open
Upgrade to a better browser, please.

Search Worlds Without End

Advanced Search
Search Terms:
Author: [x] James Axler
Award(s):
Hugo
Nebula
BSFA
Mythopoeic
Locus SF
Derleth
Campbell
WFA
Locus F
Prometheus
Locus FN
PKD
Clarke
Stoker
Aurealis SF
Aurealis F
Aurealis H
Locus YA
Norton
Jackson
Legend
Red Tentacle
Morningstar
Golden Tentacle
Holdstock
All Awards
Sub-Genre:
Date Range:  to 

James Axler


Red Holocaust

Deathlands: Book 2

James Axler

When all is lost, there's always the future. But the future in a world shrouded in the radioactive red dust clouds of a generation-old global nuclear war depends on finding hidden caches of food, weapons and technology--the legacy of a preholocaust society--stashed in lonely outposts known as redoubts. When Ryan Cawdor discovers a redoubt in the bitter freakish wasteland that now passes for Alaska, he also uncovers a new threat to a slowly reemerging America.

Neutron Solstice

Deathlands: Book 3

James Axler

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.

In the reeking swampland that was the Mississippi basin, neutron bombs have left barren cityscapes the terrirories of small groups of bitterly opposed survivors. Ryan Cawdor and his companions Krysty Wroth and J.B. Dix come upon one such group who are striving to revive life on earth the way it was before the bombs fell. But they're up against a postholocaust feudal lord who's just as determined to wipe them out.

Crater Lake

Deathlands: Book 4

James Axler

Near what was once the Pacific Northwest, Ryan Cawdor and his roving band of post-holocaust survivors discover a beautiful valley untouched by the nuclear blast that changed the earth forever. Resisting the temptation to settle in the idyllic land, the group is captured and forced deep beneath an extinct volcano to an isolated community of in-bred scientists who are blindly laboring to find better ways of genocide, unaware that the world they are striving to slaughter has already died.

Homeward Bound

Deathlands: Book 5

James Axler

Ryan Cawdor's post-holocaust odyssey across America is about to come full circle -- Ryan Cawdor is going home.

Forced away from Front Royal by a power-mad brother who had already committed fratricide, Ryan had roamed a devastated America searching out the small pockets of life where civilization was being reborn.

Emerging from a gateway in the ruins of New York City, Ryan decides to put his own house in order -- it's time to avenge the deaths of his father and older brother.

Accompanied by Krysty Wroth and J.B. Dix, Ryan Cawdor comes face-to-face with the harsh reality of post-nuclear America. In the Deathlands, honour and fair play are words of the past. Vengeance is a word to live by.

Pony Soldiers

Deathlands: Book 6

James Axler

Ryan Cawdor and his band of post-holocaust survivors come face-to-face with a specter from the past: out of the swirling dust that was once New Mexico bursts a regiment of pony soldiers, led by a man with flowing yellow hair.

Brandishing Colts and Winchesters, the horsemen grimly prepare to destroy the ragtag strangers, intruders who dare to pnetrate their ruthlessly defended stronghold.

As the final showdows nears, Ryan makes a startling discovery: either he and his companions have chron-jumped back to the 1800s, or General George Custer has been catapulted into the twenty-second century...

Dectra Chain

Deathlands: Book 7

James Axler

The world blew out in 2001. Vast areas of what was the United States lie beneath an umbrella of noxious dust and radioactive debris, a mantle of destruction drawn over a land of doom. Much of the East Coast has been obliterated; the Southwest is a land of fire; cities of smoldering ash have given birth to horrifically mutated life forms. Such is the Deathlands, legacy of global annihilation.

But there were survivors, struggling to overcome a dark new age of plague, radiation sickness, barbarism and madness. Out of the ruins come Ryan Cawdor and his band of post-holocaust survivors, whose odyssey of discovery takes them in search of other pockets of civilization.

Emerging from a gateway in Maine, Ryan confronts a ruthless and brutal sea captain, a woman prepared to go to any lengths to get what she wants...

Ice and Fire

Deathlands: Book 8

James Axler

Snakefish, California, is rich in the currency of post-holocaust America gasoline.

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.

Ryan Cawdor and his companions emerge from a gateway and step into the path of a smoldering war for power.

Red Equinox

Deathlands: Book 9

James Axler

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.

Beneath a mantle of chemical clouds an strontium snow, the former jewel in Russia's crown is teeming with a bizarre mix of mutated beings and old enemies all intent on killing Ryan and his band of post-holocaust survivors.

A new dark age has dawned with the hope of a promised land. But in the Deathlands, hope is not enough.

Northstar Rising

Deathlands: Book 10

James Axler

A generation after a global nuclear catastrophe, Minnesota is a steamy tropical environment of lush plants and horrifically mutated insects.

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.

In the jungles of Minnesota, the group discovers yet another freakish legacy of a world cone hideously wrong: Vikings.

In the Deathlands, the past and the future are clashing with frightening force.

Time Nomads

Deathlands: Book 11

James Axler

In the blasted heart of the new America, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior-survivalists search for hidden caches of food, weapons and technology -- the legacy of a preholocaust society -- stashed in lonely outposts known as redoubts.

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.

In the Deathlands the past is a dream. The future is a nightmare.

Latitude Zero

Deathlands: Book 12

James Axler

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.

Ryan strikes a deal with the leader of a wagon train heading west: protection against all attackers in exchange for food and water.

It is a deal that pits the one-eyed warrior against his oldest enemy -- a sadistic, ruthless man who would stop at nothing to get his hands on Ryan Cawdor.

In the Deathlands, everyone and everything is fair game, but only the strongest survive.

Seedling

Deathlands: Book 13

James Axler

America's post-holocaust nightmare continues as Ryan Cawdor returns to the monstrous urban slum that was once New York City...and discovers a piece of the future...

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 Manhattan -- 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. And here, in this once great metropolis, lives a ten-year-old boy. He is Ryan Cawdor's son....

The children shall inherit the Earth.

Dark Carnival

Deathlands: Book 14

James Axler

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," whose murderous games trap Ryan into a midnight killing spree... with only one way out.

In the Deathlands, the future is a dream. Reality is a nightmare.

Chill Factor

Deathlands: Book 15

James Axler

America's legacy of annihilation continues for Ryan Cawdor and his band of post-apocalypse survivors on a quest to find a peaceful new life. Trekking through the ruins of a devastated America, they search for secrets of the past that might promise a future. This is the odyssey called Deathlands.

Ryan travels to the snowy wastes north of the forty-ninth 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.

Welcome to the Deathlands, where you don't have to die to go to hell.

Moon Fate

Deathlands: Book 16

James Axler

Generations have passed since a nuclear blast all but turned America to dust. Out of the ruins emerges a band of warrior-survivalists, led by a one-eyed man called Ryan Cawdor. In their quest to find a better life, they embark on a perilous odyssey across the ravaged wasteland known as Deathlands.

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...

In the Deathlands, the only thing that gets easier is dying.

Fury's Pilgrims

Deathlands: Book 17

James Axler

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.

He captures an attacker and learns that the town is run by a tribe of nocturnal female mutants. But not even torture yields any word of Krysty. Ryan fears for her life, especially since she's a woman

In the Deathlands, life is a contest where the only victor is death.

Shockscape

Deathlands: Book 18

James Axler

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. The odds are not good: if the mutant grizzlies and roving marauders don't get them, the sadistic guntoughs in Yuma will.

In the Deathlands, survival is a gamble. Death is the only sure bet.

Deep Empire

Deathlands: Book 19

James Axler

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 seventy-foot sea snakes lurk among the reefs around underwater volcanoes, while typhoons and pirates turn the crystal waters above into a death zone.

But Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior-survivalists find a slice of heaven in this ocean hell at a marine research center created to further the amazing promise of the dolphins. Here, a brilliant scientist offers the perfect vacation of sun, fishing and fun. Until Ryan discovers this post-holocaust aquatic paradise is a hoax -- and gentle dolphins are being mutated into killers.

