Dramatized Fantasy

In the nuke-altered America of the 21st century, time conspires against survival, especially for a legendary group of warriors led by Ryan Cawdor. Born and bred in Deathlands, Ryan dares to unlock the secrets buried deep in the wreckage of a planet. Time may be the enemy in the daily struggle to stay alive, but perhaps it can reveal something better....

When Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny are asked to escort a VIP on the late-night train to Bath, it would appear to be a routine case. The Organisation has acquired intelligence that an attempt is to be made on Sir Dennis Gregson’s life as he travels to Bath to take up his new position as Head of the British Psychic Weapons Division. Ishmael’s mission is to ensure that Sir Dennis arrives safely. How could anyone orchestrate a murder in a crowded railway carriage without being noticed and with no obvious means of escape?

Using a rigid code of honor learned from pre-nukecaust fantasies and westerns, Thunder Rider is a self-styled superhero, serving up mass murder in a haze of napalm and nerve gas. Seeing his trail of destruction firsthand, Ryan Cawdor accepts a bounty from a ravaged ville to find and eliminate this vigilante. But Thunder Rider is determined to have Krysty Wroth, Ryan's lover, as his new sidekick and her abduction makes Ryan's quest deeply personal, and unleashes the vengeful fury of Cawdor and his warrior companions.

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 L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s The Magic Engineer, Dorrin, a young scion of Order magicians, is interested in forbidden knowledge - the working of machines. He is the Leonardo da Vinci of his age, but his insights violate the rules of the Order magic of Recluce, and in order to pursue his invention he must go into exile - in the lands of Chaos. Tortured by the knowledge that to preserve Order he must create new devices for war, Dorrin stands between Recluce and the forces of the Chaos that seek to destroy it.

For six years, former temple assassin Aral Kingslayer has been living as a jack of the shadow trades, picking up odd jobs on the wrong side of the law. But the past is never dead, and Aral’s has finally caught up to him in the beautiful, dangerous form of Jax Seldansbane - a fellow Blade and Aral’s onetime fiancée.

Everything you know about vampires is wrong, as struggling actress Esther Diamond discovers after taking a job as a victim in The Vampyre, an off-Broadway cult hit in Manhattan. Not only is she besieged by fang-wearing vampire groupies, fanatical anti-vampire activists, and the bloodsucking paparazzi, but she also has to put up with broody lead actor Daemon Ravel, who claims to be a real vampire. But when one of Daemon's fan girls turns up dead - and drained of all her blood - Esther is determined to help.

Across the flat plains of the Dakotas, an iron horse shrieks and rumbles across refurbished tracks. Inside the boxcars, Ryan Cawdor and his companions face trouble unlike any other. Jak is missing, Krysty is dying, and the train is loaded with sec men, whitecoats, and a horrifying experiment — a baron with psionic abilities using stolen children to fuel his mad dream for mind control of every living soul in Deathlands.

In Deathlands, power brings more power to those able to command it by means fair or foul. Yet few among the most tyrannical barons can rival the ruthlessness of Sandra Tregart, whose despotic visions are being realized by resurrected technology: air power. With her restored biplane, she delivers death from the skies to all who defy her supremacy — a virulent ambition that challenges Ryan Cawdor and his band in unfathomable new ways.

After the nuclear winter, the taint of humanity worsened in the raw blood-quest for survival. Hunger for jack and power now fuels traders and barons, who relinquish authority only through death, crushing everything in their path. Still, a handful seek a better way of life, where iron fists and ordnance are replaced by harmony, justice, and fair trade. Separated by fate and a freak storm in the shifting landscape of the Great Plains, the companions find themselves on a path of strange prophecy.

Post-nuclear America has changed little since the primal leveling of the 21st century. Warrior survivalists Ryan Cawdor and his band live by a code that honors the kind of absolute freedom only a raw frontier can provide. Until rumors of a wider, more prosperous world than the Deathlands thriving deep in Mexico, untouched by the nukecaust, lure them into uncharted waters....

As the ruling oligarchy of nine barons rebuilds what was once the United States after an internecine war for power, a mysterious entity is attempting to impose a dark destiny on Earth. Kane and Grant, once part of the brutal police machine of a feudalistic order, are now leaders in a rebellion by those who once served the malevolent imposers. But the tides of battle turn once more with the discovery of a functional pre-dark moon base, whose human defenders are all that stand between Earth and its obliteration.

AD 2107: A generation ago, Earth and the cislunar colonies banned genetic and cybernetic modifications. But out in the Asteroid Belt, anything goes. Dozens of flourishing space habitats are spawning exotic new societies and strange new varieties of humans. It’s a volatile situation that threatens the peace and stability of the entire solar system.

Figrin Da'n and the Modal Nodes - bopping Bithians and members in good standing of the Intergalactic Federation of Musicians - were under exclusive contract to Jabba's Palace. They were hoofing it up when Jabba's arch rival sent E522, a recycled assassin droid, to make them an offer they couldn't refuse.

The sun is setting on humanity. The night now belongs to voracious demons that prey upon a dwindling population forced to cower behind half-forgotten symbols of power. Legends tell of a Deliverer: a general who once bound all mankind into a single force that defeated the demons. But is the return of the Deliverer just another myth? Perhaps not. Out of the desert rides Ahmann Jardir, who has forged the desert tribes into a demon-killing army. He has proclaimed himself Shar’Dama Ka, the Deliverer and he carries ancient weapons - a spear and a crown - that give credence to his claim.

Fear and human depravity permeate the frigid air in a once-dynamic 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.

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.

Logan Gyre is king of Cenaria, a country under siege, with a threadbare army and little hope. He has one chance - a desperate gamble, but one that could destroy his kingdom. In the north, the new Godking has a plan. If it comes to fruition, no one will have the power to stop him. Kylar Stern has no choice. To save his friends - and perhaps his enemies - he must accomplish the impossible: Assassinate a goddess.

In a valiant rebellion against a half century of occupation by the Kurians, the newly formed Texas Republic and Ozark Free Territory have dealt the vampiric aliens their first major defeat. Resistance member David Valentine is revered as a hero for his part in fighting to regain Earth''s freedom. But a dangerous enemy within his own ranks soon has Valentine facing charges for his handling of the Quisling prisoners - humans who have become pawns of the Kurians in order to survive.

Former temple assassin Aral Kingslayer has a price on his head and a mark on his soul. After his goddess was murdered, Aral found refuge in the shadow jack business, fixing problems for those on the fringes of Tien’s underworld. It’s a long step down from working for the Goddess of Justice, but it gives Aral and Triss - the living shadow who is his secret partner - a reason to get up in the morning.