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Motherlode

A struggle for survival at the end of the line...

Author:
Victor Milan

Cover Artist:
Dave Seeley

Kindle

Release Date:
November, 2013

Cover Price:
$5.99


First Edition

Release Date:
November, 2013

Cover Price:
$6.99

ISBN-10:
0-373-62623-1

ISBN-13:
978-0-373-62623-6


Images:

Front Cover - Small Front Cover Artwork
Click on a thumbnail to view the full sized image

Teaser:

Seeds of Sustainability

Desperately short of supplies, Ryan and his crew approach the prosperous-looking ville of Amity Springs. Hired to retrieve a stolen relic,the band is quickly caught in a power struggle between two strong-willed lady barons. Each covets the predark goods buried in Amity's backyard. But they are not alone in their zealous desire. All that stands between a motherlode of buried bounty and the destructive power of unchecked greed are grim warriors determined to survive another day in the Deathlands....

Back Cover:

COERCION VORTEX

The cost of living disintegrated after America's nuclear cull, and a life in Deathlands-any life-is dirt cheap. But those few who manage to stay alive in the savage new reality must travel the hellgrounds any way they can. For Ryan Cawdor and his fellow survivors, that means denying the pull toward savagery, and clinging to what little humanity they have left, when they can afford it.

SEEDS OF SUSTAINABILITY

Desperately short of supplies, Ryan and his companions are forced to seek help at the prosperous-looking ville of Amity Springs. Hired on to retrieve a stolen relic, they quickly become caught up in an escalating power struggle between two strong-willed lady barons. Each woman covets the cache of predark goods buried in the ville's backyard. But they are not alone in their desire. And all that stands between a motherlode of buried bounty and the destructive power of unchecked greed is Ryan's grim determination to survive another day.The final frontier isn't in space...it's in Deathlands.

Reviews:

5
Motherlode Mediocre
by Maximus
The 10th book here by veteran action/adventure author Victor Milan in this particular series was pretty good.

By far not his best, not his worst, either. Mediocre adventure. His Storm Breakers and Nemesis books were much better, but this was still a fast-paced adventure read that takes the Deathlands adventurers into a strange kind of power struggle between two pretty different women barons. They are first introduced to a female baron who dresses like someone from the Victorian era, and has a giant two-headed protector that would make a solid Halloween idea. The other is something like a pirate queen, with a mix of bi-sexually driven cohorts.

Although it is overall not a bad book, it is a mixed bag, and the last book, Dark Fathoms, was much better. This felt more like filler than anything else. Kinda familiar territory here, with a couple of new items the companions have not encountered before, but too much of the same to make it truly unique in the series.

I really like this particular author, but he has penned much better. hey, we gather they can't all be gold, eh?

What I liked about this book: The pacing is pretty good. I never felt bored. Just a little let-down, because I've read fantastic past adventures by this author. Some of the action sequences were written well, but, overall, it was a fly-by-the-numbers. The writer knows the companion's character, so this wasn't one of those weird books where the characters don't act like themselves. This author knows them by now very well. Now he just really needs to shake them up, get them more out of their comfort zone in his next book.

There was some intrigue, double-crossing, and even some detective type work done by Mildred. It worked...to a point.

The two lady barons were pretty interesting. The author hints throughout the novel that they have a past. That there may be a more underlying reason for their power struggle to find and/or steal from each other the predark goods buried in their area.

And therin lies the problem with the book.

What I didn't like: The baron vs baron storyline has been done to death. Although this particular volume tries to break away from that mold, by utilizing the various mutant group who are being used as a vaudeville act, along with two very different strong-willed women with a dark past, these strings of storyline are never fully developed or delved into. Only touched upon. In fact, the colorful mutant characters totally disappear from the storyline altogether.

Also, the 'stolen relic' that this whole storyline was supposed to be about, is never shown. And if it was, then it was totally lost to us! Having a weapon of the past, or something like that, would have made this story much better.
It is not a bad book, just not one of those shining, memorable ones.