Thursday, July 30, 2009

Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny




The last of the Hell's Angels is drafted to transport essential vaccines through post apocalyptic America. There has been a major nuclear war, and everything between west and east coast is dangerous wasteland. Very fast moving, entertaining fantasy novel. Not science fiction – there is no way the described conditions would be scientifically possible, among them horrible wind circling the whole world making airplanes impossible, mutated bats, Gila-monsters and spiders. I also wondered why those dog sized bats would present any kind of threat for someone traveling in an armored car... And the global catastrophe seems to have left practically all roads, overpasses and bridges untouched and drivable. :-) Also, the characters are smoking and drinking coffee all the time - where could they get those in that kind of world? But if one reads this book as fantasy, details of this kind won't harm it and the book is very readable and fine. This is a book that reads like a movie script – in fact if the producers of Escape of New York didn't pay any royalties for Zelazny, they are scoundrels the main character of that movies is the same person than the protagonist of this book in all but name.
157 pp.

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