Dramatized Science

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.

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.

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.

Having narrowly escaped with their lives from the redoubt near Cornerstone, the Deathlands survivors known as the Companions arrive via mat-trans at a destination they presume to be North Dakota, if the mysterious codes given them while in Cornerstone are accurate. That assumption is soon put in doubt as they discover a devastated city covered in continual ashfall, a sky perpetually obscured by black clouds illuminated only by sporadic lightning. The former metropolis is not deserted, however, but densely populated with ravening hordes of barely human creatures.

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.

All families come with their own unique problems, but when that family is a clan of Eastern European vampires led by an extremely wealthy viscount living it up in a luxurious, imported castle, only Tony Mandolin can solve the problem. San Francisco's only flatfoot with an eye into the weird runs into trouble with a pregnant werewolf. Tony swears he never laid a hand on her. Now someone's burning the city's more corrupt citizens alive from the inside out. Needless to say, the city fathers are not pleased.

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

After Ember Brycin finds her mother brutally murdered, her mind begins to see things that shouldn’t exist, like creatures that belong in scary fairytales. The more she feels her sanity slipping, the more bizarre and inexplicable things start happening around her, even burning down one of her schools, turning Ember into an outcast. When she and her stepfather, Mark, move to Olympia, Washington, they think it will be a new start. However, things only continue to get worse.

As magistrate-turned-rebel Kane, fellow warrior Grant and archivist Brigid Baptiste face uncertainty in their own ranks, an ancient foe resurfaces in the company of Viking warriors - harnessing ancient prophecies of Ragnarok, the final conflict of fire and ice, to bring his own mad vision of a new apocalypse. To save what's left of the future, Kane's new battlefield is the kingdom of Antarctica, where legend and lore have taken on mythic and deadly proportions.

M. Savage - or Em, as she is called - has made a bewildering and ominous discovery. She and the other young people she was chosen to lead awoke in strange coffins with no memory of their names or their pasts. They faced an empty, unknown place of twisting tunnels and human bones. With only one another to depend on, they searched for answers and found the truth about their terrifying fate. Confronted by a monstrous enemy, they vowed never to surrender - and, by any means, to survive.

Lily Yu is a San Diego police detective investigating a series of grisly murders that appear to be the work of a werewolf. To hunt down the killer, she must infiltrate the clans. Only one man can help her - a were named Rule Turner, a prince of the lupi, whose charismatic presence disturbs Lily. Rule has his own reasons for helping the investigation - reasons he doesn't want to share with Lily. Logic and honor demand she keep her distance, but the attraction between them is immediate and devastating - and beyond human reason.

The final countdown has begun for John Rourke, and the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance. As the all the pieces for the endgame are put into place, Rourke and his hated enemy, Dietrich Zimmer, will do battle on an epic scale. But just as John Rourke finally manages to back his rival into a corner, an attack from an unforeseen enemy may cost him his very life.

The nine barons of post-nuclear America are succumbing to the tides of insurrection, a war that threatens to bring about the extinction of not only the weakening oligarchy, but the entire hybrid race. As the battle for power and territory rages on between the weary barons and the increasingly powerful and dangerous Imperator, the rebels of Cerberus press on, driven by the hope that humanity will someday have the choice that only freedom from enslavement can allow: a chance to reclaim the planet.

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 20th-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.

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.

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....

Annja Creed jumps at the chance to join a fellow archaeologist on a quest to find a relic. But she's not so thrilled about northern Siberia, where they are hoping to discover something buried in the long-undisturbed soil of Russia's frozen terrain. When they reach the town of Jakutsk, Annja is put off by its gray landscape and highly superstitious inhabitants. They claim they are being hunted. Then one of the Villagers goes missing.

After narrowly escaping the devolved prison community of Ispville, the companions make their way on foot for the arduous 200-mile trek to the ruins of Chicago and the redoubt that holds the nearest known gateway, as winter sets in. This is only the first stage in their journey to the intended refuge of Ryan’s home ville of Front Royal, and hopefully a safe haven for the birth of Krysty’s child. To make matters worse, they’re the reluctant guardians of fellow former prisoners, a mother and three young daughters, none of whom possess the companions’ survival skills.

John Thomas Rourke's remarkable survival skills enabled him to emerge unscathed from the nuclear devastation of WWIII. But terrifying new storm clouds loom over the eastern horizon - as the ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer and weapons expert takes command of his battered nation's broadening air and land war against the brutal Soviet foe.

Vladmir Karamatsov is a man possessed who demands the world from God. "My hour will come, inevitably. You can't stop me, even if you exist. And he can't stop me. John Rourke cannot stop me! He cannot stop me! John Rourke cannot stop me!" In this world growing more crowded and perilous by the day, John Rourke must use every means at his command to stop the despotic dreams of The Hero Marshall and his doomsday weapon; a weapon unleashing the evil, the beast lurking in the heart of every man to serve the lusts of Vladmir Karamatsov.