One of the reasons I rate this book so highly is because I was expecting so little from it, and it is very rare that I have been so completely surprised. On one level, it contained all of the elements I would expect from a post-nuclear-holocost-survivalist-novel, lots of focus on gun models (which mean nothing to me), scaly flesh-eating mutants, slowly awakening psionic powers in the more "acceptable" mutants, bands of killers roaming the badlands, baronies run by cruel, insane gang leaders, all...

Even for 1986 this is not a good book. It’s got a whole lot of crazy ideas about the world 100 years after a nuclear war that would eventually make their way into video games (and still used to this day), from monstrous mutations to living fog, but the execution is just severely lacking. Even back then I would’ve thought it was silly and sexist, and I’m the exact target audience for this stuff. I mean, I was into books like Systemic Shock by Dean Ing and movies like Escape from New York. It’s no...

In 2001 the bombs went off and destroyed the world as we know it. What was once America is now the Deathlands, a hellish landscape populated by mutated humans and beasts, pockets of surviving humans trying to cling to life, and roving marauders looking to take advantage of the weak. Now a small group of warriors have banded together to seek the secrets of prewar science experiments that could be the key to their survival in the Deathlands.

I bought this book when it originally came out, and sold it some time later along with the other volumes I had up to then. Now, I regret selling them, as this was an interesting take on a post-apocalyptic world. A friend recently gave me a whole load of ebooks, and much to my surprise, these books are in there, so I look forward to re-reading them at my leisure, and seeing what happened after I stopped buying them. Someone told me the series lasted for over 30 volumes, with a spinoff series as w...

Pilgrimage to Hell is the first book in the long running Deathlands series. There are 100 volumes of Deathlands, written by 12 different authors under the house name James Axler. Pilgrimage to Hell was started by Christopher Lowder under the pen name Jack Adrian, but Lowder became ill and Laurence James stepped in to finish it under the penname James Axler. Pilgrimage to Hell is the one that started it all, and I've waited a long time to be able to read it.Life as we know it was obliterated in a...

This is the first book in a long running series called Deathlands. The series is written by several authors writing under the pen name James Axler. This is the one that started it all, and I've waited a long time to be able to read it. I enjoy a good literary art piece as much as the next book nerd, but sometimes the old gray matter needs a break...well here it is. I've been looking for a good action Mad Max esque post-apocalyptic book for quite some time. A literary masterpiece this most certai...

I listen to a lot of audiobooks whilst at work to pass the time and i come across the Deathlands series by chance. I have read 88 of these buggers now via the Graphic Audio versions. Unlike your usual audiobooks Graphic Audio are fully casted with sound effects etc. Being a fan of Apocalyptic novels i picked up Deathlands without realizing there are almost 100 of the buggers. Since there are so many of them i don't see the point in writing reviews for them all.Deathlands set almost 100 years af...

This was my first Audio Book from Graphic Audio. Honestly, I was very distracted by the ... well ... graphics. Blood and guts and squishy sounds and every time they mentioned a weapon they had to mention the ENTIRE weapon's name. Which got a little grating. Otherwise I liked it. Though I did find that it lost my attention every now and then.

My ratings system is as follows. One star is GOOD. The book is entertaining, easy to read and you don't want to stop reading because something about the book is compelling you not to. Two stars is GREAT! This time the story is not only entertaining, but highly creative, unique, easy to read and hard to put down. Three stars is EXCELLENT. Here the book has all aspects of one and two stars, but now the book is thought and emotionally provoking. Four is AWESOME. This is the read that is not only cr...

Deathlands 1: Pilgrimage to Hell / 0373625014I'm a fan of the Deathlands series, although I can't quite put my finger on why. They're pretty much gun-'n'-torture fantasies that take place in an apocalyptic America where might makes right and men are real men and women are real women and death is always lying just around the corner. Not the sort of thing I usually eat up, but the setup is so fascinating that I can't quite look away -- each book is a very careful variation on the same themes and i...

This has been recommended to me several times, but I didn't think it was my cup of tea. I happened to stumble on this abridged audio version at my library, so I thought I'd give it a try.I think I read this or one of the books years ago, but I'm not sure. I get it confused with Jerry Ahern's Survivalist series (Total War) & possibly some others from the 70s. These are guy action porn that seemed to litter the landscape, so were handy to read when nothing else was at hand. I never cared for them

This was my first audio book with sound affects to accompany the narrative, and I wasn't sure what to make of it at first. The violent PA setting is ideal for this sort of treatment, with gunshots, explosions, shouting, screaming and the rest. However, I was pleased to be on the motorway and out of earshot when I hit a sex scene... The "Graphic Audio" treatment means that Pilgrimage to Hell comes across as more of a play than a narration, and overall I liked it.As other reviewers have mentioned,...

I have to say that I am torn about this book, because while enjoyed the story and the idea, I would be lying if I tried to say it wasn't cheesy as hell. But I like post-apocalyptic novels, and if I'm being honest, I'll likely read at least a few of the others in the series simply because of my love for said subject matter. However, if it were about anything else (and I read books from all genres) I would never have finished it. If you don't like action or post-apocalyptic stories, you may have a...

Very similar story to the previous book (Encounter), so much so that it was easy to feel like parts were recycled.

This was a pretty good story. I would give it 3.5-4 stars. The narration was really good. One thing I didn't like was some of the voice acting sound fake and cartoonish.This is the first story in the deathlands series originally published in the 80s and still being written until the end of 2015. The story is about the survivors after a nuclear war that wipes out civilization. I don't think these books are still available in book format however they have been transferred to an audiobook format th...

This is far from perfect, but there's a lot to like about it and I have to say it exceeded my expectations. It's the first of a long series of novels set in a post apocalyptic America and started in the 1980s. That sentence probably tells you a lot of what you need to know and the book delivers the extreme violence and despair you'd expect, but there's an inventiveness and playfulness to the storytelling that lifts it enough to make it a fun and satisfying read.

My dad is a fan of this classic 80s pulp science fiction series about life after worldwide nuclear apocalypse (think if Matthew Broderick did not succeed in preventing global thermonuclear war at the end of War Games) and he gave me the first two books to read. It's a lot of fun if you go into with the right expectations, and by that I mean, no expectations of quality writing but lots of gore and explosions and weaponry and devastated landscapes and mutated creatures and a series of hard-bitten

Overall, a mediocre plus read. Slow starting to me. Opening scene and characters felt cliched, probably because it's been so many years since the book was written. Unfortunately, I knew what was going to happen the whole time, it was just a matter of getting there. The bit of mystery that stayed unresolved and kept being hinted at, was the only thing that kept me interested. I was surprised by the ending though. It made the possibilities for the continued story seem more worthy of my time to fin...

I had a problem with a big portion of this book because I read "Encounter" (Deathlands #45.5) beforehand. Encounter takes place many years earlier and shows the legendary hero Trader in all his glory. Years later here we are and in the beginning of the book you come to find out that Trader is dying and this Legend of a man is now a shadow of himself. Don't get me wrong he's still a tough SOB but I wanted more of him and took me a while to shift gears. The end of the book was really enjoyable for...