Showing results by author "James Axler" in All Categories

On a crisp January day, a presidential inauguration day, a one-megaton blast ripped through the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC. Subsequent explosions around the globe changed the face and the shape of the earth forever. Out of the ruins emerged Deathlands, a world that conspired against survival. In the blasted heart of the new America, a group of men and women plan desperately to escape the eerie wastes and mutated life forms of their nuclear hell.

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.

The Deathlands companions have been cast asunder through time. But fortune smiles on one of their number, the time-trawled Doc Tanner, who finally finds himself back in his own era of the 1890s accompanied by Mildred Wyeth, an African-American woman from the twentieth century whose skin color makes her stand out for all the wrong reasons. This could be Doc’s chance to repair the mess his abrupt disappearance through time left, if he and Mildred can survive long enough to reach his family.

The war to free post-apocalyptic Earth from the grasp of its oppressors slips into uncharted territory as the fully restored race of the former ruling barons are reborn to fearsome power. Facing a virulent phase of a dangerous conflict, the Cerberus rebels prepare to battle an unfathomable enemy, as the shifting sands of world domination continue to chart their uncertain destiny....

Stories of the Trader and his convoy of war wagons endure in the badlands of post-holocaust America. A dealer in Deathlands' most precious commodities - weapons and fuel - Trader takes note of a young Ryan Cawdor. Surrounded in myth and rumor, Trader sets into motion the beginnings of legend at a place called Virtue Lake...At Spearpoint, the ultimate redoubt housing a valuable cache of predark technology, two opposing wills clash. Levi Shabazz intends to carve his own empire out of the vast wastelands, but the Trader intends to thwart him and end his bloody siege of power.

When a mat-trans malfunction strands Ryan Cawdor and his friends in a gutted redoubt in the West Indies, the crystal waters offer them a tantalizing glimpse of untouched splendor. But the oasis is abruptly shattered by violent and ruthless pirates, and Ryan has to barter with a young guide, a teenage boy on a blood quest against a sadistic local warlord, to navigate a land teeming with predators-mutie, human and animal. The race is on to find a second redoubt, buried deep in the inhospitable heart of Monster Island.

Steeped in beauty and mysticism, the canyons of Mesa Verde, Colorado, survived the blast that altered the American west. Hired to track a group of missing children, Ryan Cawdor and his band follow the trail to a legendary city carved in stone, older and stronger than the nukecaust. The inhabitants of the palaces of light are more than warriors and survivors; they are masters of mind games that prey on illusion. And true believers in a metaphysical end game poised to push the companions over the edge of reality…into certain death.

Violent gangs, a corrupt mayor, and a heavily armed police force are the hallmarks of former Detroit, a mutie-infested, rubble-strewn metropolis. When Ryan and the companions show up, the Desolation Angels are waging a war to rule the streets. After saving the companions from being chilled by gangsters, the mayor hires Ryan and his friends to stop the Angels cold. But each hard blow toward victory proves there's no good side to be fighting for. As Motor City erupts into bloody conflagration, the companions are caught in the crossfire.

Hiring on as crew to a merchant's wag-train, Ryan and his companions anticipate trouble as they head west toward what was once Montana. The terrain is treacherous, but the company is worse as anger, jealousy, and male rivalry erupt into chaos and death. But as they get closer to their destination, the true nature of the journey unfolds. There's a map to a mysterious valley rich with predark stockpiles. But is it the promised land they've been seeking...or the dead end they never saw coming?

Deep in the Outlands, in Cerberus redoubt, Kane, a renegade Magistrate from the united baronies, experiences a shocking mind probe. It imprints him with a knowledge that propels him to the other side of the world, with the archivist Brigid and brother-at-arms Grant. In the heart of Tibet, Kane's small group of Outlanders wages a perilous quest pursuing a legend, only to discover they are not alone in their search for the Chintamani Stone. The ancient relic has the power to conduct the final assault on the Earth's destiny...or destroy the destroyers themselves.

A dark and unfathomable power governs post-nuclear America. Its tentacles reach from the heart of the garrison - ruled cities to the lawless Outlands where a last bid for freedom remains. A former warrior of the secretive regime, Kane has become a fugitive of the order he once served, racing to expose the blueprint of a power that's immeasurable evil. Kane's quest allies him with fellow outcasts Brigid Baptiste and Grant, all willing to risk the peril of seeking the truth.

Fleeing from the growing sinkhole that was once the Glory mines, Ryan Cawdor and his companions struggle to make their way east to Ryan’s home of Front Royal as a safe haven for delivering Krysty’s child. Along the way, they are welcomed into a Deathlands community based on the structure and devolved traditions of a 20th century Iowa State prison. One of the bizarre customs that has evolved is the tallying of victorious acts of violence as a way of achieving dominance. Through a misunderstanding, Doc Tanner is believed to have achieved 246 of such acts.

Cornerstone is a ville like no other that Ryan Cawdor and his companions have ever encountered. Hoping to find medical treatment for wounds sustained combating Magus and his creations, especially Ryan’s own debilitating injury, they have been brought to Cornerstone by their new friends, a relationship forged from those same battles. The ville appears to be a prosperous bastion of civilization, sheltered from the savagery of the Deathlands by virtue of the community’s relationship with an extraordinary manifestation of the will of Gaia.

Enlisted for a mission to retrieve the memory of a military satellite that’s been mistaken for an angel by in-bred locals, Ryan Cawdor and his companions head deep into the wild country of Kill Island, only to discover they are being pursued by an old foe harboring a deadly grudge. With enemies on all sides, Ryan and his allies rapidly run out of places to turn...and no way back. Meanwhile, Doc Tanner is offered a tantalizing possibility that could end his time with the companions forever.

The passage of time hasn't healed the ravages of the nukecaust, but where once there was only the Deathlands, new centres of power loom above the domain of the unwanted, the hell zones of the Outlands. Though the outlanders distrust and hate the rulers of the fortified villes, even they wouldn't dare imagine the megalithic power guiding their destiny.

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.

Ominous rumblings in the South Pacific lead Kane and his compatriots into the heart of a secret barony ruled by a ruthless god-king planning an invasion of the secret territory at Uluru and its aboriginals who are seemingly possessed of a power beyond all earthly origin. With total victory of hybrid over human hanging in the balance, slim hope lies with the people known as the Crew, preparing to reclaim a power so vast that in the wrong hands it could plunge humanity into an abyss of evil with no hope of redemption.

In the nuke-altered America of the 21st century, time conspires against survival, especially for a legendary group of warriors led by Ryan Cawdor. Born and bred in Deathlands, Ryan dares to unlock the secrets buried deep in the wreckage of a planet. Time may be the enemy in the daily struggle to stay alive, but perhaps it can reveal something better....

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.

Ryan Cawdor’s time-lost companion, Doc Tanner, has finally found the Operation Chronos facility that can return him back to his own era. But reaching it through a gauntlet of mutie enemies and their enslaved army is only one half of the battle. As the Chronos facility falls to the mutie siege, a traitor within the ranks of Ryan’s crew finally reveals their hand, and the remaining allies find themselves backed into an impossible corner... with no way out.