Welcome to the Deathlands, and the future nobody planned for.

Cold Asylum

Deathlands: Book 20

James Axler

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 rumours 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. At Baron Mandeville's opulent homestead, a glittering ornate fortress called Sun Crest, a secret and perverted game continues: gladiator contests among the guests. The winners get to play the ultimate life-and-death game -- a hunt in which they are the quarry.

Hope died in the Deathlands, but the will to live goes on.

Twilight Children

Deathlands: Book 21

James Axler

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, fledgling 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.

The ville is an oasis in a blighted land, but among the blond, blue-eyed near-children, Ryan and his wayfarers are pariahs destined to find out that the quest for Paradise exacts a steep price.

In the Deathlands, the future looks terminally brief.

Rider, Reaper

Deathlands: Book 22

James Axler

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 armoury, his troops unchallenged, his agenda unstoppable.

Allied with local vengeance-hungry Indians, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists begin a cross-desert manhunt on horseback through the acrid canyon lands, where danger waits in the form of fifteen-foot rattlesnakes, acid-rain hurricanes -- and a man who grimly prepares to destroy his pursuers.

Hope died in the Deahtlands, but the will to live goes on.

Road Wars

Deathlands: Book 23

James Axler

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. While Ryan battles the blood-hungry predators of the road, back in New Mexico, Krysty Wroth and the others fight off attacks against their weakened group in an all-out struggle for survival.

In the Deathlands, fate and chance are clashing with frightening force.

Trader Redux

Deathlands: Book 24

James Axler

Ruled by a perverse and malevolent Nature, roamed by lawless remnants of humanity, the Deathlands is what's left of the continental U.S. after a nuclear apocalypse unleashed hell on earth. Here, only a few can survive and still retain hope for the future, and of these, none are more determined than the exiled son of a coastal baron and his closely knit band of warrior survivalists.

The years of struggle in the new reality made Ryan Cawdor a bold and undisputed leader, but now he may have to contend with his former mentor, the enigmatic Trader. Together with J. B. Dix and Abe, they make a perilous journey down the mighty Colorado, and in the Grand Canyon's mile-deep crags, a degenerate barony and mutie death traps test the limits of the group's survival skills.

Weary and torn from their cross-country trek, they return to their stronghold in New Mexico to find it abandoned, with no sign of Krysty Wroth, Dean or the others....

Imagine your worst nightmare. It's called Deathlands.

Genesis Echo

Deathlands: Book 25

James Axler

Deathlands is a world savaged beyond recognition by a centuries-old nuclear blast. While many prosper on the savagery of this lawless land, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists carry the seeds of hope and courage in a daring quest to find the gateway to the future....

The warrior survivalists are reluctant guests in a reactivated twentieth-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.

Before they can escape, Ryan's loyalty will be tested, and Krysty's special powers may threaten her very existence.

In the Deathlands, the war for domination is over, but the struggle for survival continues.

Shadowfall

Deathlands: Book 26

James Axler

The nuclear conflagration that consumed the world generations ago stripped away most of its bounty, throwing survivors back to more savage ways of existence. Amid the ruins, Ryan Cawdor leads the daring few who wage a grim battle in a quest for a better future.

As elsewhere in the Deathlands, what remains of the Sunshine State is rules by tooth and claw and unbridled instinct. It's an alien, inhospitable terrain of sulfur pits and lethal geysers, inhabited by mutated life-forms. Here Ryan finds that survival demands hard and fast choices, and unexpected alliances. To hold his band of warrior survivalists together, he comes to an agonizing crossroads, torn by a debt to the past and loyalty to the present.

Hope died in the Deathlands, but the will to live goes on.

Ground Zero

Deathlands: Book 27

James Axler

Ryan Cawdor and his band of survivalists search for a better future in the devastated ruins of a city once called Washington. Facing double jeopardy posed by a barbaric baron, and the indifferent wrath of nature, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists are determined to persevere against predatory foes.

In the Deathlands, everyone and everything is fair game, but only the strongest survive.

Deathlands is desolate and mute testimony to the aftermath of the nuclear blasts that laid waste the earth. Wayfarers in their blighted world, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists search for a better future in the devastated ruins of a once-proud land. The radiation-poisoned hellhole is their home, and they are determined to defend it from the predatory foreigners emerging from a gateway.

And where its proud heart, the city of Washington, had stood, Ryan Cawdor faces double jeopardy posed by a barbaric baron, and the indifferent wrath of nature. In the Deathlands, everyone and everything is fair game.

Emerald Fire

Deathlands: Book 28

James Axler

Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists emerge from a gateway into an abandoned U.S. military complex, now a native shrine to the white gods of pre-blast days. Here the group is given royal treatment, only to discover that privilege has a blood price.

In the Deathlands, you're always too far from home....

The global apocalypse of 2001 did not destroy the world -- only a way of life. Now, three generations after the blast, the indomitable human spirit struggles against the devastation and hopelessness. For one band of survivors, hope lies in hidden gateways, portals to uncertain places of salvation or doom.

The Amazon Basin remains a land of primordial beauty and primitive people. Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists emerge from a gateway into an abandoned U.S., military complex, now a native shrine to the white gods of pre-blast days. Here the group is given royal treatment, only to discover that privilege has a blood price.

In the Deathlands, you're always too far from home....

Bloodlines

Deathlands: Book 29

James Axler

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. But the ultimate threat comes upon them in an unguarded moment, shocking in its scope and casting more blame on generations past.

In the Deathlands, nothing is as it appears.

Crossways

Deathlands: Book 30

James Axler

As the twenty-second century emerges from the blight of nuclear damnation, humanity is slowly coming to terms with the bizarre new world of Deathlands, where each new generation holds the promise of renewal and redemption -- in men like Ryan Cawdor and his son, Dean.

Ryan Cawdor and companions emerge from a gateway into the ravaged world of the Rockies. It's old hunting grounds for Ryan and the Titian-haired Krysty Wroth -- her home, and the place where they first came together. Here Ryan has an unsettling choice to make, and Krysty a debt to pay. But her Mother Sonja may be long gone, and the past becomes a trap as they press toward Harmony, a marauding gang hard on their trail.

Hope died in the Deathlands, but the will to live goes on.

Keepers of the Sun

Deathlands: Book 31

James Axler

The nuclear storm that swept the globe has left behind the Deathlands, a legacy of hate and violence. Pockets of survivors live off the ravaged land or on stockpiles found in redoubts. But from out of the ashes, a fearless man spearheads the drive to pierce the heart of darkness....

The gateways are secret installations from predark days used by Ryan Cawdor and his group as escape routes. Once again the warrior survivalists emerge from a jump and into a world -- and empire fallen -- ruled by the samurai code. And here Ryan has to face a new threat that could destroy the only home they know.

A new dark age has dawned with the hope of a promised land. But in the Deathlands, hope is not enough.

Circle Thrice

Deathlands: Book 32

James Axler

The dark frontier of the twenty-second century is lawless and oppressive, but humanity is slowly beginning to carve out new beginnings in the midst of this brutal, nuke-altered world. In pockets of civilization called villes, peace and hope start to flourish. But law and order invite what's evil and corrupt....

Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists are guests of a powerful Tennessee baroness and her mysterious adviser at her ville on what was once the mighty Mississippi River. Beautiful and alluring, the baroness is skilled in the dark arts, and she will do anything to secure her future.

In the Deathlands, when hope is not enough, the laws of survival are called into play.

Eclipse at Noon

Deathlands: Book 33

James Axler

Hard on the heels of their escape from a powerful baroness, the wayfarers arrive at the shore of the mighty Mississippi. As if whisked back in time, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists find themselves passengers on a riverboat. It's a high time, until the stakes escalate and Ryan is sold to the highest bidder.

Stoneface

Deathlands: Book 34

James Axler

In 2001, the face of the earth changed forever in a nuclear firestorm. Generations after the apocalypse, Ryan Cawdor leads the courageous struggle for survival in a brutal world, striving to make a difference in the battle raging between good and evil.

