Showing results by author "James Axler" in All Categories

Emerging out of the ashes of the nuclear apocalypse, no one has been more successful and determined than Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists. But if the wasteland's endless miles come between them, the odds for getting back together again — for their very survival — are not in their favor. A cryptic message regarding the long-missing Trader sends Ryan and the Armorer on an odyssey to the Pacific Northwest, away from their base, away from their band of warrior survivalists, away from Krysty Wroth.

The red-baked mountains of New Mexico offer a peaceful interlude for Ryan Cawdor and a reunion with Jak Lauren. But in the violent post-holocaust world of Deathlands, survival is a blood-soaked game — and Ryan's idyll becomes a mission of revenge. The quarry is the General and his band of paramilitary killers. Roving and plundering the Southwest, the General travels with an unsurpassed armory, his troops unchallenged, his agenda unstoppable.

Survival is an endless battle in the dark age of post-holocaust America, but even amid the ashes of the past, new pockets of civilization emerge, fledgeling communities bound by savage rules. Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior-survivalists are transported from one Valley of the Shadow of Death to another, shaken by the mind-bending effects of the mat-trans, emerging at last into a promised land whose inhabitants are healthy and young.

Generations after global annihilation, Kansas is a mutated landscape of dense, deciduous forest. Gone are the amber waves of grain, another hideous result of nuclear devastation that changed the face of the Earth forever. Now it's survival of the freakish. Following rumors that might lead them to the long-lost Trader, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists find themselves the unwilling house guests of the wealthiest barons in all of Deathlands.

Once an idyllic chain of inlets running from Key Largo to Key West, the Florida Keys have become an isolated universe of grotesquely mutated wildlife and bizarre submarine malformations. Blind 70-foot sea snakes lurk among the reefs around underwater volcanoes, while typhoons and pirates turn the crystal waters above into a death zone.

Emerging from a gateway into the snowy barrens of the Colorado Rockies, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior group are forced to strike a deal for survival. This part of white hell is controlled by Baron Nelson, a grief-ridden widower burning for vengeance against the hired killers who murdered his boy. Not far from Nelson's barony lies Yuma, a nasty hellhole every badman in the Rockies calls home. Ryan, Doc and J.B. Dix begin a perilous journey across desolate mountains to Yuma to capture and deliver the boy's killers back to the baron.

A bad jump from a near-space Gateway leaves Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists in the devastated heart of the American Midwest. Moving through the ruins in the safety of an abandoned war wag, they discover a small community that was once the sprawling metropolis of Chicago. The town seems devoid of life, until the first night, when Krysty Wroth vanishes without a trace. Then the group is attacked, leaving Doc Tanner gravely wounded. Ryan realizes that someone, or something, wants them gone — or dead.

An ambush by a roving group of mutant Stickies puts Ryan and Krysty Wroth in the clutches of a tyrant who plans a human sacrifice as a symbol of his power. The execution is set to take place at the new moon — one night away. Ryan devises an escape plan but is betrayed by another prisoner. As they break for freedom, the Stickie leader unleashes a team of hunter-trackers among the maze of narrow canyons of the Southwest. For Ryan and Krysty, there's nowhere left to run....

Ryan travels to the snowy wastes north of the 49th parallel to rescue his young son, enslaved in a mining colony. In this forbidding landscape, one of Ryan's oldest enemies lies in wait, orchestrating a deadly finale to their private war. In the biting cold, Ryan must battle a legion of hunter androids designed to track and kill any intruders with ruthless ingenuity. But for Ryan Cawdor, the need to save his son is greater than any threat the one-eyed warrior may encounter.

Out of the ashes of global destruction, Ryan Cawdor and his roving band of warrior survivalists continue their grim odyssey across a nuke-ravaged America, searching for a sanctuary and the promise of a better life. Emerging from a Gateway into Florida's sultry heat, they enter the domain of a wealthy baron — a technical genius whose seat of power is a rebuilt theme park where the rides are fast and thrill seekers are guaranteed the time of their lives...if they can get out alive. Influencing the baron is a ruthless and hypnotic cult leader and his demonic "family".

