Book 61

Skydark Spawn

by James Axler

Published 1 March 2003

Survival in America's nuke-blasted frontier is both a curse and a salvation for Ryan Cawdor and his warrior companions. Though the basic needs of existence must be fought for and won with blood- each day alive means another chance to seek refuge and a better way of life in a hostile and brutal world, where hope still fires the human heart.

In the relatively untouched area of what was once Niagara Falls, Ryan and his fellow wayfarers find the pastoral farmland under the despotic control of a twisted baron and his slave-breeding farm. Ryan, Mildred and Krysty are captured by the baron's sec men and pawned into the cruel frenzy of their leader's grotesque desires. JB, Jak and Doc enlist the aid of outlanders to organize a counter strike-but rescue may come too late for them all. In the Deathlands, you are sentenced to your destiny from the moment of birth....


Book 62

Damnation Road Show

by James Axler and Axler

Published 1 June 2003

In the ruins of a nuke-shattered America, every man, woman and child of the apocalyptic frontier makes a perilous journey to the future. But there is a fork that divides the path toward humanity reborn...and the road deep into the hell that is Deathlands. Ryan Cawdor made his choice long ago, in this barbaric new world that conspires against hope...

Eerie remnants of pre-Dark times linger a century after the nuclear blowout. But a traveling road show gives new meaning to the word chilling. Ryan and his warrior group have witnessed this carny's handiwork in the ruins and victims of unsuspecting villes. Even facing tremendous odds does nothing to deter the companions from challenging this wandering death merchant and an army of circus freaks. And no one is aware that a steel-eyed monster from the past is preparing a private act that would give Ryan star billing.... In the Deathlands, all you get is a one-way ticket.


Book 63

Devil Riders

by James Axler

Published 1 September 2003

A century after the nuclear conflagration almost destroyed the world, humanity endures in a lawless land. Those who inhabit Deathlands are either killers or those who would be killed.

But an elite few defy the laws of this new natural selection-playing both sides of the eternal game of life and death. Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists never leave a friend behind...or a coldheart alive.

Stranded in the salty desert wastes of West Texas, Ryan and his companions find pre-Dark wheels and set out on a treacherous journey across inhospitable terrain. Hopes for a hot meal and clean bed in an isolated ville die fast when the companions run into a despotic baron manipulating the lifeblood of the desert: water. But it's his fortress stockpiled with enough armaments to wage war in the dunes that interests Ryan, especially when he learns the enemy may be none other than the greatest-and long dead-Deathlands legend: the Trader. In the Deathlands the future is here, but the past is never far behind.


Book 64

Bloodfire

by James Axler

Published 1 December 2003

Life in twenty-second-century America is an odyssey of pain and death. Savagely transformed by atomic fallout, what remains of humanity endures an internecine war against those who thrive on chaos and bloodshed.

A legend in a violent land, Ryan Cawdor lives and fights by his own rules as he and his companions traverse the grim world of Deathlands. For as long as the future remains out of reach, survival means living long enough to face a new day.

Hearing a rumour that the Trader, his old teacher and friend, is still alive, Ryan and his warrior group struggle across the treacherous Texas desert to find the truth. But an enemy with a score to settle is in hot pursuit-and so is the elusive Trader. The preDark city of Sonora-preserved for a century in the salt and sand of the nukescape-becomes the staging ground for a showdown between mortal enemies, where the scales of revenge and death will be balanced with brutal finality. In the Deathlands, the only law is lawlessness.


Book 66

Separation

by James Axler

Published 1 June 2004

Hard strength and resilience are needed to survive each new day in the treacherous world of post nuclear America.

For Ryan Cawdor and his companions, honour, integrity and a willingness to kill are necessary as well, as they struggle to balance a survivalist spirit with a warrior's resolve to press on, living by their own rules in a tortured land, pursuing a dream that leads them into the unknown....

Ryan and his group make their way to a remote island in hopes of finding brief sanctuary. Instead, they are captured by an isolated tribe of descendants of African slaves from pre-Civil War days. When the tribesmen declare Mildred Wyeth "free" from her white masters, it is a twist of fate that ultimately leads the battle hardened medic to question where her true loyalties lie. Will she side with Ryan, J. B. Dix and those with whom she has forged a bond of trust and friendship...or with the people of her own blood? But the loss of Mildred is not the only threat the group faces-in a treacherous world where the ties that bind can cut both ways. In the Deathlands, the future is not what it used to be....


Book 68

Shaking Earth

by James Axler

Published 1 December 2004

After a nuclear blast all but vaporized the Western Hemisphere in the late twenty-first century, America became known as Deathlands, a hellhole that has proved itself a formidable foe in the fight for survival-a place where the will to see another day comes down to raw courage and a good aim.

Ryan Cawdor and his warrior group roam the vast and violent landscape, fighting to live and living to fight for a better life, knowing that death may not be the only way out, but it's the quickest.

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.... In the Deathlands everyone has a future. Some will wish they didn't't.


