Version 1.0.0

I think the hardest part about seeing Laurence James fall off of the Deathlands series is that the books are no longer reliably sci-fi genred. In The Mars Arena, for example, the book starts days after they last teleported from / to anywhere[1], on the run from a local gang who vastly outnumbers them, and ends with no redoubts or mat trans units anywhere in sight.

After a subplot with a scientific community in Montana come to see a falling satellite goes nowhere[2], our intrepid heroes are kidnapped into a Hunger Games style tournament in Las Vegas, as proxies for a bunch of west coast barons[3] who are in competition to see who’s in charge for the next year. As, unexpectedly, is someone near and dear yet recently absent from their group. Not, of course, on the same team though. That’d be way too easy.

The thing is, the propulsive plotting, side characters, constant air of betrayal, scary mutant monsters? All of that is still present, and still works well. But these new authors have lost a lot of the thread of the characters, such that they’re sort of becoming one note caricatures[4]. I still don’t have the data to really know much, but I’m guessing different authors have a better grasp on some of the threads than others? For sure, nobody has the whole picture except the original guy, and he died 26 years ago. Well, or maybe me. But I’m not sure what I can do about it at this remove, you know?

[1] Like, I don’t even remember how the last one ended. Were they likely to teleport anytime soon? The tightly connected narrative between each book is the thing I miss third most, though I suppose this is directly related to how a lot of different people are writing these in a random order instead of one person all in a row. Obviously you could make sure of the continuity, but who wants to waste their time on a low rent men’s adventure series? (Clearly not the people at Gold Eagle who had no idea what makes this series great.)
[2] Yet? I wish I had faith on that point.
[3] Perhaps a precursor to how things are in the Outlanders series? As I said, I’ll be watching for these little connections.
[4] The characterizations of the main people[5] being consistent is what I miss second-most about the series. Well, that and the underlying feminist egalitarianism among the group. That part is gone less often than consistent characterization, but I think in a very real way the failure points are coming from the same place. Wrong character actions are how you lose that kind of thing.
[5] So far, still JB Dix and Doc are hardest hit. Jak was always sort of one note in the first place, at least before and after his family stuff happened, Mildred has done okay for whatever reason, and Ryan and Kristy as the two mainest characters have of course been treated best by the continuity fairies. But still not always perfect.