As the roaming band of survivors seek desperately to escape the eerie wastes and mutated life-forms of their nuclear hell, they emerge from a gateway back into the ruins of Manhatten — the concrete battlefield where Ryan had avenged the death of his father and older brother. The city is a flooded hellzone ruled by street gangs and hordes of reptilian mutants who inhabit the sewers. Under this urban ruin lives the self-styled King of the Underground, presiding over his subterranean fortress filled with prenuke memorabilia.

Generations after a near nuclear annihilation, America is a radiation-ravaged wasteland swarming with a thousand horrifically mutated life forms. Ryan Cawdor and his band of post-holocaust survivors barely escape a self-destructing redoubt in the new southwest and embark on a journey overland to find the nearest gateway. But without an adequate supply of food and water, their quest is doomed.

When Ryan ingests bacteria-infested food, he lies near death — his body paralyzed but his mind traveling rapidly back to his early days in the Deathlands...moving through the southwest on post-nuke vehicles called warwags...and his run-in with the Baron. Towse, near what was once Albuquerque, is a ville in a freakishly beautiful landscape populated by scabbies and armed Apaches. Baron Alias Carson and his bejeweled wife, Sharona, welcome Ryan, J.B. Dix, and the Tracker to their treacherous world.

Emerging torn and battered after a triple jump through the gateways, Ryan Cawdor and his band of post-holocaust survivors discover an abandoned cryonics complex - a doomed fantasy begun a century before in a world far away from Deathlands. Dr. Mildred Wyeth is successfully revived from subzero suspended animation and joins the team of warrior survivalists.

A generation after a global nuclear war, Louisiana is a fetid, sullen landscape of impenetrable swamps and grotesquely mutated wildlife. Above the gnarled bayous, radioactive red dust clouds race across the sky on nuclear winds; below, thick mud sucks at a man's boots. Now and then a biting acid rain falls, swept in on the boiling winds from the Gulf.

After narrowly escaping the devolved prison community of Ispville, the companions make their way on foot for the arduous 200-mile trek to the ruins of Chicago and the redoubt that holds the nearest known gateway, as winter sets in. This is only the first stage in their journey to the intended refuge of Ryan’s home ville of Front Royal, and hopefully a safe haven for the birth of Krysty’s child. To make matters worse, they’re the reluctant guardians of fellow former prisoners, a mother and three young daughters, none of whom possess the companions’ survival skills.

The battle-weary Companions count their blessings when they find refuge at a tranquil ville, founded on the principles of harmony and enlightenment. However, they soon discover this supposed utopia is anything but. Violence waits in the silence, hidden beneath the pagodas and prayer halls. As sinister machinations unfurl like lotus petals, the Companions reckon with the true price of inner peace in a world gone mad.

When they wander into a war-torn prairie, Ryan and his Companions are rapidly forced to pick a side. Aiding a Baron more mystic than man, they face off against a ravenous army. Battle rages, ancient mysticism takes hold, but the feud becomes personal when a tyrant sets his sights on Ryan's lover, Krysty. Each dawn brings bloodshed, each night - terror. As mythology mixes with warfare, no one can guess what will emerge from the smoke.

Golconda, the secret underground military complex hidden away before Skydark and rediscovered by Trader, is a bounty of riches, filled with arms, ammunition, and wags. But having those things is not enough for the man called Trader. With this newfound wealth, he’s got a dream that’s burned within him. Determined to build a trade caravan strong enough to plow through the most inhospitable areas of the Deathlands, Trader gathers a new crew to face bandits, raiders, and mutie menaces spawned by the world destruction known as Skydark.

The expansion of organized muties from M-ville has reached fever pitch. Humanity is on the verge of being eradicated across the Eastern seaboard of the Deathlands. But Ryan Cawdor and his band of survivalists harbor a desperate plan to stop the muties--one that will put their lives at risk. The stakes are genocide, and the prize is the human race... or its extinction.