check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
There's a lot of good SF being reprinted
in the UK at the moment and Gollancz seems to be the driving force
behind it.
Alongside its Masterworks imprint is the
'Collector's Edition' range and it's from this line that 'Damnation Alley' comes.
Roger Zelazny was one of the leading figures in the New Wave of SF during the
sixties, changing the direction of the genre towards the 'softer' side of the
social sciences.
 Zelazny,
together with contemporaries such as Samuel Delany and Ursula K.
LeGuin, had a huge influence on the way Science Fiction and fantasy
is written and it's good to see such important work being reprinted.
'Damnation Alley' is a
very short book, barely more than a novella. It took me less than a day to read
its 157 pages but it was an enjoyable trip. Up until his death in 1995, Zelazny
wrote with flair and invention and very strong characterisation which at the time
was a revelation.
'Damnation Alley' is a book about America after a
terrible Nuclear Holocaust in which most of the world's population has died and
almost all of the USA is uninhabitable. Survivors remain in Boston and California,
struggling to survive against violent storms, volcanoes and disease. A
fierce wind whips around the planet constantly, ripping off chunks of rock, trees
and buildings and drops them during storms. Mutated snakes, hundreds of feet long,
and vicious tornadoes roam the centre of the continent.
Our hero in
his piece is actually more of an anti-hero. Hell Tanner, last surviving Hell's
Angel biker, is promised pardon from his prison sentence if he'll drive from California
to Boston across Damnation Alley. Reluctantly he agrees, but only after injuring
his brother so that his brother can't also make the trip.
The journey
is near suicidal. Three heavily armoured, near-tank cars set out from California
with Hell in the lead. Barely a third into the trip, only Hell's car remains but
he has to get through, for his cargo is a vaccine against a virus threatening
to wipe out Boston.
It's an enjoyable ride and Zelazny dips you effortlessly
into his believable world. It feels as desperate and relentlessly tough as you
would imagine and the struggle through the ruined central plains is taut and exciting.
The grimy nature of Hell Tanner's anti-hero personality adds a constant
edge to the action and makes it more interesting than a standard adventure. The
end section doesn't quite deliver the climax the story really deserves but 'Damnation
Alley' is still a worthy addition to the classic SF bookshelf.
Tomas
L. Martin |