Book 69

Black Harvest

by James Axler

Published 8 March 2005

Shockwaves of atomic destruction turned 22nd-century America into a hell zone, but in the ruins the human spirit remains unconquerable. Daily survival depends on raw courage and a deadly aim, and with his warrior band Ryan Cawdor roams the forbidding new frontier known as Deathlands, determined to unlock its secrets....

Emerging from a gateway in the Midwest, Ryan senses trouble within the well-fortified ville of a local baron, whose understanding of pre-Dark medicine may be their one chance to save a wounded Jak. But while his white coats can make the drugs that heal, the baron knows the real power and money is in the hard-core Deathlands jolt. And where drugs and riches go, death shadows every step, no matter which side of a firefight you stand on.... In the Deathlands, tomorrow is never just another day.


Book 70

Vengeance Trail

by James Axler

Published 14 June 2005

As megalomaniac barons and savage anarchy compete to lay claim to post-nuclear America, perseverance and a will to live are what keep Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists roving through the worst and best of a new world. Armed with secrets of pre-Dark tech, they possess what few in Deathlands can imagine: hope for a better tomorrow.

Ryan Cawdor is gunned down and left for dead by the new provisional U.S. Army, commanded by a brilliant general with a propensity for casual mass murder and a vision to rebuild America. Waging war from his pre-Dark, fusion-powered armoured locomotive, he's poised to unlock the secrets of the Gateways-as the rest of Ryan's group stand powerless. All except one. Hope may be lost for Krysty Wroth. But revenge is enough. In the Deathlands, vengeance is the only justice.


Book 71

Ritual Chill

by James Axler

Published 1 September 2005

Time, and the fallout of a nuclear holocaust, have ravaged 21st century America, but one fundamental impulse of human nature remains: the will to survive. And only the strongest do survive.

Men like Ryan Cawdor, whose inner strength and stubborn resolve continue to defy the worst that Deathlands offers. With grim determination, he and his warrior group continue to face the stark and brutal choices of this new world that are often not choices at all, but imperatives. Act first, ask questions later.

A cold sense of deja vu becomes reality as the group emerges from a gateway they'd survived before-a grim graveyard of lost friends and nightmares. The consuming need to escape the dangerous melancholy of the place forces Ryan and company onto the frozen tundra, where an even greater menace awaits. The forbidding land harbours a dying tribe-cursed members of the ancient Inuit, who seize the arrival of Ryan and his band as their last hope to appease angry gods...by offering them up as human sacrifice. In the Deathlands, the price for survival is the constant fear of death.


Book 72

Atlantis Reprise

by James Axler

Published 13 December 2005

For Ryan Cawdor, leader of a small group of post-apocalypse survivalists, it's the inner fire of survival that guides them through this hell on earth to whatever lies beyond the daily fight for existence. There are times when the oblivion of death seems a most welcome journey out of Deathlands.

But for Ryan, death is something his warrior's soul will never take on without a fight.

In the forested coastal region of the eastern seaboard, near the Pine Barrens of what was New Jersey, Ryan and his companions encounter a group of rebels. Having broken away from the strange, isolated community known as Atlantis, and led by the obscene and paranoid Odyssey, this small group desires to live in peace. But in a chill-or-be-chilled world, freedom can only be won by spilled blood. Ryan and company are willing to come to the aid of these freedom fighters, ready to wage a war against the twisted tyranny that permeates Deathlands.


Book 73

Labyrinth

by James Axler

Published 14 March 2006

It took only minutes for human history to derail in a mushroom cloud-now more than a century later, whatever destiny lies ahead for humanity is bound by the rules that have governed survival since the dawn of time: part luck, part skill and part hard experience.

For Ryan Cawdor and his band, survival in Deathlands means keeping hold of what you have-or losing it along with your life.

In the ancient canyons of New Mexico, the citizens of Little Pueblo prepare to sacrifice Ryan and his companions to demons locked inside a twentieth-century dam project. But in a world where nuke-spawned predators feed upon weak and strong alike, Ryan knows avenging eternal spirits aren't't part of the game. Especially when these freaks spit yellow acid-and their creators are the white coat masterminds of genetic recombination, destroyed by their mutant offspring born of sin and science gone horribly wrong....


Book 74

Strontium Swamp

by James Axler

Published 13 June 2006

In their darkest moments, few citizens of the twentieth century could have envisioned the firestorm that plunged the world into the chaos of a nuke-altered reality.

Twenty-second-century America may not be much worth fighting for, but Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists push on, clinging to the deep wellspring of human hope that somewhere in the raw, violent new frontier of a rad-blasted tomorrow is someplace they can call home.

Weary, sick and hungry, the group barely survives a trek through the torturous deserts of the Southwest which leads into the bayous of what was once Louisiana, a place one of their own first called home. The eerie, lifeless silence of the swamps warns of trouble ahead. But nothing can prepare them for Dr. Jean, a madman who has harnessed pre-Dark tech to create an army of crazed zombies marching toward his own twisted vision of Deathlands domination.


