Dramatized Adaptation Science Fiction

World War III and its aftermath of all-consuming fire left civilization on the brink of extinction. But John Thomas Rourke, the ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons specialist, and survival expert — still lives, fighting the elements and the odds. And those odds have never been more heavily stacked against Rourke than when he finds his son mortally wounded and Natalia and all of his family kidnapped by a Russian foe, long thought dead.

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.

In an effort to rule 21st century Earth, Vladmir Karamatsov and his followers used the nuclear option, nearly destroying Earth. Five centuries later, Karamatov's successors battle to use the same weapons and newer "ultimate" weapons in pursuit of 25th Century world "peace." From Pacific islands to the frozen foothills of the Himalaya's, John Rourke, The Survivalist, and his allies fight delusion and raw ambition to save the fragile planet from men and women bent on proving the American philosopher George Santayana right, "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."

It's a perilous world after the fiery apocalypse of World War III, and John Thomas Rourke — ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons specialist, and survival expert — pursues his arch-enemy Vladmir Karamatsov into the strife-torn, blackened wilderness of mainland China and a rendezvous with certain death. Karamatsov, bent on the destruction of the entire world, is determined to seize control of the vast Communist Chinese nuclear arsenal that survived the hell-fire destruction of the Night of The War.

While working on a dig in the California wilderness, archaeologist-adventurer Annja Creed uncovers evidence of a tragedy that's linked to Chinese miners during the days of the Gold Rush. A sudden attack on the site by shadow figures drives Annja to find the connection to a mysterious buried city in China. Lured by legends of gold, betrayal, and the vengeance of a Han Dynasty overlord, Annja travels on the Orient Express, battling avaricious treasure hunters and a modern-day descendant of an ancient league of assassins.

Knowledge is power. That would be the motto of Lander University, had it not been snatched up and used to death by others long before the school was founded. For while Lander offers a full range of courses to nearly all students, it also offers a small number of specialty classes to a very select few. Lander is home to the Hero Certification Program, a curriculum designed to develop students with superhuman capabilities, commonly known as Supers, into official Heroes.

Five centuries after nuclear war laid waste to the land, the future of humankind may rest with the fishes. John Rourke, Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna and a band of Marines battle tyranny beneath the sea to defend liberty and justice under the stars.

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

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 trail.

Following the events of Deathlands 133: Grim Choices, Ryan Cawdor and his companions find themselves far from their intended destination of the surviving redoubt on the outskirts of what once was the capital of a mighty nation. The gateway they’ve arrived through has planted them in the geographic middle of the Deathlands, and they soon find themselves in a violent struggle between multiple warring factions for the spoils of a legendary stockpile, buried in a former military installation somewhere in the region.

The pot-smoking and relentlessly abrasive mad scientist Dr. William Hammersmith, whom the companions first encountered in DL 124 Child of Slaughter, has made “New Zea” his home. The mad scientist uses private-sector mat-trans technology to track and transport Ryan Cawdor’s small team of survivalist warriors from the Deathlands to the islands under siege in order to enlist their aid in training the soft local populace for the imminent attack and lend their own battle-tested mettle to rescue the imperiled community.

After the massacre of the entire G-Men franchise, the company sends their supes on a bacchanalia of a vacation at an island getaway, and the Boys keep an eye on the festivities and the guests, some of whom are worming their way to the highest levels of government. The Boys are then targeted, and one is ambushed. And we get a clearer picture of the backgrounds of Mother's Milk, Frenchie, and The Female.

Following up rumors of trouble on his old home ground, Ryan Cawdor and his band seek shelter inside the walls of what was once the largest shopping mall in the Carolinas. The baron of the concrete fortress gives them no choice but to join his sec teams. As outside invaders step up their raids on the mall, Ryan has to battle both sides for a chance to save their lives.

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.

After the events of Deathlands 131: Freak Pharm and the overthrow of the corrupt pseudo-medical theocracy there, Ryan Cawdor, Krysty Wroth, and their fellow companions had decided that the recovering community of Bomville would likely be the safest place to prepare for the eventual birth of Krysty’s child, rather than venturing out yet again into the unknown. Otherworldly circumstances soon convince Ryan and Krysty that the opposite is true.

Their latest assignment takes the Ghost Finders of the Carnaki Institute to a small country village, site of a famously haunted inn. At first, JC thinks that the spirits in the King’s Arm Inn are more the stuff of folk tales and legend than anything that needs the Ghost Finder’s expertise. Then they are shown to their rooms and the inn shows its true face to JC, Melody, and Happy, and it isn’t pretty.

J.B. Dix takes several arrows before his team manages to extricate themselves, and, while the wounds themselves are not fatal, Dr. Mildred Wyeth worries with good reason that the arrows may have been tainted. J.B. soon shows symptoms of a deadly infection. Their best chance is a journey of several days to where there had once been a hospital when Mildred trained there a century earlier, in the desperate hope of finding the drugs that J.B. needs to survive.

Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny have been dispatched to assist a group of scientists who are investigating a mysterious black hole which has appeared on a Somerset hillside. Could it really be a doorway to another dimension, an opening into another world? When one of the scientists disappears into the hole – with fatal consequences – Ishmael must prove whether it was an accident – or murder.

On the night of the new moon, the demons rise in force, seeking the deaths of two men both of whom have the potential to become the fabled Deliverer, the man prophesied to reunite the scattered remnants of humanity in a final push to destroy the demon corelings once and for all. Arlen Bales was once an ordinary man, but now he has become something more - the Warded Man, tattooed with eldritch wards so powerful they make him a match for any demon. Arlen denies he is the Deliverer at every turn, but the more he tries to be one with the common folk, the more fervently they believe.

Not that things were so hot before, but when a huge earthquake guts Mexico, nobody wants to hang around, especially with all sorts of demonic doings by the barbaric gods of old Mexico, released from hell when the earth ruptured. Not satisfied with great takeout, the ancient Aztecs are hungry for the lifeblood of the entire continent. It's up to Remo and Chiun to go south of the border and root out the unhuman mind who is uniting downtrodden Indian tribes into a ferocious guerrilla army and leading them into a new dark age of bloodlust and superstition.