On a sacred aboriginal land, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists discover Mount Rushmore still standing, a symbol of long-gone power. Here a charismatic baron and his followers force Ryan to breach the icy fastness of the mountain stronghold, which harbours a cache of twentieth-century technology -- and a chilling surprise from the past.

In the Deathlands, the war is over... but the fight has just begun.

Bitter Fruit

Deathlands: Book 35

James Axler

In the nuclear-storm devastated Deathlands a warrior survivalist of the twenty-second century leads the relentless fight to reclaim a lost world.

Barely escaping from a marauding gang, Ryan Cawdor and his band of post-holocaust survivors emerge from a gateway into an idyllic community ruled by Druidic law. But this new Eden may be a mirage, concealing a deadly threat. For the seed of dissent had been sown in the past, and is again ready to destroy.

Nature rules in the Deathlands, but man still destroys.

Skydark

Deathlands: Book 36

James Axler

It's now generations after the firestorm that nearly consumed the earth, but the survivors haven't yet finished paying for the sins of the fathers. All of life suffered, and of those that survived, not all survived well. This cradle of life is now home to forms fallen far from their human inheritance.

Fear spreads like wildfire through the wastelands when an army of mutants, led by a charismatic and powerful lord, goes on the rampage. As panic and infighting cripple the baronies, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists must find a way to unite them before the human race is wiped off the face of the earth.

In the Deathlands, the future is just beginning.

Demons of Eden

Deathlands: Book 37

James Axler

The legacy of the twentieth century was the world-wasting nuclear firestorm that destroyed a way of life forever. Civilization is in ruins, its pitiful remnants perverted by brute force, and mankind is less at home on the planet than ever before. Yet in the desolation that is the Deathlands, an intrepid group of wayfarers continues the determined fight for survival and a better future.

Leaving a western ville besieged by desert pirates in search of the legendary cities of the Spanish conquistadors, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists enter a hidden valley untouched by civilization. Here the descendants of the First People are at one with Nature, following their sacred and mystical traditions. But deep in the valley is an awesome force, a power that can freely heal... or wantonly destroy.

In the Deathlands life is locked in mortal combat, and the only way out is the future.

The Mars Arena

Deathlands: Book 38

James Axler

In the ruins of Las Vegas, Ryan Cawdor enters the blood-soaked arena of regional barons to reclaim his son's life.

The nuclear firestorms had swept away the hatreds and the power struggles that had dominated the Earth for decades. But no hoped-for better reality was born in that blighted landscape. In a lawless and maddened world, blood and violence remained a means to survival -- and power.

In the harsh territory near what used to be the Western badlands, Ryan Cawdor and his crew join the search for the wreck of a crashed space station. But in the ruins of Las Vegas he falls prey to a maelstrom of violence. Hostage in a bitter war between regional barons, Ryan finds that even his best effort is an odds-even gamble, and that his son's life may depend on the whims of destiny.

Deathlands is a conspiracy against survival....

Watersleep

Deathlands: Book 39

James Axler

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 postholocaust 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 that pulls Krysty Wroth and Jak Lauren beneath the waves. Now Ryan must contend with a self-proclaimed lord of the sea as he struggles to reclaim what's his from a watery grave.

In the Deathlands, there's no waking from the nightmare...

Nightmare Passage

Deathlands: Book 40

James Axler

In the sands of California's Guadalupe Desert, Ryan and companions fear they have crossed time lines when they stumble upon a settlement straight out of fabled Egypt. What they find is a rebellion against an aspiring god-king who wants to enslave them. To overcome an enemy with unusual powers, Ryan must bide his time though his every instinct is to strike out in rage.

Freedom Lost

Deathlands: Book 41

James Axler

Ryan Cawdor and his team are en route to his boyhood home in West Virginia when they are offered shelter--for a price--in the remains of the Freedom Mall, once the largest in the Carolinas, operated by Baron Freedom. The huge mall is a haven for its inhabitants, but Ryan is given an ultimatum--pay a hefty fine or help the Baron's group fight against the "stickies", a marauding army of mutants. Ryan is left no choice but to help, and finds himself pitted against the Baron and the stickies in a desperate struggle to save his friend and escape.

Way of the Wolf

Deathlands: Book 42

James Axler

The bleak nightmare of the nuclear winter has abated, but the Earth is scarred, its ecosystems poisoned, many of its life forms mutated and struggling for existence. Here, in the torn remnants of American, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists stake their claim as the inheritors of Deathlands, their unforgiving world.

The mountains of the Arctic Circle are shaken with ceaseless tremors as the frozen earth Threatens to swallow itself. Trapped in the hostile landscape by a mat-trans jump, Ryan and companions find the ultimate challenge to their will to survive. The odds dwindle when they become the new bounty in a struggle for dominance between a group of Neanderthals and descendants of a military garrison stranded generations ago.

Deathlands. A perilous journey through uncharted territory.

Dark Emblem

Deathlands: Book 43

James Axler

After a relatively easy mat-trans jump, Ryan and his companions find themselves in the company of Dr. Silas Jamaisvous, a seemingly pleasant host who appears to understand the mat-trans systems extremely well. Seeing signs that local inhabitants have been used as guinea pigs for the scientist's ruthless experiments, the group realizes that they have to stop this line of research before it goes too far

Crucible of Time

Deathlands: Book 44

James Axler

A connection to his past awaits Ryan Cawdor as the group takes a mat-trans jump to the remnants of California. Brother Joshua Wolfe is the leader of the Children of the Rock--a cult that has left a trail of barbarism and hate across the ravaged California countryside. Ryan and his compatriots must survive the battle rituals prescribed by the cult and escape the misguided wrath of their enemies, the Mescalero Indians, in order to continue their journey across the wastelands.

Starfall

Deathlands: Book 45

James Axler

Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists jump into Montana territory, where they are joined by members of the Heimdall Foundation, an organization of whitecoats that investigates the possibility of alien visitation on Earth. Ryan is concerned when Krysty is rendered helpless by one of the Chosen--a type of doomie mutant with mind-control abilities. The group is accosted by a baron's sec men, who are searching for valuable debris from an abandoned space station that fell from the sky.

Gemini Rising

Deathlands: Book 46

James Axler

Book #1 in the Baronies Trilogy of Deathlands

Ryan Cawdor comes home to West Virginia and his nephew Nathan, to whom Cawdor had entrusted the Cawdor barony. Waiting for Cawdor are two of his oldest enemies, ready to overtake the barony and the Cawdor name.Unable to help an ailing Krysty Wroth, Cawdor must face this challenge to the future of the East Coast baronies on his own.

Gaia's Demise

Deathlands: Book 47

James Axler

Book #2 in the Baronies Trilogy of Deathlands

The trail of the East Coast conspiracy leads to Tennessee, where a new weapon to control the weather and disrupt human thinking has been wreaking havoc. Behind it all is Ryan's nemesis, Dr. Jamaisvous, who once again finds escape via the gateway.

Dark Reckoning

Deathlands: Book 48

James Axler

Book #3 in The Baronies Trilogy of Deathlands

A secret community of scientists gains control of an orbiting transformer that could become the ultimate weapon of terror -- and it's up to Ryan Cawdor to halt the evil mastermind before he can incinerate Front Royal.

Shadow World

Deathlands: Book 49

James Axler

The hellscape of postnuclear America has a bloodlust for the good, the innocent and the helpless. Survival in Deathlands demands a will to endure that is as raw and savage as this brutal frontier. For Deathlands is the future's last and only hope for both its inheritors and strange invaders to whom this perdition promises a paradise.

Ryan Cawdor is a true warrior of Deathlands, fighting for survival in a bizarre, freakish world. But now, beyond the unseen perils, a new threat emerges: invaders arrive from a parallel earth where the nukecaust never happened. Ryan is abducted through a time corridor to the twin earth, where he dixcovers a nightmare that makes Deathlands look tame by comparison and a new plot for its grotesque destruction...

