Back in the late 80's, during the heyday of post-apocalyptic fiction, the bookstore shelves were loaded down with many other similar series. Endworld , the Ashes books, the Wingman books, there seemed to be an endless parade of entries into the genre. Deathlands is the only series that has survived and continues to be actively published. Outlanders is a slightly different beast, being more science-fiction high adventure, as opposed to being post-nuke fiction.

Plenty of folks would dismissively say that Deathlands is far from unique, and that it represents lowest-common-denominator writing. For the worst of the series that can be a true statement, but I have found that on the whole the quality has been good these past few years.

They have started to publish the Endworld series again after David Robbins published the prequel "Doomsday" last year. Book one "The Fox Run" was re-published in July 2009 and the second book "Twin Cities Run" is re-published in January 2010. Not really a DL-esque series but 100 years post holocaust and formula driven tales put it in the same league.

Not a Pulitzer Prize winning series by a long mark but the characters are so damn cheesey you have to keep reading.

Well there you go. Of course, Deathlands got here without taking a break. ;-)

(Says the guy who is a die-hard Doctor Who fan despite the fact that the show took a brief, sixteen year hiatus...)

Never read the Endworld books , though I do have books 3 and 4 - hard to get in UK.

I must admit to enjoying the Doomsday Warrior series (though only up to 8 - once again hard to get UK)

And

Phoenix series - I mean a gladiator woman that kills her opponent and then rogers her with a make-shift dildo-gun before shooting a deadly load ! Brilliant !

 

The genre in general does frequently seem to be built for a certain "teenage boy" mindset, that's for sure.

Posted By gumble on 11 Dec 2009 07:20 AM
<

Phoenix series - I mean a gladiator woman that kills her opponent and then rogers her with a make-shift dildo-gun before shooting a deadly load ! Brilliant !

 

Oh God that image will live on in my mind for weeks to come...
Gumble where in the UK are you located ?

I may be totally off base here.

I recently saw the ad for the Jonah Hex movie w/Josh Brolin.

I googled Jonah Hex and found out at one point in the DC comics story he was thrust tinto the year 2085.
Here is the funny part.
It is a post apocalyptic world w.acid rain chem storms just like DL.
Also Hex (his new moniker) has only one eye (a glass eye)
His face is scarred horribly by an indian ritual he recieved called the demons eye.
Sounds just a bit like Ryan maybe?
He carries 2 .44 magnum six shooters and a huge Bowie knife.
In one issue of "Hex"(the newer title) he fights the Batman of the future who has but one rule;NO GUNS IN HIS CITY!
Hex looks pretty cool kicking Batmans ass and he wears a black leather pants and jacket with the emblem "Road Reaper" on the back of the jacket.
He had to take it as the skin was peeled off a Road Reaper member during a violent chem storm.

DL had a lot of good things going for it but originality wasn't one of them...maybe Jack Adrian was inspired by Hex.

Very true,

I am at a point in my life where quality counts more to me than originality.

I would rather hear a great band that sounds like someone else than an original one that is terribleI like most,not all of those,as well as read a great albeit not so original story as opposed to reading an awful,yet original one.

This may not count for much but I am an "artist" so to speak and have had my songs slammed for being unoriginal by some critics,yet praised for being great by others.

LJ would often base characters in DL on those appearing in his earlier work. The Magus appeared in the Simon Rack series while Jak is near identical to Whitey from Herne The Hunter, a western series.

Posted By mikeclr on 26 May 2010 09:32 PM
LJ would often base characters in DL on those appearing in his earlier work. The Magus appeared in the Simon Rack series while Jak is near identical to Whitey from Herne The Hunter, a western series.

Very good detective work Mike.
I am going to look up Herne The Hunter  now.
Would you agree that it is possible Ryan is a bit based on Snake Plisken (eye patch and a badass w/shoulder length dark hair & one blue eye) from John Carpenters classic "Escape From New York"?
Just a thought.

Posted By Raboy on 26 May 2010 08:28 PM
DL had a lot of good things going for it but originality wasn't one of them...maybe Jack Adrian was inspired by Hex.

Thanks Rayboy.
I was hoping someone else might have picked up on the whole Hex smiliarity.
Basically then Jack Adrian invented the characters,but LJ took over half way through writing Pilgrimage to Hell?

"Doomsday Warrior" series (which ran to 18 books, I believe) was fairly decent for at least the first five books. I have many of them but not all of them, and someday when I have all books in the series, I'll reread them to see if it was time well spent.

The "Ashes" series (37-ish books) by William Johnstone was similarly good for at least the first five books, but not sure how it evolved after that. Those titles are being reprinted currently, though, so there must be some reader interest that the publisher discovered.

Though the author is universally reveiled in the Outlanders forums, the "Guardians" series (16 books, of which the first 14 were written by the original author) is pretty good. This series, and the first five of the "Ashes" series, were the ones which hooked me into a lifelong affinity for post-apocalyptic fiction.

There are decent entries in both the "Wingman" series by Mack Maloney and "WW3" series by Ian Slater, but they're hit-or-miss. The "Survivalist" series by Jerry Ahern ran to 29 books, but the first nine are decent and fit together nicely. "WW3:Target (three books; Texas, Nuke, and Iran) were a decent trilogy, by James Adair.

I'd have to do more digging into my office to find additional titles of series, but hopefully we've given you some food for thought.

I remember quite liking the Wingman series, or at least as far as I read in it. Of course, that was a good eighteen years ago that I read them. I gather it got weird somewhere after I stopped reading them, getting more into hard science fiction. I'd actually be curious to go back and re-read them...