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Starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and Booklist.
An iTunes “Best Twenty Books” of April
An Amazon Top Twenty “Best Thrillers” of April
PRAISE
“Benjamin Percy’s THE DEAD LANDS is a case of wonderful writing and compulsive reading. You will not come across a finer work of sustained imagination this year. Good God, what a tale. Don’t miss it.”
—Stephen King
The Dead Lands is a bomb-blast of a novel, casting its tremors in every direction. Benjamin Percy’s range grows broader with every book he writes. Here he takes a journey across a cataclysmic future American West, sending his band of seekers, scholars, assassins, and explorers through a landscape as dangerous and surreal as it must have seemed to the original Lewis and Clark. Their adventure, like the novel itself, travels far past the frontier, into the deepest and most thrilling of wildernesses.
– Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead and The Illumination.
The Dead Lands is a gripping and inventive adventure about the resilience of the human species. Benjamin Percy may conjure a future that’s brutal and dark, but it’s not without bravery, compassion, and love. He is a truly gifted storyteller.
– Edan Lepucki, bestselling author of California
The Dead Lands is an ingenious thriller, relentlessly driven by Benjamin Percy’s powerful writing.
– Jess Walter, New York Times-bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins and The Financial Lives of the Poets
This post-apocalytptic reimagining of the Lewis and Clark passage is a thrill ride through a nightmare America. Gorgeous and haunting and full of heart, like some wonderful offspring of The Hobbit, The Road, and Stephen King’s Dark Towers series.
– James Frey, New York Times-bestselling author of Endgame and A Million Little Pieces
REVIEWS
Click here to read the Minneapolis Star Tribune review.
SYNOPSIS
In Benjamin Percy’s new thriller, a post-apocalyptic reimagining of the Lewis and Clark saga, a super flu and nuclear fallout have made a husk of the world we know. A few humans carry on, living in outposts such as the Sanctuary-the remains of St. Louis-a shielded community that owes its survival to its militant defense and fear-mongering leaders.
Then a rider comes from the wasteland beyond its walls. She reports on the outside world: west of the Cascades, rain falls, crops grow, civilization thrives. But there is danger too: the rising power of an army that pillages and enslaves every community they happen upon.
Against the wishes of the Sanctuary, a small group sets out in secrecy. Led by Lewis Meriwether and Mina Clark, they hope to expand their infant nation, and to reunite the States. But the Sanctuary will not allow them to escape without a fight.