The world blew out in 2001. Vast areas of what was the United States lie beneath an umbrella of noxious dust and radioactive debris, a mantel of destruction drawn over a land of doom. Much of the east coast has been obliterated; the Southwest is a land of fire; cities of smoldering ash have given birth to horrifically mutated life forms. Such is the Deathlands, legacy of global annihilation.

But there were survivors, struggling to overcome a dark new age of plague, radiation sickness, barbarism and madness. Out of the ruins come Ryan Cawdor and his band of post holocaust survivors, whose odyssey of discovery takes them in search of other pockets of civilization.

Emerging from a gateway in Maine, Ryan confronts a ruthless and brutal sea captain, a woman prepared to go to any lengths to get what she wants…