Dramatized War

If you think it’s hard being a hobgoblin or a human, try living a goblin’s life for a while. In fact, try imagining what it’s like to be the runtiest goblin in the caves, the lone worshiper of a god who’s been forgotten for a good reason, and the target everyone points to at the first hint of trouble. Try picturing yourself as Jig Dragonslayer, and see how you like it....

When an old friend’s family is massacred, legendary mountain man Smoke Jensen hits the vengeance trail. He’s soon riding into a bloody Colorado war that has militia cavalry volunteers and Kiowa warriors stalking each other across the territory — matching kill for kill, outrage for outrage. Defying both sides, Smoke uncovers a sinister conspiracy to set ranchers and Kiowas at each other’s throats.

For years, like millions of other Americans, John Thomas Rourke had planned for what seemed inevitable — the destruction of civilization. There were various possible causes: global economic collapse, some uncontrollable pestilence, a world famine — or nuclear war. And the rumbling signaling the coming of Total War was becoming increasingly strong as Rourke, ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons expert, and survival authority, made his last desperate gambit to save his estranged wife and two children before the button was pressed.

The Russians, consolidating their brutal hold on America after the bloody horror of World War III, are planning an act so vicious that mankind, itself, may never recover from the blow. John Thomas Rourke, the ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons expert, and survival authority is the only one with a prayer of stopping them. But the Reds aren't afraid of Rourke. They fear the same thing he does: the imminent combustion of the earth's atmosphere into a global mass of deadly flame!

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 armory, his troops unchallenged, his agenda unstoppable.

"One for the Mohave Kid": Few men were as deadly - or troublesome - with a gun as the Mohave Kid. Ab Kale, marshal of Hinkley, had warned the Kid to stay away from his town. "Lonigan": Ruth Gurney arrived home to find her late father’s cattle ranch in debt, and their trail-boss, Lonigan, missing. As luck would have it, there is a conveniently available replacement - Hoey Ives. "War Party": Bud Miles was a boy when he crossed the Mississippi. But Bud buried his father after an Indian attack, and as the wagon train pushed on through Sioux country, the boy stood as tall as any man....

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.

World War III was only the beginning. Inevitable death now awaits every soul who lived through the holocaust as the earth's atmosphere is about the explode into a searching blaze of fire. But one man refuses to die, refuses to accept the horror: John Thomas Rourke, the ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons expert and survival authority.

John Thomas Rourke, M.D., ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons expert, and survival authority, has accomplished one of his goals — he's helped his young friend Paul Rubinstein locate his parents. Now, Rourke's search for his own family must continue, hampered by severe storms raging along the Eastern Seaboard caused by the earthquakes which destroyed Florida.

John Thomas Rourke, M.D., ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons expert, and survival authority is on the move again — searching for a cache of 80 megaton warhead missiles secreted on the New West Coast. It all begins with a fire fight between Brigands and a unit of US II armed forces, a battle that ends with Rourke, and a seriously wounded Natalia, taking refuge on a submarine.

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."

When John Rourke's daughter is kidnapped by a Russian agent, Rourke follows their trail across a frozen Arctic wasteland - and stumbles upon a small pocket of humanity living in a tropical paradise surrounded by ice and snow. The community of Icelandic descendants has flourished in seclusion during the long years following the fiery holocaust, unaware of the fierce and bloody struggle in the outside world between the forces of freedom and Communist tyranny.

John Rourke knows that there are six people left on Earth - his loved ones. After five centuries of sleep, they wake to discover a world unlike the one they knew...and they are not alone. New and old enemies live to kill and kill to live. It could be the ultimate test of Rourke's skills as The Survivalist.

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.

Hands bleeding, joints aching, John Rourke watches the remaining space shuttles of the Eden Project fleet land. But what kind of world have they returned to? A Soviet madman bent on world domination, a Nazi resurrection, and one of the Eden crew murdered within the first day of the fleet’s return. John Rourke, The Survivalist, must serve as judge, jury, and executioner in the pursuit of justice and the defense of freedom in The Survivalist 12: The Rebellion.

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.

"A Trail to the West": Riding under an alias, Bowdrie joins up with Queen’s ruthless gang to rescue the pretty niece of a powerful Texas judge. "Love and the Cactus Kid": Folks far and wide know that the Cactus Kid can handle a pistol with the best of them. But for all his skill and coolness under fire, there’s just one small weakness he can’t seem to overcome.... "Medicine Ground": The Cactus Kid is on his way to the spring dance to meet his best girl, Bess O’Neal. As the Kid ambles through the lonely mountain trail toward town, two men emerge from the darkness - Miguel and Lobo Fernandez, of the menacing Fernandez brothers.

World War III was just practice for what's coming. And even those who survived the original firestorm — like John Thomas Rourke — won't have a chance when the next round of carnage begins. But Rourke, ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons specialist, and survival expert didn't struggle to stay alive in this brutal world only to die in a final holocaust of fire and blood.

Seems impossible, but Jack Taylor is sober - off booze and pills, and nearly off cigarettes. One reason: his dealer's in jail. When that dealer calls him to Dublin and asks a favor in the sordid visiting room of Mountjoy Prison, Jack wants to tell him to take a flying leap. But he doesn't - can't - because the man's sister is dead and the guards have called it "death by misadventure." But the dealer says that can't be true and begs Jack to see what he can find.

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.