In the Deathlands the future is undertain, but it's all that remains.

Pandora's Redoubt

Deathlands: Book 50

James Axler

In the post-holocaust wastelands of 22nd-centry America, precious little remains of life before the nuclear blowout. Legends circulate of Redoubts, secret pre-Dark military bases with caches of food, medicine and, most important, weapons. Yet only a few of the ragged elite possess the arcane knowledge that enables them to locate and access these valuable storehouses.

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.

In the Deathlands, the future is just an idea.

Rat King

Deathlands: Book 51

James Axler

What was once the United States is now the rad-blasted world of Deathlands...a place that more than lives up to its name. Led by a one-eyed warrior called Ryan Cawdor, a straggling band of survivors roams the nuke-ravaged land, homing their survival skills in a wasteland where danger lurks over the next hill.

Emerging into one of the predark installations known as redoubts, the group is taken prisoner in a fully functioning army base operating in a parody of life before the blowout. Its occupants are inbred soldiers, a legacy to the lost secrets of the Totality Concept. Led by the mad general of an obscene military project, the base has found its last hope in the ragtag bunch, a fate that may be even more horrifying than the hell they have survived.

In the Deathlands nothing is certain... especially the future.

Zero City

Deathlands: Book 52

James Axler

The nuclear Armageddon of 2001 put the world on an odyssey of savage rebirth. Now, little more than a hundred years after the blast, the quest for power is viciously embraced by America's new masters, barons commanding fortresses called villes, policed by stonehearts called sec men. One of them is a warrior survivalist named Ryan Cawdor, believed to possess pre-apocalyptic knowledge that holds hope for a beleaguered future.Hungry and exhausted, Ryan and his band emerge from a redoubt into an untouched predark city, and uncover a cache of weapons and food. 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 where a local baron uses human flesh as fertilizer....

Savage Armada

Deathlands: Book 53

James Axler

Book #1 of the Skydark Chronicles of Deathlands

A nuclear apocalypse almost destroyed Western civilization in 2001, leaving in its place the forbidding world of Deathland. Though the human spirit has not been broken, the new rules of survival are harsh and barbaric. As barons fight for power in a savage new America, power is claimed with the salvaged arsenels of a predark world: weapons, gasoline and those willing to kill.

The Marshall Islands, once the testing grounds for twentieth-century weapons of mass destruction, remains perversely beautiful. But the infested waters become the battleground for looting pirates and sec men in still-functional navy PT boats, all driven by greed and madness to plunder the predark caches of science and technology hidden in the islands. Ryan Cawdor and his warrior band emerge in this perilous waterworld, caught in a grim fight to unlock the secrets of the past.

In the Deathlands, the price for survival is high.

Judas Strike

Deathlands: Book 54

James Axler

Book #2 of the Skydark Chronicles of Deathlands

A nuclear endgame played out among the superpowers created a fiery cataclysm that turned America into a treacherous new frontier. But an intrepid group of warrior survivalists roams the wastelands, unlocking the secrets of a pre-dark world. Ryan Cawdor and his band have become living legends in a world of madness and death where savagery reigns, but the human spirit endures...

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.

Imagine your worst nightmare. This is Deathlands.

Shadow Fortress

Deathlands: Book 55

James Axler

Book #3 of the Skydark Chronicles of Deathlands

A planet ravaged by the apocalyptic blast of 2001 gave birth to a new world of savagery -- and a new breed of hero. In a land where violence rules with absolute authority, Ryan Cawdor and his wayfarer survivalists roam the strange, nascent twenty-second century, living by their own creed of honor as they continue their search for a sanctuary they can call home.

In what was once the nuclear testing ground of the predark 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 twentieth-century hot air balloon left untouched by the blast, they escape to the neighboring pirate-ruled Forbidden Island, with the baron's sec men in hot pursuit -- and become trapped in a war for total supremacy of this water world.

Not even Deathlands can deny the human will to survive.

Sunchild

Deathlands: Book 56

James Axler

In the ruins of nuke-ravaged Seattle, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior companions come face-to-face with the Illuminated Ones, a secret order whose knowledge foretold the end of the world. Recognizing that the true power rests in the hands of the baron's insane wife, Ryan and his group seek to shift the power in their favor.

Breakthrough

Deathlands: Book 57

James Axler

Deathlands is a living hell, but one place is even worse: a parallel Earth where the atomic mega-cull never happened. Now the ruler of this Otherworld Earth and her genetically engineered female force have invaded Deathlands, which offers a ready supply of slaves and raw energy. It is up to Ryan Cawdor and his warrior companions to stop the invaders before this grotesque new order redefines brutality.

Salvation Road

Deathlands: Book 58

James Axler

Two hundred years after a nuclear war has ravaged America, Ryan Cawdor and his roving band of survivalists continue their quest for a better life. That's difficult in Texas, where the brutal sun burns the desert red-hot, and where the greedy and the mad try to mine the black crude beneath the scorched earth. It is here that Ryan and the companions find themselves in a no-win situation against a rogue baron. With success comes freedom ...with failure, death!

Amazon Gate

Deathlands: Book 59

James Axler

Book #1 of the Illuminated Ones duology of Deathlands

At the heart of the strange new post-nuclear world known as Deathlands lie the mysteries of pre-dark society -- secrets that may hold the key to a future of peace... or peril. In perhaps their one chance to reclaim the future from the jaws of madness, Ryan Cawdor and the companions ally with a female-dominant tribe who have found the gateway belonging to the pre-dark cabal.

Destiny's Truth

Deathlands: Book 60

James Axler

Book #2 of the Illuminated Ones duology of Deathlands

Allied with a tribe of women warriors, Ryan Cawdor and his band of survivalists continue their quest to locate the Illuminated Ones, a pre-dark sect who may possess secret knowledge of Deathlands. But their dangerous pursuit becomes even more treacherous when their quarry unleashes a deadly plague in a twisted plot to cleanse the earth.Destiny's Truth is the second episode in The Illuminated Ones, a two-book story arc in which the warrior survivalists battle the remnants of the pre-dark U.S. government -- otherwise known as the Illuminated Ones.

Skydark Spawn

Deathlands: Book 61

James Axler

A dark and Brooding land hungrily awaits the next generation...

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 . . .

Damnation Road Show

Deathlands: Book 62

James Axler

In the ruins of a nuke-shattered America, eerie remnants of preDark times linger as a traveling road show gives new meaning to the word chilling. Facing tremendous odds, Ryan and his warrior group challenge this wandering death merchant and his army of circus freaks. But no one is aware that a steel-eyed monster from the past is preparing a private act that would give Ryan star billing...

Devil Riders

Deathlands: Book 63

James Axler

Book #1 of the Scorpion God duology of Deathlands

Judgment day has come and gone. Now only the strongest survive.

A century after the nuclear conflagrating 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 nautical 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 a clean bed in a 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.

Bloodfire

Deathlands: Book 64

James Axler

Book #2 of the Scorpion God duology of Deathlands

The Amazon Basin remains a land of primoridal beauty and primitive people. Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists emerge from a gateway into an abandoned U.S. military complex, now a native shrine to the white gods of pre-blast days. Here the group is given royal treatment, only to discover that privilege has a blood price.

Hellbenders

Deathlands: Book 65

James Axler

As Ryan Cawdor and his fellow warriors continue their daily struggle for a better life, they encounter a redoubt filled with preDark technology. While attempting to unlock some of the secrets of post-nuclear America, the half-mad former sec man who is in control orders them to jump-start his private war against two local barons. Under the harsh and pitiless glare of the desert sun, the companions fight to see another day...whatever it brings.

Separation

Deathlands: Book 66

James Axler

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 survivalistic 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....

Death Hunt

Deathlands: Book 67

James Axler

The treacherous new world of post-nuclear America guarantees no inalienable rights--no promises of freedom, liberty or justice for all. Instead, chaos and bloodlust thrive--but so do the innate strengths of the human spirit, and the virtues of honor and courage. Ryan Cawdor has endured the worst that Deathlands has to offer and continues to push on, leading his companions through a land of madness and treachery, seizing each new day with a deep, primal hope that refuses to die....

