Captured by the pirate foot soldiers of the Lords of Death, Ryan Cawdor and his companions sail into a surreal world where blood terror reigns. In Mexico, Ryan is marked for slaughter. Helpless, Krysty, Dix and the others await a horrifying fate at the hands of whitecoats manipulating pre-dark plague warfare. As the Lords of Death unleash their demonic vision, hope -- for Ryan, the others and civilization -- appears irrevocably lost.
In the Deathlands, there's always something to fight for: one last chance.
Occasionally in the past, Deathlands titles have strayed into other parts of the world - trips to Russia, Japan, and Mexico come to mind - but those have been the result of mat-trans jumps and tended to offer only a tiny local view of the area visited. With Dark Resurrection the series explores a large region of southern Mexico and Central America. The book picks up three weeks after the end of Plague Lords, with the companions barely surviving as slave labor rowing the Matachin galleys that destroyed Padre Island at the climax of the previous books. The book moves from Veracruz to Panama and ultimately to Xibalba itself for a final showdown with the Lords of Death.
Where previous Deathlands "duologies" have generally tended to be more along the lines of two or three loosely related stories, Plague Lords and Dark Resurrection really read as a single 700 page novel. There is plenty of a action to go around, but there is also an infusion of interesting ideas and locales into the storyline. One only hopes that those ideas will be picked up on by other authors in the series and explored more fully.
I also really enjoyed the character of Daniel Desipio, once the author of dozens of trashy pulp post-apocalyptic novels in the fictional Slaughter Realms series and now the vector for releasing a terrible plague. The metaphor was not lost on me, and even though he was thoroughly despicable as a person I still enjoyed the heck out the wonderful absurdity of the Slaughter Realms books.
There was a healthy dose of meaty subtext to this story, far beyond what one expects from a series like Deathlands, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
oh dear what a bad way to end.................
you know i loved this,and was really into it.i enjoyed the action from the beginning,the built up hope civilization could still exist then the big blow it didn't,although i did find it a bit hard to chew that Ryan could find someone similar in reverse.....but it didn't spoil it....until the last few pages when i read who the leader of the lords of death really was.sorry but what a crock.,I'm not sure what the author was thinking i can only assume he had just watched predator and was considering buying V on DVD.the biggest crock ending iv ever read,there are millions of novels covering that sort of thing including outlanders......can we just get one thing straight.those of us who read deathlands know Russia started the war ok??? not some alien with a big mouth-funny coincidence that just like a predator-but im starting to worry this may be the direction we are taking and for me its the wrong one.good enjoyable read but fingers crossed the ending just flies away as another forgotten idea
It was good to see some thing different this time. The twin's had me for a moment. I thought that it would be Dean, nice twist. The Deathlord at the end was a nice twist. He really was a Predator amongst the land of the living and prayed upon...
I'm a little disappointed in this book...i was hoping for a little more and not such a quick ending...and using the Alien tie-in at the end was a bit much..trying to make the course of Deathlands tie in to outlanders a litle obvious....i also wanted confirmation that the Fire Talker was dead....and where they planned to go when the companions escaped...i liked the rest of the book but i'm curious where the next one is going to pick up...and are they ever going to find Dean?
 
Dan
Why is Dark Resurrection such an important addition to the Deathlands saga?  Because it breaks new ground without breaking canon. I look at this book and Plague Lords as one long novel. It has everything one wants in a DL novel and many surprises. For the first time in my personal recollection, the characters are called upon to make decisions that define who they are as individuals and how they perceive the world of Deathlands and its past, present  and future.
Having read every single book up to this one I will say that the 2 book series was pretty good. I enjoyed the new characters being introduced (Harmonica Tom). I will also say that the story line was good in that it has opened up South America for some more new adventures.and being captured by the pirates was a nice twist.
The only snag with this story line was that it ended like every other book. Ryan and crew wipe out all the bad guys and survive to fight another day........ again. There are very few if any legacy characters being introduced to pop into the series 5-10-15 books later.
Looking forward to the next book Edens Twilight.