Showing results by author "James Axler" in All Categories

In the altered reality of the Deathlands, America's coastal waters haven't escaped the ravages of the nukecaust, but the awesome power of the oceans still rules here. It's a power that will let Ryan Cawdor, first among post-holocaust survivors, ride the crest of victory — or consign his woman to the raging depths. Emerging from a gateway on the ruins of the Georgia coastline, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists embark on a voyage up the Atlantic coast. But treachery awaits as they're beset by pirates, then a violent storm.

In a hidden redoubt in Ohio, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists take possession of the ultimate Deathlands War Wag — a crude but effective tank called Leviathan. But having this steel-plated behemoth is a double-edged sword when they fall into the trap of Lady Ward of Novaville, who wants Leviathan for her own means of destruction and domination.

The South Pacific is a rad-blasted paradise, inhabited by giant mutated crustaceans and savage cannibals. The local baron rules the Marshall Islands with a despotic iron fist and a secret formula for making Deathland’s gold: gunpowder. But his true invincibility lies in his possession of stockpiles of pre-dark rapid fire missiles and a fleet of functional PT boats. Ryan Cawdor and his companions have faced off against the baron and survived. But this time there’s only one way out of these death seas — through the sec-men infested waters of the baron’s kingdom.

The warrior survivalists are reluctant guests in a reactivated 20th-century medical institute in Maine. Here, scientists still pursue their abstract theories, oblivious to the realities of a world gone mad. But when they take an unhealthy interest in Krysty Wroth, the pressure is on to find a way out of this guarded enclave.

Hungry and exhausted, Ryan and his band emerge from a redoubt into a remarkably untouched pre-dark city and uncover a cache of weapons and food. But the group is not alone. Among other interlopers, the city is guarded by huge winged creatures, protecting the grisly secrets of a nearby barony. Holed up inside an old government building, where Ryan's son, Dean, lies near death, Ryan and Krysty must raid the treacherous ville across the desert where a local baron uses human flesh as fertilizer.

The Cornerstone saga continues as a disgruntled Ryan and troubled Jak return from their harrowing scavenger mission to find that there are two mysterious new arrivals in the ville, presumed initiates to the ways of Gaia, the Earth Mother. Krysty explores her relationship with Matriarch in this flourishing paradise founded on the beliefs instilled in her as a child, but there are serpents in this garden. Death and destruction will come to this place of peace, and the true enemy may not be what it seems.

In the epic conclusion to the Cornerstone saga, the sinister forces at work in the troubled ville grow insidiously stronger, and Ryan Cawdor is the only one with first-hand knowledge of the true enemy. However, he’s trapped outside the ville, wanted for murder, and, with a hijacked Cornerstone mission team, must return to the redoubt where he and Jak Lauren nearly died, in hopes of finding the means to defeat the monster in Cornerstone’s midst.

Life is precarious in post-apocalyptic America, threatened by the toxic environment and the return to savagery. Born into this bleak reality, Ryan Cawdor roams the hell trails of Deathlands with his band of warrior survivalists. All they know is to endure and seize whatever chance they get for a better tomorrow. In the sands of California's Guadalupe desert, Ryan and companions fear that they have crossed time lines when they stumble upon a settlement straight out of fabled Egypt.

Hunted across the southwestern desert, Ryan doesn't know who wants him dead badly enough to slaughter innocents as a way of luring him into the open. But the advanced tech his pursuers are using is unknown in Deathlands, created by the most brilliant minds of 20th-century America. Now evil is alive and stalking the warrior group. His name is Delphi and he's prepared to reclaim the one man who understands with brutal certainty how time can be controlled, manipulated, remapped.

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.

In what was once the nuclear testing ground of the pre-dark world, the Marshall Islands are now the kingdom of the grotesque lord Baron Kinnison. Here in this world of slavery and brutality, the companions have fought a fierce war for survival, on land and sea — yet the crafty baron still conspires to destroy these interlopers. Activating a 20th century hot air balloon left untouched by the blast, they escape to the neighboring pirate ruled forbidden island, with the Baron and his sec men in hot pursuit — and become trapped in a war for total supremacy on this water world.