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. In the Deathlands, the odds of survival just got worse....

Shaking Earth

Deathlands: Book 68

James Axler

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.

Black Harvest

Deathlands: Book 69

James Axler

Shockwaves of atomic destruction turned 22nd-century America into a hellzone, 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 whitecoats can make the drugs that heal, the baron knows the real power and money is in the hardcore 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.

Vengeance Trail

Deathlands: Book 70

James Axler

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 armored 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.

Ritual Chill

Deathlands: Book 71

James Axler

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 déjà 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 harbors 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.

Atlantis Reprise

Deathlands: Book 72

James Axler

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 and 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.

Labyrinth

Deathlands: Book 73

James Axler

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 part of the game. Especially when these freaks spit yellow acid--and their creators are the whitecoat masterminds of genetic recombination, destroyed by their mutant offspring born of sin and science gone horribly wrong....

Strontium Swamp

Deathlands: Book 74

James Axler

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.

Shatter Zone

Deathlands: Book 75

James Axler

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.

Perdition Valley

Deathlands: Book 76

James Axler

Journeying across the devastated frontier of postnuclear 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 fight... 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 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 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....

Cannibal Moon

Deathlands: Book 77

James Axler

In the hostile new world of postnuclear 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 honor--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 rumored to possess the only antidote to the grim fate that awaits Mildred... and perhaps her warrior friends.

Sky Raider

Deathlands: Book 78

James Axler

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.

Remember Tomorrow

Deathlands: Book 79

James Axler

After twenty-first-century America exploded in the chaos of a nuclear nightmare, a raw new landscape emerged, a world where death and dreams clash. Still, the best of the human spirit endures: the hope, the will to survive. But so does the worst: the greed, tyranny, the easy death. In his enduring odyssey across the hostile world called Deathlands, Ryan Cawdor is a warrior no enemy wants to cross.

An earthquake in the Arkansas dust bowls leaves the companions for dead, until they are all reunited except for armorer J. B. Dix. Alive, though with no memory of the past, he is in the uncertain employ of the ironfisted ruler of a vital outpost along the routes that traverse the wastelands. Duma is the biggest, most dangerous ville in all of Deathlands, where jolt, jack, booze and sex are worth more than human life. Stalking Duma and preparing to attack this orgy of firepower is a crazed band of inbred worshippers of Nagasaki... and their unwilling new sec force led by Ryan Cawdor.

Sunspot

Deathlands: Book 80

James Axler

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-fi rst-century nerve gas is poised to unleash infi nite madness once more upon a ravaged earth.

Desert Kings

Deathlands: Book 81

James Axler

More than a century past the fiery dawn of post-nuclear America, Ryan Cawdor and his companions journey across a land lost yet reborn, where lawless violence and human perseverance clash, and unsolved mysteries hint at redemption. Though hope lingers under the blood and the dust, looking blindly toward the future is the surest way to get killed. Staying hard and cold for today is the only way to survive....

Traversing the terrain of Utah, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists find new evidence that the past is alive and dangerous--with a score to settle. Once before they'd battled and destroyed the brilliant and cunning cyborg known as Delphi, but he's reborn and ready to continue his drive for domination. His vast understanding of preDark tech, his cadre of well-armed cutthroats and his legions of worshippers make him monstrous in his quest for power. And he's eager for the keys to the kingdom that only the legendary Deathlands survivors--and their secrets--can help him attain.

Apocalypse Unborn

Deathlands: Book 82

James Axler

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 Pacifi c 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 whitecoats believe they have found the key to turn back time and intercept the deed that erased human history.

Thunder Road

Deathlands: Book 83

James Axler

A century after the nukecaust, humanity adheres to the most basic laws of survival: live or die. While many plunder and savage for profit and pleasure, others follow a higher bid for promise and hope. Still, the concepts of law and order remain buried in the past.

Thunder Rider is a self-styled superhero, prowling the Deathlands and serving up mass murder in a haze of napalm and nerve gas. Seeing his destruction firsthand, Ryan Cawdor accepts a bounty from a ravaged ville to find and eliminate this crazed vigilante. But this twisted coldheart has designs on a new sidekick, Krysty Wroth, and her abduction harnesses the cold, unforgiving fury of Ryan and his warrior companions. At his secret fortress, Thunder Rider waits -- armed with enough ordnance to give his madness free rein....

In the Deathlands, justice is in the eyes of those who seek it....

Plague Lords

Deathlands: Book 84

James Axler

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 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 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....

Dark Resurrection

Deathlands: Book 85

James Axler

Postnuclear America has changed little since the primal leveling of the twenty-first 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....

Captured by the pirate foot soldiers of the mysterious Lords of Death, Ryan Cawdor and his companions sail into a surreal world where electric lights blaze but blood terror reigns. In Veracruz, Mexico, Ryan is marked for slaughter, his effigy linked to an ancient deity. Helpless, Krysty, Dix and the others await a horrifying fate at the hands of whitecoats manipulating pre-dark plague warfare. As the Lords of Death unleash their demonic vision, hope--for Ryan, the others and nascent civilization--appears irrevocably lost.

Eden's Twilight

Deathlands: Book 86

James Axler

Rumors of an untouched predark ville in the mountains of West Virginia lure traders in search of unimaginable wealth. They're coming from all directions--the good, the bad, the worst. Ryan and his warrior group join in, although it means an uneasy truce with an old enemy, going back to days of spilled blood and the legacy of the Trader. But as their journey to a place called Cascade reveals more of Deathlands' darkest secrets, it remains to be seen if this place will become their salvation... or their final resting place.

Desolation Crossing

Deathlands: Book 87

James Axler

Survival is a dangerous enterprise in the aftermath of a nuked America. Humanity perseveres, but the Deathlands code is far simpler: kill or be killed, live or die trying. Driven by the fires of hope, a resilient band of warriors traverse the new frontier of the future, survivors by skill and legends by reputation.

The legend of the trader returns in the simmering dust bowl of the Badlands, the past calling out to armorer J. B. Dix. Her name is Eula. Young, silent and lethal, she's part of a new trading convoy quick to invite Ryan Cawdor and his band on a journey across the hostile terrain. But high-tech hardware, fast wags, flowing jack and friendly words don't tell the real story behind a vendetta that is years in the making.

Alpha Wave

Deathlands: Book 88

James Axler

In the postapocalyptic world of Deathlands, the past and its way of life are as obsolete as myth. Now the days are filled with death, violence and little promise. Still, the human spirit endures, and a group of intrepid warrior survivalists dare to believe that out there, something better is on offer. If they live long enough to find it.

Across the flat plains of the Dakotas, an iron horse shrieks and rumbles across refurbished tracks. Inside the boxcars, Ryan Cawdor and his companions face trouble unlike any other. Jak is missing, Krysty is dying and the train is loaded with sec men, whitecoats and a horrifying experiment--a baron with psionic abilities using stolen children to fuel his mad dream for mind control of every living soul in Deathlands.

Time Castaways

Deathlands: Book 89

James Axler

In the nuke-altered America of the twenty-first 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....

Barely escaping a redoubt hidden in an old aircraft carrier guarded by killer droids, the companions emerge into the backwater world of Lake Superior's Royal Island. Here, metal and salt are commodities worth killing and dying for, and two rival barons rule mutant-infested land and water with blood will. But though Ryan was hoping for honesty and fair trade, he's soon in a death race to stop the secrets of the gateways from becoming an open passage to the future's worst enemies....

Prophecy

Deathlands: Book 90

James Axler

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. Here, Native American tribes embrace a peaceful, sacred way of life the travelers have only imagined. Still, Deathlands is a place with no reverence for ease or peace; the land was once the clandestine sanctuary of preDark science. Are Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists destined to fulfill a vision-quest foretold by the shamans... or take a final, fatal plunge into the grim reality of a shattered world?

