more out there to discover. What are your favorite end-of-the-world books?

My personal favorite at the moment is probably Alas, Babylon. At age 10 or 11, I read an old battered copy at my grandparents and it's stuck with me since. They also had Day of the Triffids, which I remember being pretty fun.

Anyways, what are your favorites? Anything recent that's a "must read"?

Review: Day By Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile

Beyond Exile is the follow-up to the excellent Day By Day Armageddon, a journal-style first person account of one man's survival in a zombie-infested world. I was a big fan of Day by Day Armageddon - it is an excellent read - and Beyond Exile picks up where its predecessor left off and outdoes the original. Beyond Exile is my favorite zombie novel to date--an excellent mix of survival, action, suspense, military hardware and, of course, lots of zombies.

The writing is top-notch, and the zombie survival scenario perfectly suited to the journal-style that the book is written in. The descriptions are wonderful - a breath of fresh air after reading the tech-manual like Survivors. The environment and atmosphere that J.L. Bourne is able to build is really superb and sets this series apart from anything else. The journal style also allows you to really get inside the head of the main character, get his thinking, his fears and his plans. It's great stuff; it really draws you into his experiences and what the guy is going through. The journal entries steer away from some of the interpersonal/relationship/moral dilemma stuff and focus on the events and matters of survival, which is fine by me, but I thought I'd offer a heads up. If you're looking for interpersonal zombie drama, watch The Walking Dead.

Day by Day Armageddon suffered a bit from a lack of plot direction -- the survivors simply moved from one hideout to the next until the book eventually ended. After a somewhat slow start, Beyond Exile overcomes the meandering plot issues of the first book, sticking to the same story for a substantial portion of the book. And it's a pretty good one--the main character, stranded deep in zombie infested territory, has to escape and evade his way back to safety. It is definitely a page turner, especially for anyone who has ever thought through a bug out scenario. This is bugging out with zombies, my friends.

One element of Beyond Exile that I especially enjoy was the mix of military technology woven throughout. Unlike many zombie stories, Beyond Exile does not write off the military or limit the survivor's weapons to shotguns and fire axes. They get Light Armored Vehicles, A-10 Warthogs, UAVs, laser guided bombs, Abrams tanks and cutting edge zombie slaying tech developed by a mysterious group known as Remote 6. This book has a lot of cool military gear--it brought a smile to my face more than once.

Anyways, highly recommend this book. If you haven't read the first, you can pick up a two-book compilation + a short story on Amazon for $12.24. It's a steal of a deal. The reviews on Amazon give it three stars, but that is because people pre-ordered thinking it was a net-new book, not a compilation. Great read.