Damnation Alley

Damnation Alley is a 1969 science fiction novel by American writer Roger Zelazny, based on a novella of the same name published in 1967. A film adaptation of the novel was released in 1977. Plot introduction The story opens in a post-apocalyptic Southern California, in a hellish world shattered by nuclear war thirty years before. Several police states have emerged in remaining areas of the former United States that can still support human life. As a result of the war, hurricane-force winds above prevent any sort of air travel from one state to the next. Sudden, violent, and unpredictable "garbage storms," and giant, mutated animals and insects make day-to-day life treacherous. Hell Tanner, an imprisoned Hells Angels member, is offered a full pardon for his crimes in exchange for taking on a suicide mission: a precarious drive through Damnation Alley, a narrow passage relatively free of lethal radiation, across a ruined America from Orange County, California to Boston, as part of a convoy of three Landmaster vehicles (fitted with various rocket launchers, flame-throwers, machine guns, and slicing implements) attempting to deliver an urgently needed plague vaccine to survivors.