Deathlands: Sunchild

Rating:
Summary: James Axler is rolling in his grave
Review: I give up, while the first 30 books were great they have slipped in recent years. I think I first noticed the decline at "Freedom Lost" and even then it was bearable. But now its just a rehash. Ryan and Co. come out of the gateway fight a battle, go to the vile, Dean gets caught in a rockslide or is attacked by a mutie fish. Oh yeah, and along the way they make a friend(who has the unsighly habit was being killed just before the book ends). Read Outlanders, therein lies a glimmer of hope.

Rating:
Summary: James Axler is rolling in his grave
Review: I give up, while the first 30 books were great they have slipped in recent years. I think I first noticed the decline at "Freedom Lost" and even then it was bearable. But now its just a rehash. Ryan and Co. come out of the gateway fight a battle, go to the vile, Dean gets caught in a rockslide or is attacked by a mutie fish. Oh yeah, and along the way they make a friend(who has the unsighly habit was being killed just before the book ends). Read Outlanders, therein lies a glimmer of hope.

Rating:
Summary: James Axler is rolling in his grave
Review: I give up, while the first 30 books were great they have slipped in recent years. I think I first noticed the decline at "Freedom Lost" and even then it was bearable. But now its just a rehash. Ryan and Co. come out of the gateway fight a battle, go to the vile, Dean gets caught in a rockslide or is attacked by a mutie fish. Oh yeah, and along the way they make a friend(who has the unsighly habit was being killed just before the book ends). Read Outlanders, therein lies a glimmer of hope.

Rating:
Summary: SUNCHILD SHINES SOMEWHAT
Review: In the new saga of the Deathlands titled SUNCHILD, Ryan Cawdor and his band of wayfarers jump to what was once Seattle, the place where they once found the legendary Trader. Now don't get your hopes up you diehard Deathlands fans, the Trader is not there but only mentioned, but what is there is a couple of communities divided and warring against one another due to one being normal humans, and the other being some of the strangest muties yet to date in this series. The first part of this particular adventure is the best part of the entire book. The set-up of the adventurers being captured by the norms and the introduction and detail of how these muties look were the strong points of the story, after that the story kind of went back and forth between going to the muties camp and fighting and then going back to the norms place and skulking about the warrens of their underground base, looking for something fishy. There are some very strong points and ideas in this story, and even some very interesting bad guys (and gals). But the action sequences were kind of dull and not very well executed. The good thing about the main characters were that the writer kept them "in character" for the most part, especially Jak. The power struggle going on inside the norms base was a plus, the barons wife plotting against him was a good twist and she was an interesting character, but the writer did not use her to her full potential. Ryan Cawdor was a little too tolerant to the sec boss who was constantly giving him grief the entire book, I could not wait for Ryan to take this guy out - and that also was very disappointing. The colorful muties were not expounded upon as well, this would have greatly enhanced the storyline if the head mutie named SUNCHILD by the way, would have been explored more. If you are going to name the title after a character, especially a mutie, dont you think you should make them pretty much the center of attention instead of a by-product of the storyline? Another strong point of the storyline comes along when the norms find out that the muties have an old atomic bomb on their property, now this doesn't happen everyday! I love storylines that incorporate the weapon of mass destruction that ruined your world come face to face with the characters, but it takes a superlative writer to think and invent a fun and enjoyable read out of this - what will the fans say to this one? DEATHLANDS is too great of a series and idea not to explore further, when will this book take the nex step in doing so?

Rating:
Summary: SUNCHILD SHINES SOMEWHAT
Review: In this latest installment of the saga of Deathlands, Ryan Cawdor and his wayward survivors jump back to what was once Seattle. This was the place that Ryan and J.B. had found their long-lost leader of the war wags - the Trader. He is only mentioned but does not come out of the woodwork so to speak. Its a shame really, because having the Trader come back would be a great addition to the storyline.
Anyway, The group find that this section of Seattle is being fought over by two groups: normal humans that live underground and a large group of muties led by the one called - Sunchild. Now this is one of the most bizarre mutated people that this series has made up for awhile and its a shame that that part of the story isn't delved into deeper. Ryan and the survivors are captured by the norms and taken underground to their hidden base. Here they find that the baron is a nice man for once, but his wife is not, she is plotting against her husband along with the sec chief. The wife has more than a hidden agenda up her sleeve, and this also makes this a more interesting story, but again falls short. The norms employ Ryan and the group to help them wipe the scrouge of the muties once and for all, but to their dismay, they find that the muties have an old nuclear bomb in their camp. Now this complicates matters some, plus there is infighting among Ryan's group and the mean norms, the head sec chief gives Ryan enough grief that I was waiting for Ryan to lop-off his head at any moment, but unlike Ryan of old, he does nothing to my consternation. The weak part of the story is the action as the norms storm the muties camp a couple of times. The action sequences are flat and not as well done as they usually are. The storyline had threads of great ideas but was narrowed and never seemed to expand. Come on writers, take this series to the next level - its high time to do this - dont hold back on us readers!

