Dramatized Adaptation Science Fiction

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.

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 US 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.

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.

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.

Crawling out of the ruins of a nuke-shattered America, a new reality shapes an unpredictable terrain of human resilience and unabated savagery. Born and bred in Deathlands, Ryan Cawdor has seen the pulsing of its dark heart. And he understands more than most that tomorrow is certain to arrive. But to see it means surviving today — any way he can.

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 kill them, they're desperate to escape this underwater trap. But above the waves, a new threat awaits: a massive predark super ship banished to the 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, Ryan and the other survivors must destroy the ship or face their certain end at sea.

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 21st-century nerve gas is poised to unleash infinite madness once more upon a ravaged Earth.

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.

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.

Far to the south of the peaceful Bellwoods, where Jon-Tom the spellsinger continues trying to master the art of turning music into magic, a sinister force has awakened: a magician with great ambition and unheard-of power. He summons lightning to do his bidding, commands an army of faceless flying demons, and claims to come from another world — one Jon-Tom suspects might be his own. If he can somehow reason with the unknown magician, perhaps they can combine their talents and find a way to go home together.

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.

Wayson Harris was one of thousands of clones born and bred to be the ultimate soldiers. But as an outlawed model, he was different from the rest - possessing independent thoughts and an addiction to violence. Stranded on a frontier planet, Harris is desperate to get back to civilization - and back into the fight. But the rebel factions are warring among themselves, and Harris is contacted by a group that wants to return to the Unified Authority's command.

Sinister forces lurk in the corners of the Iron Kingdoms - restless souls, mischievous and cunning creatures, darker beings that bargain for mortal souls. Most pass unmarked, shunned, or avoided, but there is one group willing to seek out and study what others fear. In abandoned halls and forgotten ruins, the investigators from the Strangelight Workshop illuminate the darkness, armed with wisdom, curiosity, and specialized tools.

As a young man, Kelvin Knight Hackleberry proved to be the Roundear of the Prophecy: He liberated his own Kingdom of Rud from the cruel usurper Zoanna, and then went on to defeat the evil king Rowforth in the alternate world of Hud. But now Zoanna and Rowforth have joined forces to take revenge on Kelvin -- and they intend to have it through his unborn child.

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.

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.

The mysterious barons — either hybrids of another race or genetic evolution gone mad — are dying. Kane, once a keeper of law and order in the new America, is part of the driving machine to return power to the true inheritors of the Earth. California is the opening salvo in one baron's savage quest for immortality—and a fateful act of defiance against earth's dangerous oppressors. Yet their sanctity is grimly uncertain as an unseen force arrives for a final confrontation with those who seek to rule, or reclaim, planet Earth.

There are very few days off when you're on an epic quest. Believe me, I know. I'm Hedi Peacock - one half Fae, the other were - and if being a half-breed with one foot in each world isn't tough enough to manage, there are the four chambers of my heart to consider. The one who holds the strings? Robson Trowbridge, the Alpha of Creemore. If I had my way, he and I would be locked in a bedroom, for eternity, but a pressing family matter needs my attention. It's true what they say: A woman's work is never done.

Hearing a rumor that the Trader, his old teacher and friend, is still alive, Ryan and his warrior group struggle across the treacherous Texas desert to find the truth. But an enemy with a score to settle is in hot pursuit — and so is the elusive Trader. The predark city of Sonora — preserved for a century in the salt and sand of the nukescape — becomes the staging ground for a showdown between mortal enemies, where the scales of revenge and death will be balanced with brutal finality.

A teenage girl awakens to find herself trapped in a coffin. She has no idea who she is, where she is, or how she got there. Fighting her way free brings little relief - she discovers only a room lined with caskets and a handful of equally mystified survivors. Beyond their room lies a corridor filled with bones and dust, but no people...and no answers.