Roger Zelazny · 1969 · road

Roger Zelazny's 1969 post-apocalyptic novel. After nuclear war has shattered the United States into poisoned wasteland, plague breaks out in Boston, and the only antiserum is in surviving Los Angeles. The convict and outlaw biker Hell Tanner is offered a pardon to drive it across the ruined continent, through the storm-lashed, monster-haunted no-man's-land that the survivors call Damnation Alley. The route runs coast to coast across a broken America.

1. 1
   Los Angeles

   In the walled survivor-state of Los Angeles, the outlaw Hell Tanner is given a pardon and a mission: carry the plague serum across the country to Boston, or die trying.

2. 2
   The Desert Southwest

   He drives east into the irradiated desert, where freak storms hurl boulders from the sky and monstrous creatures haunt the dunes.

3. 3
   The Great Plains

   Across the shattered heartland he presses on, dodging giant bats and gila monsters and the wreckage of a dead civilisation.

4. 4
   The Ruined East

   Through the ruined cities of the East his armoured car grinds on, the last of his companions gone, the serum still aboard.

5. 5
   Boston

   Half-dead, he reaches plague-stricken Boston and delivers the cure, an outlaw who became, almost against his will, the man who saved a city.