Seedling

Deathlands #13

by James Axler

America's post-holocaust nightmare continues as Ryan Cawdor returns to the monstrous urman slum that was once New York City...and discovers a piece of the future...

As the raming band of survivors seek desperately to escape the eerie wastes and mutated life-forms of their nuclear hell, they emerge from a gateway back into the ruins of Manhattan the concrete battlefield where Ryan had avanged the death of his father and older brother.

The city is a flooded hellzone ruled by street gangs adn hordes of reptilian mutants who inhabit the sewers. Under this urban ruin lives the self-styled King of the Underground, presiding over his subterranean fortress filled with prenuke memorabilia. And here, in this once great metropolis, lives a ten-year-old boy. He is Ryan Cawdor's son...

The children shall inherit the Earth.

Genres: Post Apocalyptic, Adventure, Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Horror, Action

349 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published September 1, 1991

About the author

https://www.graphicaudio.net/our-prod...

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

Seedling is the thirteenth novel in a very long series of post-apocalyptic men's adventure science fiction. They were all published as by James Axler (except for the first one), but numbers two through thirty-three were all written by Laurence James. The set-up is that there was a nuclear war in the near-future Y2K (the series launched in 1986), and the books are set a century or so after that. The core team members are Ryan Cawdor (a one-eyed man of action), J.B. Dix (Ryan's sidekick, who wears a hat and has massive knowledge of weapons), Krysty Wroth (a sexy red-haired mutant who becomes Ryan's partner), Doc Tanner (a 19th century gentleman who was trawled through time and so he's now muzzy headed), Jak Lauren (an albino half-feral fighter), and newcomer Dr. Mildred Wyeth, another cryogenic time-traveler, who will become J.B.'s significant other. (Jak had dropped out at the end of the previous one, but don't worry, he'll be back a few titles down the road.) Ryan and J.B. used to work for The Trader, commander of a war-wagon, but take off on their own when they discover a matter-transmitter in a redoubt that leads them into decades of adventure. Now they flit from redoubt to redoubt via mat trans, having adventures and fighting until it's time for the next book. This one is set in the ruins of New York City, where Ryan and the gang had fought his evil brother a few books before. The place is a cesspool, and Mildred gets to be a real doctor when J.B. is infected, though it couldn't have been pleasant. Ryan was following a lead to the son he never knew he had, Dean. (I always thought of Carl on The Waking Dead as Dean!) Lots of chasing about with fighting, sex, and adventure, and, best of all, alligators in the sewers. The colorful cover by Michael Herring has the traditional boot with a weapon and a nifty weird little alligator creature and the now-ubiquitous Deathlands daisies.

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mildred had to suck maggots from a wound on Jak's face.

[Katy Lohman · Rating 3 out of 5]

New York City! Following a lead, Ryan and his friends are in search for a son Ryan just learned he had. They have to face gangs of violent children, reptilian mutie gangs who keep humans as slaves, and giant gator descendants of the ones flushed down the toilet in the 1900s. JB is stung by an unknown bug, and soon finds himself at death's door. Thankfully, there might be a way to save him.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good one on the series. I liked the NYC setting, though it could have gone down that direction a little more. The friendly local baron from their unpublished past was a nice switch from the norm.

[TinaNoir · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I came across these books in a box in our barn. I started idly leafing through it and became surprisingly engrossed. Surprising because even though I read a lot across genres, this is pretty much outside my wheelhouse. It is described as 'Men's Fiction/Action Adventure'.

This is book 13 of apparently a 90+ book series that follows a small group of 6 people as they traverse the US 100 years after a nuclear holocaust going from adventure to adventure. I couldn't find any books earlier than this in the box, but that doesn't matter, I managed to get the gist pretty good just from reading this one. The world is a very different place. The aftermath of the nuclear war has caused mutations in people as well as climate and geographical changes to the US. This series takes place in a true post-apocalyptic dystopia. There doesn't seem to be anywhere where people are completely safe.

One member of the group was actually alive during the 1960s and was cryogenically frozen only to be awakened during the present time. Another member was part born in the 1800s and was part of a time travel experiment. These two exist to give present day context and pepper the rest of the group with cultural references they don't understand but the reader will. In this one the group find themselves in New York. No skyscrapers are left, Grand Central is a husk and they can only tell where the park used to be because there is no rubble there just mud.

I found the writing to be spare yet still oddly descriptive and very much in keeping with the episodic nature of the stories. The action was quick and the storytelling precise. I finished it quickly and found myself pulling out the next one.

[Ralph McEwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was fun to listen to and all the action kept me awake while driving in the Nevada desert. Yet it does require you to fully suspend your disbeilf. I mean come on hundreds of year after the holocaust there are still people all over the place, still using weapons from pre-holocaust and nobody is making new ones, even in New York with thousands of people still surviving there. OK end of rant, it only a movie in my ears.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An average apocalyptic adventure story. This one takes a century after the last war and now there are mutants running around the earth. Recommended