Dark Book Review – Damnation Alley By Roger Zelazny
Review By Casey Douglass
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First published in the
late 1960s, Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley is a turbo-charged
jaunt across the post-apocalyptic wasteland of America on a mission to
deliver plague antiserum to Boston via the catchily titled Damnation Alley,
a route deemed as impassable to all but the best or most foolhardy
drivers. Hell Tanner (yes, his first name is Hell) is pushed into the
role of reluctant hero as he is forced to take the wheel of the
heavily armoured “car” that will make the journey. He's been a
naughty boy and it's either this or prison you see. He just happens
to be the best driver around and so is given the “choice” of
whether to go or not. He goes for it reluctantly and soon finds
himself contending with the pleasures of life on the open, mega-storm
blasted roads.
I like Hell Tanner.
He's a bit of an arse-hole but as is later alluded to by a
conversation between him and a person he meets on the road, he is
what he is and has never tried to lie and blend into the masses. He
loves his Harley, the open road and tinkering with engines. He is
also tough, grizzled and content to be breathing a lot of the time.
His companions fall by the wayside throughout his journey, each
succumbing to the mischief of Damnation Alley, but this doesn't stop
him feeling some emotion when it happens, particularly to the ones he
comes to like.
The route itself is
pretty spectacular, massive storms pelting the car, strange mutated
creatures roaming the land and of course, the biggest danger of all:
other people. Thankfully, he is driving a special car, one with
armour, radiation shielding, flame throwers, missiles and machine
guns. He also has a small arsenal inside the cabin around him, next
to the fridge and the coffee maker. A real home from home. That
doesn't mean he can plough through just anything though. He's an
intelligent guy, even if he comes across as a savage. He never
bothers the massive snakes that slither across the road, the ones as
thick as a trash-can and that take minutes to pass. He also doesn't
brave the storms longer than necessary, finding some place to shelter
the vehicle until the worst is over.
The book is set out in
an interesting way, mostly following Tanner's progress but odd sections
detail the plight of the various people in Boston waiting for the
cure he is carrying. These vary in their level of interest, a
love-lost young couple realising they have the plague is one good scene,
a more boring one is a religious nut shouting out his gospel
which was particularly boring and dull. Speaking of dull, Robert Zelazny
occasionally uses the literary device of having massive unending
paragraphs that flow on and on, much like Cormac McCarthy in The
Road. I can't remember the name for this style of writing but I
find it really annoying, like the efforts of an 8 year old to write
something and not knowing what a full stop is for (albeit they get
other punctuation spot on). I never like it in any book I encounter
that uses it and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Damnation Alley
is a good read, interesting and visceral in the Mad Max
feelings it produces, where the revving of the armoured car is
implied with every manoeuvre, and the crushing atmosphere of the
always oncoming storms fraught with pent up tension. Besides the
slight issues I've mentioned above, there wasn't much I didn't like
about it. With this in mind, I give it 4/5.