Rating:
Summary: SUNCHILD SHINES SOMEWHAT
Review: In this latest installment of the saga of Deathlands, Ryan Cawdor and his wayward survivors jump back to what was once Seattle. This was the place that Ryan and J.B. had found their long-lost leader of the war wags - the Trader. He is only mentioned but does not come out of the woodwork so to speak. Its a shame really, because having the Trader come back would be a great addition to the storyline.
Anyway, The group find that this section of Seattle is being fought over by two groups: normal humans that live underground and a large group of muties led by the one called - Sunchild. Now this is one of the most bizarre mutated people that this series has made up for awhile and its a shame that that part of the story isn't delved into deeper. Ryan and the survivors are captured by the norms and taken underground to their hidden base. Here they find that the baron is a nice man for once, but his wife is not, she is plotting against her husband along with the sec chief. The wife has more than a hidden agenda up her sleeve, and this also makes this a more interesting story, but again falls short. The norms employ Ryan and the group to help them wipe the scrouge of the muties once and for all, but to their dismay, they find that the muties have an old nuclear bomb in their camp. Now this complicates matters some, plus there is infighting among Ryan's group and the mean norms, the head sec chief gives Ryan enough grief that I was waiting for Ryan to lop-off his head at any moment, but unlike Ryan of old, he does nothing to my consternation. The weak part of the story is the action as the norms storm the muties camp a couple of times. The action sequences are flat and not as well done as they usually are. The storyline had threads of great ideas but was narrowed and never seemed to expand. Come on writers, take this series to the next level - its high time to do this - dont hold back on us readers!

Rating:
Summary: A flat-liner of a book
Review: It's been at least a couple of years since I read a Deathlands novel. I stopped buying them because they seemed so dumbed-down, particularly compared to the Outlanders series. I figured that to be fair, I ought to give DL another look and see if it had improved.

It saddens me to say that judging by "Sunchild" not only has DL not improved since the last book I read, if anything it's pretty much a flat-line as far as action, characterization, drama and simple energy is concerned. It's standard issue from start to finish. What makes it worse is how the writer introduces a couple of halfway interesting concepts and then proceeds to do absolutely NOTHING with them.

It's almost like the writer suddenly realized that to actually explore the sci-fi concepts he came up with would mean forcing his audience to think a little bit, so he decided to drop the whole bit about genetic engineering and the lost land of Erewhon.Or did he just lose interest?

As far as the main characters are concerned...well, I tend to agree that the writer got most of them right but only because he stuck to their most superficial traits. Krysty and Mildred contributed so little to the entire novel that if all their scenes were seperated, they might take up a couple of pages. Only Dean seemed to show a personality other than the usual laundry list of hokey "Holy Flypaper, Batman!" type of catch-phrases.

I'm sorry to say this, since DL was my favorite series as a teenager but I think it's time to put this collection of 80s cliches out to pasture once and for all... or find somebody to write it who actually cares about it.

Rating:
Summary: Series Shines On : Sunchild (Deathlands)
Review: This series is one of those guilty pleasures kind of things. Like a Steven Segal movie, one shouldn't take this series too seriously and just go with the flow. You know the good guys will win out at the end or it would be the end of the series and that just isn't going to happen. They will face evil men and women, mutant creatures and plants, in a world gone berserk due to the cataclysmic nuclear war raged between the nations sometime during 2001. (Yes, we all know that it is now almost 2004 but please ignore the point.) They will journey from place to place via a teleportation type device popping up in a military installation known as a Redoubt before venturing outside to explore. No matter how bad it looks outside or the lurking danger, the band of explorers will venture out, leaving the relative safety of the Redoubt, face down the danger, and return back to travel to the next place. The good guys always win and live to face danger another day.

As this novel opens, the group awakens to find themselves in yet another Redoubt in what was once the United States and is now known as the Death Lands thanks to the radiation effects. As they explore this Redoubt, which has major appearance differences from the normal Redoubts, they learn that the air system powered by the always present small nuclear generator is failing. This Redoubt also appears to be buried deeper underground than normal which makes their ascent to the surface more precarious, thanks to the diminishing air and land shifts due to earthquakes which have collapsed some of the emergency escape tunnels.

Once at the surface, they step out into a lush world somewhere in a mountain setting. The plants have mutated tremendously surviving the frequent acid rains due to the chem. clouds that still circle the planet. The companions begin to wonder if this is a lead to the land that they have heard of somewhere far to the north where mankind is attempting to rebuild civilization. The place is said to be run by the Illuminated Ones who foretold of the planet wide destruction and of a sanctuary open to those could make it there.

It soon appears that not only is this not a lead to the mythical place, but they have unwittingly walked into an escalating war between two rival villages in the outskirts of what once was Seattle. One group is led by the Sunchild and consists of a splinter group from the original Redoubt that has become horribly mutated due to inbreeding and their above ground exposure to the elements. Another group, living in underground tunnels of Seattle and calling their village Raw appear normal. They are also descendent survivors of the original Redoubt group. While they appear normal to the eye, they hide a deeper and more chilling sickness and evil.

The group, led by the always unflappable Ryan Cawdor, find themselves in the center of the coming battle. Not only do they want to stay alive but they want to find out if anyone knows of the Promised Land that maybe nothing more than a fantasy. And while they try to stay out of folks business, some things are so inherently evil, they have to involve themselves and put a stop to it.

This series will never be confused with deep intellectual reading or working on themes at several levels. This is sheer escapist reading--perfect for those days by the pool or waiting for the inevitable delayed doctor's appointment. And if you miss a book in the series, the next one always gives a very quick recap so the reader has some idea what happened.