James Axler

 

A GOLD EAGLE BOOK FROM WORLDWIDE

 

TORONTO NEW YORK LONDON AMSTERDAM PARS SYDNEY HAMBURG STOCKHOLM ATHENS TOKYO MILAN MADRID WARSAW BUDAPEST AUCKLAND

 

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

 

First edition August 1997

 

 

ISBN 0-373-62538-3

 

THE MARS ARENA

 

Copyright 1997 by Worldwide Library.

 

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

 

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

 

and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

 

Printed in U.S.A.

 

 

 

Some say that men love games

 

Some say that war's a game

 

And from the Roman days

 

The red god sets the pace

 

Mars, it's always Mars

 

With Venus in his arms

 

Don't they know the real arena

 

She draws blood to stoke her love

 

And the Reaper shows his bones

 

Shedding kindness like a cloak

 

Mars, his nights of bliss

 

Venus and her blood-red kiss

 

from the Liar cycle the rock group Polo Heads

 

 

THE DEATHLANDS SAGA

 

This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001 that was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.

 

There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.

 

But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endurein the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to nature's heart despite its ruination.

 

Ryan Cawdor The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with betrayal from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.

 

Krysty Wroth Harmony ville's own Titian-haired beauty, a woman with the strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been fostered by her Mother Sonja.

 

J. B. Dix, the Armorer Weapons master and Ryan's close ally, he, too, honed his skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.

 

 

Doctor Theophilus Tanner Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc has been thrown into a future he couldn't have imagined.

 

Dr. Mildred Wyeth Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is not much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.

 

 

Jak Lauren A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and danger, the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.

 

Dean Cawdor Ryan's young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows, and yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.

 

In a world where all was lost, they are humanity's last hope