Wretched Earth

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.

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.

Nuke Spawn

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.

Death Infestation

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.

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.

Dark Evolution

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.

Grim Passage

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….

CRUEL DISPENSATION

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.

PAROLE OF THE DAMNED

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?

SURVIVAL INSTINCT

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.

HELL FREEZES OVER

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.

GATEWAY TO THE FUTURE

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.

LAW OF SUDDEN DEATH

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.

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.

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.