DEUS IRAE (in Collaboration with Roger Zelazny)
British Editions
From the back cover of the 1978 UKSFBC edition
DEUSIRAE
Deus Irae takes us into an America devastated by World War III in which Carl Lufteufel, the man who detonated the ultimate weapon of that conflict - thereby killing over a billion people - is worshipped as the Deus Irae, the God of Wrath. A .limbless artist, Tiber McMaster, is com. missioned by his church to paint a mural of the God of Wrath; but first he has to set out on a journey to find Lufteufel, so that the likeness will be exact. Towed in a cart by his faithful Holstein cow, armed with a Polaroid camera for the fateful encounter, he embarks on his unlikely pilgrimage. His travels take him through a weird, shattered countryside in which he encounters monsters and mutations, talking animals and malfunctioning (and sometimes malevolent) ancient machines. And when he finally reaches the end of his quest, what he finds is not at all what he had expected. Philip K Dick and Roger Zelazny are tWo of the most original modern sf writers, so it is to be expected that their first collaboration should be unusual and note. worthy. Deus Irae is no disappointment: unpredictable, humorous, readable and wildly inventive, it is a highly successful marriage of two remarkable talents.
From the back cover of the 1999 Sphere editions
AFTER THE HOLOCAUST A NEW GOD EMERGES. . . What chance has Tibor McMasters - one limbless heretic - against the awesome powers of the legendary Deus Irae, the wrathful entity behind World War III? Commissioned to paint the deity's likeness, Tibor must first find him. And to do so he must travel across the nightmare landscape of the post-holocaust world, braving its terrifying mutations while his Christian companion acts on orders to sabotage his mission...