Blood Harvest

Deathlands: Book 91

James Axler

The cataclysm of nuclear winter transmuted the world into a place both torturous and unforgiving. But there are those with the courage and perseverance to seek out something beyond the merciless life-and-death struggle of Deathlands. In a treacherous frontier that plays for keeps, staying alive is the best victory....

Washed ashore in the North Atlantic, Ryan Cawdor and Doc Tanner discover two islands still pristinely intact after Skydark, but whose inhabitants suffer a darker, more horrifying punishment. A hideous strain of mutation manifests, turning some into half-monstrous giants with an unquenchable thirst for blood. The Nightwalkers unleash a hellish feast of horror when the sun goes down. Now Ryan and Doc struggle to survive this enclave of unimaginable terror, trapped in a baronial conflict between the rulers of night and day, with only one way out--internecine war in a world of the damned....

Welcome to the dark side of tomorrow.

Welcome to the Deathlands.

Arcadian's Asylum

Deathlands: Book 92

James Axler

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. Turning his ville into the nascent heartbeat of the new civilization would require the help of Ryan Cawdor and his warrior group. But for these unwilling participants, the endgame of their enigmatic host remains hidden in the secret maze of laboratories beneath Arcady, where a new terror is about to be reborn....

In the Deathlands, always watch your back.

Baptism of Rage

Deathlands: Book 93

James Axler

The end of the world arrived in a nuclear rush, forging the agonized remains of past and present into a new reality known as Deathlands. Now life is a simple series of rules of survival, where having is better than not having--and anything is worth killing for. But in a world that has seemingly turned against mankind, the possibility of miracles can exist....

Of all the resources Ryan Cawdor and his group struggle to recoup, hope for escaping the grim daily life-and-death struggle has suffered most. But now reports of a ville holding the mythical waters of rejuvenation, a fountain of youth, appear to be true, luring Doc and the others on a journey inspired by promise, tainted by mistrust. Hiring on as sec men with a convoy headed to the healing waters of Babyville, the survivors discover the deadly price of immortality.

In the Deathlands the future looks like hell--and delivers far worse...

Doom Helix

Deathlands: Book 94

James Axler

Devastation from the nukewar shattered civilization and left a planet both primitive and ripe for rebirth--or retaking. While the balance of power has fallen to avaricious, amoral barons, a handful of humanity still holds hope of a future worth fighting for or dying to defend. If a better life inside the hellground exists, Ryan Cawdor and his friends will find it.

The Deathlands feudal system may be hell on earth but it must be protected from invaders from Shadow Earth, a parallel world stripped clean of its resources by the ruling conglomerate and its white coats. Ryan and his band had a near-fatal encounter with these genetically enhanced aggressors and their advanced weaponry and wags once before. Only a fatal chink in enemy armor saved planet Earth from plunder. Now, these superhuman predators are back, ready to topple the hellscape's baronies one by one.

Moonfeast

Deathlands: Book 95

James Axler

In the nuke-conceived birth of Deathlands, a rare breed of warrior-survivor emerged--born into suffering, hardened by circumstance, forged by endurance and sharpened by combat. Yet in the heart of this warrior, the quest to find a place of peace beats on unrelenting...

LAND OF THE LOST

The pristine coastal waters off San Clemente become a battleground over the island and its abandoned naval station. The rocky shores are rife with the sulfur mines that make Deathlands' richest jack--gunpowder. To maintain hell-fought possession, a ruthless sea baron and his fleet engage rebellion from the land. On this island populated by roaming bio-weap nightmares engineered by predark whitecoats, Ryan Cawdor is caught in a war he has no intention of fighting, but has every determination to survive.

Downrigger Drift

Deathlands: Book 96

James Axler

The nuclear cataclysm that maimed America altered the rules of existence. The new reality guarantees a grim battle for survival, but the higher human instinct to exist in peace and good will lives on. Legends endure and Ryan Cawdor is a warrior of his time. When the good fight needs to be won, Ryan and his band take a stand.

In the nuke-altered region of the Great Lakes, Ryan and his group face the spectrum--from the idyllic to the horrific--of a world reborn. Close to enclaves of peace and sanctuary, Deathlands' most distorted spawn of humanity, cannibals, spread terror. Against the battered shoreline of Lake Michigan, an encounter with an old friend leads to a battle to save Milwaukee from a force of deadly mutant interlopers--and to liberate one of their own.

Playfair's Axiom

Deathlands: Book 97

James Axler

A legendary warrior of nuke-spawned America, Ryan Cawdor understands the hard-and-fast rule of Deathlands. Where there is life, death is only a matter of time. Still, staying alive is the dubious luxury of being quick, hard and willing to abide by a code of honor long abandoned to the wreckage of this postapocalyptic hell zone: truth and fair play.

St. Louis is a concrete jungle of fetid heat, acid rains and cutthroats. With J. B. 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.

Tainted Cascade

Deathlands: Book 98

James Axler

The blighted aftermath of a global nuclear showdown, Deathlands exacts a blood price. The living pay it; the dead don't care. For one legendary band of warriors, this barbaric new world holds a chance for redemption: the secrets of the past. They roam a disfigured America, searching for pre-dark tech... seeking the path to a future worth living.

Utah's Great Salt Lake Desert remains a death pit of scorching heat, cannies and grim odds. Ryan Cawdor and his group survive the trek there, only to be drugged, robbed and left for the slave trade. Escaping their captors leaves them alive but stripped of their prized gear: their weps, J. B. Dix's glasses, Dr. Mildred Wyeth's medical kit and, worse, her secret codex. The companions must rely on each other to challenge their enemy and settle the score.

Perception Fault

Deathlands: Book 99

James Axler

The ravaged landscape that was America two centuries ago is now blighted by post-nuclear holocaust savagery. Still, there remain pockets of preDark technology that may offer undiscovered paths to reclaiming the future. Ryan Cawdor and his companions have faced most kinds of horror that Deathlands can deliver--and survived. This merciless place can break even the strongest, but it has yet to destroy hope.

Denver offers a glimpse of that very hope--a power plant, electricity, food and freedom. But the city is caught in a civil war between two would-be leaders and their civilian armies. Challenged by both sides to do their bidding, Ryan discovers a third player in the quest to control the mile-high city--a secret enclave of White Coats with the strength and technology to pursue a twisted agenda of their own.

Prodigal's Return

Deathlands: Book 100

James Axler

America, defiled and reshaped by nuclear carnage, promises little but a struggle for survival. Still, a group of hard travelers trek the worst this hellish place can offer, surviving by their wits, razor skill and knowledge of preDark technology. Their leader, Ryan Cawdor, is a Deathlands legend, a warrior and hero to many, a relentless enemy to more. And he understands the only way forward is the future, even when the past has a will of its own....

Searching for an operational redoubt, Ryan and his companions go up against a ruthless band of coldhearts. The shock of seeing Ryan's long-lost son as the band's point man puts the group on a new mission--rescue Dean at all cost. But when Dean shoots and wounds his father in a firefight, the strange turn of events leads the travelers deeper into the shifting sands of their own destiny. And father and son, each committed to the laws of decency and fair play, will confront an uncertain legacy.

Lost Gate

Deathlands: Book 101

James Axler

Existence after Skydark is a gamble against grim odds--winners and losers decided by guns, jack and raw nerve. Still, one intrepid group pushes on, working to understand the secrets of preDark tech at the heart of nuke-altered America. Because keeping hope alive is the next best thing to a good shot at finding something better.

Baron Crabbe is dangerously high on legends of the Trader and rumors of a secret cache. He occupies a redoubt but the old tech remains unfathomable. His ace in the hole is Ryan Cawdor and his band. Prisoners at blasterpoint, they're ordered to use the matter-transfer units to secure the whereabouts of the imagined weapons stockpile. Ryan knows the truth--and it won't help Crabbe. But the only option is to play along with the crazed Baron's scheme and make the dangerous jumps in a limited window of time. Staying alive is all about buying time--waiting for their one chance to chill their captors.

