Ryan and his warriors must battle against roaming bands of survivors from Russia who are using Alaska as a staging ground for an impending invasion of America.
But the future in a world shrouded in the radioactive red dust clouds of a generation-old global nuclear war depends on finding hidden caches of food, weapons and technology -- the legacy of a preholocaust society -- stashed in lonely outposts known as redoubts.
When Ryan Cawdor discovers a redoubt in the bitter freakish wasteland that now passes for Alaska, he also uncovers a new threat to a slowly reemerging America.
Roaming bands of survivors have crossed the Bering Strait from Russia to pillage Alaska and use it as the staging ground for an impending invasion of America.
Most series go overboard in trying to catch the reader up on what's going on, which can be rather annoying when starting a series. Not so, here! Axler tosses his characters right into the fire, doling out a little more info here & there, crafting a nice little mystery that keeps the reader interested in finding out what in hell's going on. The uncertainty of the ultimate location of where the redoubt has taken the DL crew only adds to the suspense (& gives Doc Tanner ample chance to shine!), & the fact that primary characters are put into harm's way with the outcome uncertain makes for mandatory page-turning. While the violence gets to be a bit much (for me) in places, it's not gratuitous, given the nature of the DL-verse, & I imagine I'll eventually get accustomed to it. A good, solid follow-up to the "pilot", & the characters only get stronger throughout this adventure. Looking forward to finishing & reviewing NEUTRON SOLSTICE. See ya then!
While I liked the book and Zimyanian has always been a favorite character of mine, This was just a bit slow - almost ponderous. It was also disjointed a bit more than many other Lawrence books.
Still - a darn site beffer that many later non Lawrence books out there.
This second installment was breathtaking.  The Russian guerrillas crossed the Bering Strait, just like the ancient American Indians did,and wanted to take over the Deathlands.  Already a classic thought,  Uchitel knew that he was being chased which tweaked him on his way to the conquering land.  Major Zimyanin was a good guy in this book, but he would soon turn into a villain.  In this book, there were two other bad guys that were seemingly overlooked, but to me they had more evil intentions than Uchitel and Zimyanin and these two were Quint and the notorious priest Ezekiel Hearne( I know Ryan is glad to be rid of him, the last thing that you want is to have him stalk you into the main Deathlands where his Black Messiah worshiping cult would expand.)  The part where Ryan was stranded and had to survive the harsh, cold terrain showed that even someone tough like him would struggle and barely make it.  The torture scene of the old man was brutally barbaric, just a recipe that contributes to Deathlands.  10 stars.