The warrior survivalists are guests in a reactivated twentieth-century medical institute in Maine, where mad scientists pursue their abstract theories, oblivious to the realities of the world. When they take on an unhealthy interest in Krysty Wroth, the pressure is on to find a way out of this guarded enclave.
In the Deathlands, the war for domination is over, but the struggle for survival continues.
Deathlands is a world savaged beyond recognition by a centuries-old nuclear blast. While many prosper on the savagery of this lawless land, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists carry the seeds of hope and courage in a daring quest to find the gateway to the future....
The warrior survivalists are reluctant guests in a reactivated twentieth-century medical institute in Maine. Here scientists still pursue their abstract theories, oblivious to the realities of a world gone mad. But when they take an unhealthy interest in Krysty Wroth, the pressure is on to find a way out of this guarded enclave.
Before they can escape, Ryan's loyalty will be tested, and Krysty's special powers may threaten her very existence.
Most of the previous books are great reads. This book made me loose sleep it was so bad.
The gang plus Trader and Abe arrive in Maine by redoubt and encounter some cloned dogs. Dean is under attack by one of the dogs and of course the solution is to chill the dog. But Ryan was so insistent Mildred do it he sticks a gun in Trader's side forcing Trader to not shoot the dog. Anyone could have taken out the dog.
When the scientists come on the scene I'm immediately reminded of Crater Lake because of the similar premise. The evil mad scientists are doing experiments to relearn medical procedures lost over fifty years ago.  They're also supposed to be rivaled to be like Nazi eugenicists and not just eugenicists. This allusion is thrown in by Krysty and Mildred was the author, LJ, trying to convince the reader the scientists were truly evil. The institute is even described as being truly evil by Krysty. Okay, holding people against their will and experimenting on them is bad, but true evil was the Crater Lake scientists developing newer weapons of mass destruction and ready to destroy what was left of the world.
Enter Krysty, who is seen by the scientists to be what they have been striving for with years of their research.  They don't do actually do too much harm when they clone her. They program the clone to hate Ryan, so what? What was the point of that? The scientists cannot even do that right - even after a few successful clonings with one of the sec-men in the story and the dogs. Cloning Krysty was a big missed opportunity and flub in the science itself. I can imagine the scientists screwing up on botched surgeries, or the muties, but not on the cloning part.
Trader brutally murders a female scientist he was trying to seduce just moments ago. Ryan has nothing to say about it, and even agrees with it. Trader seemed like an older bitter version of Ryan but after the murder of the scientist he moves down to Zimyanin's level imo. Ryan isn't any better but I digress. A missed opportunity was with the female scientist. She might have had knowledge about the mat-trans units. In fact, it doesn't cross anyone's mind about asking the scientists about mat-trans since their cloning is based on mat-trans.
J.B finding grens in a room helps them destroy the truly evil wing of the institute. You'd think with all the sec-men they'd have some kind of armory and not leave grens lying around in a box.