Haven's Blight

Deathlands: Book 102

James Axler

The future rose from the ashes of nuke-scorched America with a vengeance. The unchecked wrath of Deathlands pits Ryan Cawdor and his companions against long odds. But their skill as survivors, strategists and warriors is unmatched and they've held on to something more precious than life: their humanity. They nurture the hope that somewhere, hidden amid the grotesquerie of a tortured land, safety and sanctuary awaits.

Bartering their expertise to a nautical band of brilliant technomads, Ryan's group fi nds trouble waiting in the steaming, fetid swamplands of the Louisiana Gulf. Merciless storms and pirates strand them in Haven. But the barony's inviting name masks a ville hijacked by fear, territorial conflict and monstrous horror. With the gravely injured Krysty Wroth's fate uncertain, a desperate Ryan aids the strange but hospitable Baron Blackwell in his effort to save Haven from a genetic blood curse. He'll succeed, provided his luck--and his options--don't run out first.

Hell Road Warriors

Deathlands: Book 103

James Axler

The human will to survive has sharpened to a knife edge after a century of postnuclear madness. In a lawless land where firepower and savagery rule, power lies with the barons and coldhearts who wield control through terror. Against all odds, a courageous few still fight for something better to live by--honor, decency and hope.

Emerging relatively unscathed from the apocalyptic rebirth of North America, Canada hides a trove of Cold War-era secret government installations known as Diefenbunkers, filled with caches of weapons, wags and food. Ryan Cawdor and his companions agree to ride sec for a convoy headed west across the remnants of the old Trans-Canada Highway to retrieve the ultimate prize: four portable nuclear reactors. It's enough power to light up a ville for years, a bright beacon for a new tomorrow. But they have death on their tail, a baron and his sec men who will stop at nothing to claim the prize as their own.

Palaces of Light

Deathlands: Book 104

James Axler

Remnants of America's past are littered across the postapocalyptic landscape, but little remains of the predark ideals of law and order. Survival is a blood quest, and lethal force the means to power. Still, a handful retains their humanity among the coldhearts, and in a world where nothing lasts forever, hope is a commodity as precious as jack.

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 endgame poised to push the companions over the edge of reality... into certain death.

Wretched Earth

Deathlands: Book 105

James Axler

After the Megacull, the weak died off, so that a century later, the living have descended from only the toughest stock. Still, it takes more than strength to survive Deathlands. It takes skill, cunning and a warrior's heart. But for Ryan Cawdor, staying alive isn't just about living. In this nuke-transformed America, it helps if somewhere, deep inside, there's hope of finding something better.

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. But that means splitting up and hiring on as sec for both sides and surviving the firefight--before the real hell is unleashed.

In Deathlands, time is blood.

Crimson Waters

Deathlands: Book 106

James Axler

Everyone who lives in Deathlands must endure the hellscape of a world mutilated by nukes and madness. Survival is a grim pursuit, achieved only by the most ruthless means. Yet Ryan Cawdor and his companions remain determined to persevere by doing whatever it takes to survive.

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. As pirates, mutie sec men and monsters converge, the kill zone widens, blood flows... and the group rushes to escape paradise before it destroys them.

Because even paradise has claws in Deathlands.

No Man's Land

Deathlands: Book 107

James Axler

There's little to remember about life before the Big Nuke, but there's plenty to scavenge in the tainted wreckage of the postapocalyptic frontier. The barbaric code of survival of the fittest, meanest or dirtiest makes for hard living and easy death. But Ryan Cawdor and his friends have stayed alive by holding on to their humanity--playing fair... and chilling only when they've got no choice.

A civil war raging in the Des Moines River valley forces Ryan and his companions to take sides, or die. Because somewhere in the middle of the generations-old conflict is a lost redoubt. But Snake Eye, the deadliest gunslinger in Deathlands, stands between them and the way out. And the mutie contract chiller won't step aside until he has Ryan's head.

In Deathlands, there's nothing but rock and a hard place....

Nemesis

Deathlands: Book 108

James Axler

Burying the past in a nuclear cull, Deathlands spares no one from its punishing assault. In this grim new reality, there's little to live--or die--for, except the possibility of unlocking the mysteries of the past. Ryan Cawdor and his group of fellow survivors scour the perilous land for sanctuary in a world where nothing is guaranteed but death.

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?

Chrono Spasm

Deathlands: Book 109

James Axler

Remnants of humanity have managed to regroup after a global nuclear showdown that decimated the planet. But life in Deathlands is a far cry from actual living. And the survivors must believe they'll find something better, because surrendering to the inhospitable forces of a nuked world means giving in to death. Or worse.

Fear and human depravity permeate the frigid air in a oncedynamic 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.

Sins of Honor

Deathlands: Book 110

James Axler

The survivors of postnuclear America struggle against the free fall into anarchy and barbarism. Hot lead keeps people sharp, but it's the fire within that keeps them alive. Ryan Cawdor and his band roam Deathlands searching for somewhere to call home. Until then, it's survival at all cost.

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 chill 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.

Storm Breakers

Deathlands: Book 111

James Axler

In postapocalyptic Deathlands, America the beautiful has been ravaged by a century of nuclear fallout. Here, the American dream boils down to one thing: survival. Ryan Cawdor and his companions seize each day, armed and ready to hold on to the only life they've got. Despite the odds, they believe in something better, someplace they can call home... where peace isn't just a dream.

On the coast of what used to be Maine, the group's armorer, J.B. Dix, lies dying from a gunshot wound. Having no other choice, Ryan makes a deal with a local baron and his strangely beautiful wife. J.B. will get the surgery he needs when Ryan and crew rescue the couple's daughter, abducted by slavers. But the cold, deep Atlantic waters harbor predark secrets, including the terrifying specter of a U.S.S.R. nuclear submarine... and its descendants.

Dark Fathoms

Deathlands: Book 112

James Axler

No place on Earth escaped the nuclear Armageddon that spawned the hellscape known as Deathlands. In a ravaged world where violence and lawlessness rule, a rare breed of hero has emerged. Ryan Cawdor is a lethal fighter who lives by a code of honor and fair play, and that has made him a legend....

Miles beneath the ocean's surface, a decaying redoubt barely protects Ryan and his companions from a watery death. Battling vicious assaults from cyborgs programmed by artificial intelligence to capture them at any cost, they're desperate to escape this underwater trap. But a new threat awaits above the waves: a massive predark super ship that roams the deadly seas of Deathlands. Decades of madness have led to civil war between the citizens of the upper and lower decks. Now pawns in a bloody game of survival, Ryan and the others must destroy the ship or face their certain end at sea.

Motherlode

Deathlands: Book 113

James Axler

The cost of living disintegrated after America's nuclear cull, and a life in Deathlands--any life--is dirt cheap. But those few who manage to stay alive in the savage new reality must travel the hellgrounds any way they can. For Ryan Cawdor and his fellow survivors, that means denying the pull toward savagery, and clinging to what little humanity they have left, when they can afford it.

Desperately short of supplies, Ryan and his companions are forced to seek help at the prosperous-looking ville of Amity Springs. Hired on to retrieve a stolen relic, they quickly become caught up in an escalating power struggle between two strong-willed lady barons. Each woman covets the cache of predark goods buried in the ville's backyard. But they are not alone in their desire. And all that stands between a motherlode of buried bounty and the destructive power of unchecked greed is Ryan's grim determination to survive another day.

Siren Song

Deathlands: Book 114

James Axler

Crawling from the wreckage of Armageddon, humanity endures, mutated and forever altered. Gone are the comforts of civilization, replaced by a bloodlust to survive. Deathlands is a tortured landscape where peace and hope struggle to take root. Still, Ryan Cawdor and his band push onward, seeking a place to call home.

If any kind of utopia exists in postapocalyptic America, Ryan and his companions have yet to find it. But high in the Virginian mountains, their quest may find its reward. Heaven Falls is an agrarian idyll, its thriving inhabitants harnessing powerful feminine energy and the medicinal qualities of honey. Bountiful and serene, this community is the closest thing to sanctuary the companions have ever encountered. But as they are seduced by a life they have only envisioned, they discover Heaven has a trapdoor that opens straight to hell....