A former enforcer of the baronial police, Kane, with fellow renegade Grant and archivist Brigid Baptiste, discover a new gateway in Central America — one that could lead them deeper into the conspiracy that has doomed Earth. Traversing a new Caribbean sea ruled by mutant creatures and ruthless pirates, they encounter a most unusual baron struggling to control the vast oil resources of the region. Uncertain if this charismatic leader is friend or foe, Kane is lured into a search for an ancient relic of mythic proportions that may promise a better future.

Having narrowly escaped with their lives from the redoubt near Cornerstone, the Deathlands survivors known as the Companions arrive via mat-trans at a destination they presume to be North Dakota, if the mysterious codes given them while in Cornerstone are accurate. That assumption is soon put in doubt as they discover a devastated city covered in continual ashfall, a sky perpetually obscured by black clouds illuminated only by sporadic lightning. The former metropolis is not deserted, however, but densely populated with ravening hordes of barely human creatures.

Ryan Cawdor finds himself reunited with the love of his life and a familiar version of the world he’d known most of his life, with old friends he thought he’d lost forever and an embodiment of himself that fits the time and place. The companions set up a safe haven called simply Home in the Virginia mountains, where they welcome anyone willing to work hard for a better tomorrow. But when an organized and dangerous mutie society intrudes upon the ville’s residents to use as slaves and worse, the old cycle of violence returns.

The brutality of post-nuclear America has spawned a dark frontier where the harsh and unforgiving new rules of existence cannot obliterate the decency and determination that drive the true human spirit. It's tested and tormented but never destroyed. A lust for power and a strong sec-force are the basic requirements of any Deathlands baron. But brilliant, charismatic Baron Eugene Arcadian has bigger visions than simply a monopoly on jack and trade. He wants the future.

The pot-smoking and relentlessly abrasive mad scientist Dr. William Hammersmith, whom the companions first encountered in DL 124 Child of Slaughter, has made “New Zea” his home. The mad scientist uses private-sector mat-trans technology to track and transport Ryan Cawdor’s small team of survivalist warriors from the Deathlands to the islands under siege in order to enlist their aid in training the soft local populace for the imminent attack and lend their own battle-tested mettle to rescue the imperiled community.

Post-nuclear America has changed little since the primal leveling of the 21st century. Warrior survivalists Ryan Cawdor and his band live by a code that honors the kind of absolute freedom only a raw frontier can provide. Until rumors of a wider, more prosperous world than the Deathlands thriving deep in Mexico, untouched by the nukecaust, lure them into uncharted waters....

The sulphur-teeming Gulf of Mexico is the poisoned end of the earth, but loaded cargo ships ruined by skydark lure doomie and cutthroat alike, Here, Ryan and the others glean rumors of whole cities deep in South America that survived the blast intact. But as the companions contemplate a course of action that may divide them, a new horror approaches unseen on the horizon. The Lords of Death are Mexican pirates raiding stockpiles with grim vengeance. When civilization hits rock bottom, a new stone age will emerge, with its own personal day of blood reckoning.

The woods surrounding Lake Huron are filled with danger and bounty alike. Pirates frequent the waters, cold-hearted cannibals and stickies wander the woods, and the mystical Sea Hag and her Hag-Sworn keep an eye on it all. A local moonshiner has offered to escort the companions through the forest to the nearby Martkplatz where they can resupply at the ville’s annual trade festival. However, the companions get more than they bargained for when forces converge on Marktplatz and kick off the festival with a bang.

Following up rumors of trouble on his old home ground, Ryan Cawdor and his band seek shelter inside the walls of what was once the largest shopping mall in the Carolinas. The baron of the concrete fortress gives them no choice but to join his sec teams. As outside invaders step up their raids on the mall, Ryan has to battle both sides for a chance to save their lives.