Book 75

Shatter Zone

by James Axler

Published 1 September 2006

Scattered remains have been salvaged from the abandoned cities that withstood the atomic onslaught at the dawn of the twenty-fi rst century, but the secrets of pre-Dark tech buried in the mass grave of civilization are known to only a few.

Possessing understanding and the unshakable will to survive, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists face each day armed and ready for the enemy called Deathlands, whose formidable power has yet to claim victory over the human spirit....

In this raw, brutal world ruled by the strongest and the most vicious, an unseen player is manipulating Ryan and his band, luring him across an unseen battle line drawn in the dust outside Tucson, Arizona. Here a local barony becomes the staging ground for a battle unlike any other, against a foe whose ties to pre-Dark society present a new and incalculable threat to a fragile world. Ryan Cawdor is the only man living who stands between this adversary's glory... and the prize he seeks. In the Deathlands, the future lies somewhere between hope...and hell.


Book 76

Perdition Valley

by James Axler

Published 1 December 2006

Journeying across the devastated frontier of post nuclear America, Ryan Cawdor and his companions have unlocked clandestine knowledge of preDark tech, secrets that give them an edge for staying alive, an edge augmented by an ability to fi ght...

and win. Each day brings a new chance to find someplace to call home-somewhere apart from the grim realities of a civilization struggling to be reborn.

Hunted across the south-western desert, Ryan doesn't'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 twentieth-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. In the Deathlands, the past may be lost but its secrets are deadlier than ever....


Book 77

Cannibal Moon

by James Axler

Published 1 March 2007

In the hostile new world of post nuclear America, there are many ways to die, but few are clean or quick. Long ago Ryan Cawdor and his band threw in their lot together-to do or die trying.

It was a pact sealed in blood, one of selflessness and sacrifice that put a premium on the value of loyalty, friendship and honour-and the blind faith that survival is a better option than certain death.

Compassion is a luxury in a brutal land where life is cheap, but Dr. Mildred Wyeth holds fast to her physician's oath to show mercy. Now she's stricken by a plague that brings on a deep craving for human flesh. Unwilling to lose one of their own to this pervasive pestilence without a fight, the companions follow the trail to Cajun country, where the mysterious queen of the Cannies is rumoured to possess the only antidote to the grim fate that awaits Mildred... and perhaps her warrior friends.


Book 78

Sky Raider

by James Axler

Published 1 June 2007

Raw courage and knowledge of the arcane secrets of preDark technology have enabled Ryan Cawdor and his warrior companions to live and roam a land tortured-but not destroyed-by apocalyptic madness. In a world where the price of living is paid in fl esh and blood, nothing is ever free, not even death.

In Deathlands, power brings more power to those able to command it by means fair or foul. Yet few among the most tyrannical barons can rival the ruthlessness of Sandra Tregart, whose despotic visions are being realized by resurrected technology: air power. With her restored biplane, she delivers death from the skies to all who defy her supremacy-a virulent ambition that challenges Ryan Cawdor and his band in unfathomable new ways.


Book 80

Sunspot

by James Axler

Published 1 December 2007

In the wake of a nuclear Armageddon, the hellscape of Deathlands conspires to torment strong and weak alike, festering most deeply in those who still possess the deepest core of human decency. Now the past lies in the ashes, while the mysteries of the future unfold in the hands of those willing to live each new day in search of hope for tomorrow.

The endless struggle for power among the barons is a way of life in Deathlands, but Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists take no sides–unless forced to. But as the land around the Rio Grande reaches the breaking point in a bitter war, the companions are harnessed into battle, moving toward a grim confrontation with an old enemy whose secret stockpile of twenty-first-century nerve gas is poised to unleash infinite madness once more upon a ravaged earth.

In the Deathlands,

history readies to repeat itself…


Book 81

Desert Kings

by James Axler

Published 1 March 2008

Book 82

Apocalypse Unborn

by James Axler

Published 1 June 2008

Reborn primeval in the fires of thermonuclear hell, America's aftermath is one of manifest evil, savage endurance and lingering hope. Traversing the lawless continent on a journey without destination, Ryan Cawdor seeks humanity in an inhuman world. In the Deathlands, life is cheap, death is free and survival demands the highest price of all.

Magus is a steel-eyed cybernetic sociopath whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Now, the savage Pacific isles above a long-submerged Southern California are his new arena. Ryan wants a second chance to chill Magus once and for all. But as the ringmaster of torture orchestrates his magnum opus, a stunning sideshow is under way. PreDark white coats believe they have found the key to turn back time and intercept the deed that erased human history.


Book 84

Plague Lords

by James Axler

Published 1 December 2008

After a century of chaos following the nukes, Deathlands is forming pockets of civilization, aided by preDark stockpiles of weapons, fuel and pieces of 21st-century knowledge. But these troves are hard to come by, and survival remains a blood quest.

For Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists, luck is sparse, chances slimmer, yet hope drives them onward.

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 rumours 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 a grim vengeance. When civilization hits rock bottom, a new stone age will emerge, with its own personal day of blood reckoning.

In the Deathlands, the future could always be worse. Now it is...