Hanging Judge

Deathlands: Book 115

James Axler

In the Deathlands, the game of survival offers no reprieve. There's nothing to win in nuke-blasted America except the chance to fight another day. Still, Ryan Cawdor and his fellow travelers hope for sanctuary... somewhere. Until they find it, they face each dawn as if it's their last. Because it just might be.

Justice is a damning word in what used to be called Oklahoma, thanks to a sadistic baron known as the Hanging Judge. Crazy, powerful and backed by a despotic sec crew, the judge drops innocents from the gallows at will. When Jak narrowly escapes wearing his own rope as a necktie, a rift among the companions sends them deep into the mutie-infested wilderness outside the ville. Separated and hurting, time is running out for the survivors to realize they're stronger together than they ever could be alone--before a ruthless madman brings them to the end of their rope.

End Program

Deathlands: Book 116

James Axler

No one waits long for trouble in Deathlands--it's everywhere in the remains of a nuke-altered civilization. The American dream was annihilated more than a century ago by the country's own unchecked power play. But the worst may be yet to come.

Built upon a predark military installation in former California, a ville called Progress could be the utopia Ryan Cawdor and his companions have been seeking. A place where humanity and technology thrive, it's the nucleus of a new hope for Deathlands. The successful replacement of Ryan's missing eye with a cybernetic prosthetic nearly convinces the group that their days of surviving hell are behind them. Then they discover that the high tech in Progress isn't designed to enhance human life, but to destroy it. To block the final assault, the companions must stop Ryan from becoming a willing pawn in the eradication of mankind.

Desolation Angels

Deathlands: Book 117

James Axler

A hundred years after the nukecaust, the tortured landscape of postapocalyptic America offers a brutal fight for survival. Yet tech secrets lie hidden, useful to those brave and strong enough to believe that hope can carry them toward ever-elusive peace.

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. In Deathlands, hell is called home.

Blood Red Tide

Deathlands: Book 118

James Axler

In a nuclear wasteland where death and destruction are the norm, Ryan Cawdor and his fellow survivors seek out refuge while looking to one another for protection. Civilization no longer exists in the barren Deathlands. There is only the will to survive and the dim hope of a promised land.

Taken captive on a ship in the former Caribbean, Ryan and his companions must work as part of the crew or perish at the hands of the captain. But the mutant in charge of the vessel is the least of their worries. Each day is a struggle as they face rivalry among the sailors, violent attacks and deadly storms. Worse, a powerful enemy is hunting the ship to destroy everyone on board. Fighting for their lives and those of their shipmates, the companions must find unity within the chaos or die in the attempt.

Polestar Omega

Deathlands: Book 119

James Axler

Banded together to survive, Ryan Cawdor and his companions travel the barren wastelands of a post-nuclear world. There are no laws in Deathlands--only fear, destruction and annihilation. As each day brings a new struggle, this group journeys toward the shaky promise of sanctuary.

Ryan and his friends become the subjects in a deadly experiment when they're taken captive inside a redoubt at the South Pole. A team of scientists is convinced the earth must be purified of mutants, and now they have the perfect lab rats to test their powerful bioweapon. Within Antarctica's harsh and unstable conditions, the companions must fight the odds and take down the whitecoats before millions are killed. But in this uncompromising landscape, defeating the enemy may be just another step toward a different kind of death....

Hive Invasion

Deathlands: Book 120

James Axler

Seeking refuge in a post-Armageddon America, Ryan Cawdor and his crew of misfits travel together for survival and sanity. Known as Deathlands, this lawless hellscape is defined by destruction, death and despair. Only those who persevere with the belief in a better future stand a chance in this world where each day brings a new, and potentially lethal, struggle.

Desperate to find water and shelter on the barren plains of former Oklahoma, Ryan and his team come upon a community that appears, at first, to be peaceful. Then the ville is attacked by a group of its own inhabitants--people infected with a parasite that has turned them into slave warriors for an unknown overlord. The companions try to help fend off the enemy and protect the remaining population, but when Ryan is captured during a second ambush, all hope seems lost. Especially when he launches an assault against his own crew.

End Day

Deathlands: Book 121

James Axler

Ryan Cawdor and his six companions struggle to survive postnuclear America, a grim new world where hope for the future is lost amid the devastation.

In pursuit of a hardened enemy--Magus--Ryan and the companions find themselves in a land more foreign than any they've encountered. After unwittingly slipping through a time hole, the group lands in twentieth-century New York City, getting their first glimpse of predark civilization. And they're not sure they like it. Only Mildred and Doc can appreciate this strange metropolis, but Armageddon is just seventy-two hours away, and Magus will stop at nothing to make sure Ryan and his team are destroyed on Nuke Day...

Forbidden Trespass

Deathlands: Book 122

James Axler

In the war-torn wasteland known as Deathlands, desperation and destruction have replaced dreams and peace. Each day arrives with a new life-threatening challenge for wanderer Ryan Cawdor and his fellow band of survivors...

Bizarre murders are taking place in a fertile farming community, and the locals are quick to point fingers at Ryan and his companions. But they know another culprit is responsible. A colony of mutants has been driven from its underground home, forced to find sustenance in the light of day. And only human flesh will satisfy their hunger. Caught between a rock and a horde of hungry cannibals, Ryan and the companions face an ultimatum--help the cannies reclaim their territory, or risk becoming the next meal. Except something far more sinister--and ravenous--lurks beneath the lush fields...

Iron Rage

Deathlands: Book 123

James Axler

Since the nukecaust, the American dream has been reduced to a daily fight for survival. In the hellish landscape of Deathlands, few dare to dream of a better tomorrow. But Ryan Cawdor and his companions press on, driven by the need for a future less treacherous than the present.

Pulling sec duty aboard a steamboat on the mighty Sippi is a welcome reprieve for Ryan and his friends... until armored warships reduce their vessel to a burning husk. Abruptly stranded in a nightmarish, poisonous swamp, fighting off crocodiles and muties, the companions and their crew of allies get to work building rafts. Their escape route, however, is swiftly intercepted, and they learn they've sailed into the middle of a fierce conflict between two villes fighting over the iron trade. The companions don't seem to stand a chance against the fleets of ironclad gunboats. But in Deathlands, even the underdog can bite back...

Child of Slaughter

Deathlands: Book 124

James Axler

When Doc is taken captive by a band of marauders in what was once Nebraska, Ryan and the companions rally to get him back. But they aren't just fighting the local muties. They're also up against the area's terrifying terrain, which shifts and morphs at a moment's notice. With their options dwindling in this mazelike region that doesn't obey the laws of physics, the team joins forces with a beautiful and deadly woman who evens the odds on the battlefield. But while this warrior seems to be on their side, she has a secret agenda that could spell the end for them all...

Since the nukecaust, the American dream has been reduced to a daily fight for survival. In the hellish landscape of Deathlands, few dare to dream of a better tomorrow. But Ryan Cawdor and his companions press on, driven by the need for a future less treacherous than the present.

Devil's Vortex

Deathlands: Book 125

James Axler

n orphaned teen with the ability to transform into a vicious whirlwind latches on to Ryan and the companions as they travel through former North Dakota. Her deadly power seems like a boon at first, until it starts to control her. When threatened, she destroys everything in her path... including those she loves. Then a group of outcast fighters kidnaps the young woman and manipulates her--and her terrifying mutation--for their own destructive agenda. With the vortex unleashed, the companions face a tough decision: chill the orphan or perish in her violent wake.

Since the nukecaust, the American dream has been reduced to a daily fight for survival. In the hellish landscape of Deathlands, few dare to dream of a better tomorrow. But Ryan Cawdor and his companions press on, driven by the need for a future less treacherous than the present.

Can't find the James Axler book you're looking for? Let us know the title and we'll add it to the database.