Dramatized Fantasy

Archaeologist Annja Creed believes there's more to the apparitions of Santo Niño — the Holy Child — luring thousands of pilgrims to Santa Fe. Other sightings of strange and anomalous creatures in the area indicate a mystery more profane than sacred — with links, perhaps, to Annja's own fate. But she is not alone in her quest to separate reliquaries from unholy minds who dare to harness sinister power.

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.

Necromancer Eric Carter's problems keep getting bigger. Bad enough he's the unwilling husband to the patron saint of death, Santa Muerte, but now her ex, the Aztec King of the dead, Mictlantecuhtli, has come back - and it turns out that Carter and he are swapping places. As Mictlantecuhtli breaks loose of his prison of jade, Carter is slowly turning to stone. To make matters worse, both gods are trying to get Carter to assassinate the other. But only one of them can be telling him the truth and he can't trust either one. Carter's solution? Kill them both.

Three generations after nuclear blasts all but vaporized the Earth, a group of warrior survivalists led by a charismatic man named Ryan Cawdor roam the hostile environment called Deathlands. Their quest becomes a grim struggle for survival as they search for a better life beyond the nuke-ravaged cities. And it is one such harrowing journey that brings them to the heart of Moscow.

New Hampshire is rich with big game, more than enough to feed Ryan and his hungry companions. But claims to a fallen elk get ugly and Ryan is forced to kill another hunter, the self-proclaimed king of the Granite Highlands, over the meat. Soon the hunters become the hunted as the dead man's widow gives chase, armed with predark tanks and heavy artillery. As the kill zone widens across cannibal-ridden lava fields, Ryan and his group search for leverage in the merciless landscape.

It starts with a shipwreck following a magical storm at sea. Horace, a soldier from the West, had joined the Great Crusade against the heathens of Akeshia after the deaths of his wife and son from plague. When he washes ashore, he finds himself at the mercy of the very people he was sent to kill, who speak a language and have a culture and customs he doesn't even begin to understand. Not long after, Horace is pressed into service as a house slave. But this doesn't last.

When children go missing, and the Humans have no leads, I'm the one they call. I am their last hope in bringing home the lost ones. I salvage what they cannot. Crossing into Ogre country is dangerous when you're a polite, respectful gal. Which means we all know I'm in for a wild ride, despite the new backup I've brought along. Even when things start to go sideways, and enemies close on us from every side, I still believe we have the upper hand. How very blind can one person be when it comes to a salvage for a missing child? I'm about to find out.

For Ky, it’s not just about liberating the star systems subjugated by Turek and defending the rest of the galaxy’s freedom. There’s also a score to be settled and payback to be meted out for the obliteration of the Vatta Transport dynasty...and the slaughter of Ky’s family. But the enemy have their own escalation efforts under way - including the placement of covert agents among the allies with whom Ky and the surviving Vattas are collaborating in the war effort.

A virulent strain of a predark biowep has been unleashed upon the denizens of northern Kansas, turning them into rotting, flesh-eating monsters. Running from the mindless, soulless rottie hordes, Ryan and his companions arrive in the civil-war-torn ville of Sweetwater Junction. They've got one shot at beating the hungry rotties: Turn the bloodlust of the ville's warring factions away from each other and toward a common enemy.

In a land steeped in ancient legend, power, and destruction, the crumbling ruins of what was once Mexico City is now under siege by a bloodthirsty tribe of aboriginal muties. Emerging from a gateway into the partially submerged ruins of this once great city, Ryan and his group ally themselves with a fair and just baron caught in a treacherous power struggle with a dangerous rival. An internecine war foreshadows ultimate destruction of the valley at a time when unity of command and purpose offers the only hope against a terrible fate....

Almost leveled by the Soviet missiles that annihilated most of the West Coast, Snakefish is in the midst of a reconstruction, financed by a commodity far more valuable than the usual Deathlands jack. But greed and man's lust for power threaten to shatter the hard-won peace and tranquility of this fledgeling community as disparate factions fight for control of the substance that will give them wealth beyond their wildest dreams.

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.

While vacationing in Tokyo, archaeologist Annja Creed is approached by a man who desperately needs her help. Kennichi Ogawa, the last descendant of an ancient warrior family, is trying to locate a stolen artifact. Legend has it that the vajra was mystically endowed by a warrior's spirit to help the Yumegakure-ryu family forever be a source for good. But the vajra could help the forces of evil if it gets into the wrong hands. And now the bloodthirsty Yakuza and a group of hired ninja are after it.

Bransen Garibond, the Highwayman, had little interest in the politics of Honce. To him, the two powerful warring lairds were the same sides of the same coin: The outcome for the people would be no different either way. A journey north, however, teaches Bransen that his views are simplistic at best...and that some things truly matter.

In the aftermath of the apocalypse, little remains except age-old evils of greed, perversion, and force. But a small group of survivalists cherishes the legacy of human courage and hope. Led by the charismatic Ryan Cawdor, they persevere in a brutal world through warrior skills and a bold desire to regain the promised future. The fertile bayous teem with mutant life-forms and altered species. Off on a trek with his son, Ryan fends off the dangers from marauders and Nature's traps, but also finds signs of hope for humanity's new future.

After the nuclear winter, the taint of humanity worsened in the raw blood-quest for survival. Hunger for jack and power now fuels traders and barons, who relinquish authority only through death, crushing everything in their path. Still, a handful seek a better way of life, where iron fists and ordnance are replaced by harmony, justice, and fair trade. Separated by fate and a freak storm in the shifting landscape of the Great Plains, the companions find themselves on a path of strange prophecy.

St. Louis is a concrete jungle of fetid heat, acid rains, and cutthroats. With JB Dix gravely wounded, Ryan and his group become captive guests of a local barony. Freedom lies in the success of a deal: Recapture a runaway teen, daughter of the ailing baron. But the dangerous power behind the throne rests with a self-proclaimed holy man. His gruesome manipulation of life and death are about to put the group in a race for their own salvation. Every day is a devil's bargain in Deathlands.

Fear and human depravity permeate the frigid air in a once-dynamic Alaskan city. Ryan Cawdor and his group of survivalists go on red alert the moment they set foot on the forbidding tundra, but regardless, they find themselves rounded up by cannibal coldhearts. The companions quickly discover there's a fate much worse than becoming food. Dangerous new experiments are taking place in a long-abandoned military base and, in the bitter heart of the frozen North, new horrors reach out to poison their hope for a better tomorrow.

Ryan's razor-sharp edge has been dulled by the loss of his son, Dean — but grief is an emotion he cannot indulge if the band is to escape the chains of sadistic Baron Ethan. His thriving ville offers a special commodity: blood sport. Now with the group's armorer, JB Dix, imprisoned and near death, Ryan and the others are forced to join Ethan's hunt — as the hunted. But the perverse and powerful baron has changed the rules. Skilled in mind control, he ensures the warriors will not be tracked by high-paying thrill seekers. Instead, they will hunt each other — to the death.

As they blunder towards doom, Warlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson find themselves inconvenienced by a variety of eldritch beings. Christmas brings a goose that doesn't let being cooked slow it down; they meet an electricity demon, discover why being a redhead is even trickier than one might imagine, and Holmes attempts an Irish accent. And, naturally, Moriarty is hanging around...in some form or other.