Damnation Alley [Mass Market Paperback]

Roger Zelazny (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 2004

Hell Tanner isn't the sort of guy you'd mistake for a hero: he's a fast-driving car thief, a smuggler, and a stone-cold killer. He's also expendable - at least in the eyes of the Secretary of Traffic for the Nation of California. Tanner doesn't care much for those eyes. You'd also never mistake Hell Tanner for a humanitarian. Facing life in prison for his various crimes, he's given a choice; rot away his remaining years in a tiny jail cell, or drive cross-country and deliver a case of antiserum to the plague-ridden people of Boston, Massachusetts...if anyone is still alive there to receive it, that is. The chance of a full pardon does wonders for getting his attention. And don't mistake this mission of mercy for any kind of normal road trip - not when there are radioactive storms, hordes of carniverous beasts, and giant, mutated scorpions to be found along every deadly mile between Los Angeles and the East Coast. But then, this is no normal part of America, you see. This is DAMNATION ALLEY...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

You've gotta love to hate the 1977 movie Damnation Alley, a cheese-filled classic from sci-fi's cinematic canon. But there's at least one good thing you can say about this otherwise awful flick: it's prevented the movie's far superior source material from being forgotten. Roger Zelazny's post-apocalypse novel predates the George Peppard-Jan-Michael Vincent vehicle by about a decade and represents the fine storytelling talents of one of science fiction and fantasy's most daring writers (likely best remembered for his imaginative Amber series).

Speaking of vehicles: the coolest part of the movie--and likely, thankfully, the only part most people remember--turns out to be even cooler in the book: the flame-spewing, .50-caliber-bullet-belching, grenade-throwing, gigantic all-terrain vehicle that's responsible for getting a crucial antiserum shipment from Los Angeles to Boston to stop a deadly plague. The driver, a despicable lowlife named Hell Tanner, has been given a not-so-difficult choice. He can either get the drugs to the East Coast intact, save humanity, and receive a full pardon for his crimes, or he can refuse and spend the rest of his life in a "zebra suit." So what's the catch? Thanks to World War III, Middle America is now an electrical-storm-torn, heavily irradiated playground for dino-sized Gila monsters, "freak spiders," humongous bats "that eat off the mutie fruit trees down Mexico way," and 120-foot-long snakes as big around as garbage cans. And the native humans still scrambling around the wasteland aren't much less dangerous.

Damnation Alley might not be Zelazny's best, but for reading on, say, a road trip, you can't do much better. Throw in some '60s-style, freak-out closing riffs, and a trip down the Alley becomes pretty hard to pass up. --Paul Hughes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Zelazny wrote many novels, short stories, and novellas, including Nebula and Hugo Award winners 24 VIEWS OF MOUNT FUJI, BY HOKUSAI, PERMAFROST and HOME IS THE HANGMAN.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: I Books (February 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743486625
• ISBN-13: 978-0743486620
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #533,968 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Zelazny's best, but damn good fun anyway!, January 17, 2004

By 

Claude Avary "West Coast Reader" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Damnation Alley (Paperback)

"The savage classic that inspired the apocalyptic hit science fiction film!" says the ad blurb.

Well, the ad blurb at least got the first part right, eh?

However, if it wasn't for the dank 1977 movie and its groovy armored RV, this early Zelazny novel might be languishing out of print. Fourteen years before _The Road Warrior_, another ballsy loner in leather zooms the wastelands of a post-apocalyptic world, one that has gone insane with lurid pulp nasties like giant gila monsters, big snakes, super bats, storms that dump debris from the sky, and roving motorcycle gangs (gotta have those). Our hero, Hell Tanner, carries a shipment of life-saving serum to beleaguered Boston, and the hard-bitten man transforms through his struggles to genuinely care about the survival of the cursed world. The slow transformation never becomes cliché or silly, especially since Zelazny constantly throws a smorgasbord of action at Tanner's armored fortress-car.

A few avant-garde sequences throw the book off kilter, but otherwise the hard-boiled fury of this adventure carries you quickly to the finale.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, enjoyable pulp, February 5, 2000

By 

Faisal A. Qureshi (Manchester, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Damnation Alley (The Gregg Press science fiction series) (Hardcover)

After a nuclear war most of North America has become a wasteland known as 'Dammnation Alley'. Hell Tanner, the last surviving Hells Angel and due to die for rape, murder, extortion, etc. is given the choice of delivering a vital vaccine to a plague ridden city or being executed.

Zelazny writes a imaginitive and hard edged thriller filled with vivid imagery. I suspect that Hell Tanner was the inspiration for 'Escape From New York' Snake Plisken and its a pity that Jack Smight's film was just a dilute interpretation of the original. I am surprised it hasn't been re-published.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Post-Apocalyptic Road Trip, March 13, 2002

By 

Psychedelic Cowboy "psychedelic_cowboy" (Burbank, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Damnation Alley (Paperback)

This is an interesting book-- different in some ways from other Zelazny novels. The narrative was less polished than most of his other work. I read this novel on a Greyhound going through some of the area that the story takes place in. I can see why this was made into a film. It has a sort of visual quality, but I never really felt the character was in much danger, or even really challenged, until the encounter with the bikers at the end. Still, the post-apocalyptic road trip across America was intriguing if not gripping. Sort of an On the Road/Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for SF fans. The first thought I had when encountering Hell Tanner was that this must have been the direct inspiration for Snake Pliskin, and that this book (or the 1977 movie) must have been an inspiration for the movie Escape from New York. There are many similarities-- too many for coincidence. It is entertaining, and Hell Tanner is a solid character, far nicer than he believes himself to be. Like all Zelazny novels, my major complaint is that this one is too short. One question I'd like to throw out is that at the end, the "three days" was mentioned, as well as the islands maybe having survived them. Does that mean this is somehow connected to This Immortal?