Evan James is a senior in high school. He and his two best friends embark on a trip from their small hometown to the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Along a desolate stretch of I-40 in the eastern high plains, they are caught in a freak storm that forces their car off the highway. They seek refuge at a roadside tourist trap called the Rocking X Ranch. This is no normal storm, however, and when it dies down they realize that they, along with the other customers and staff of the Rocking X, have been transported to a strange land. In fact, the entire complex of buildings associated with the roadside attraction is now situated atop a giant pillar of rock, in the midst of a barren wasteland. They are not alone, and their lives are instantly in danger from an assortment of villains and monsters more fitting to a nightmare than the reality they have always known. If they cannot improvise, and do it quickly, they will be destroyed. The Groaning Man is the first book in a trilogy that follows the adventures of Evan and pals as they seek to adapt and survive in Kalmorah, a violent, savage world that bends and interweaves the genres of sword-and-sorcery and the classic Western. This book and series are suitable for youth, as the language is mild, there is no sex, and the violence, though intense, and is of the comic book sort, although the monsters do sometimes die in deliciously gory fashion. Adult readers will also enjoy it, though, especially those who are long and loyal devotees of Robert E. Howard-type pulp fiction, or the dearly loved art of dungeon crawling. You should not spend your money on a book that is incapable of hooking you in the first few pages. The Groaning Man will. In the Dungeons & Cowboys trilogy, author Gordan Runyan has created an imaginative place filled with elements both vaguely familiar and strange; where snake oil salesmen and horse thieves intermingle with sorcerers and steam trains and fantasy creatures. The first volume introduces only a few facets of the unique world, and gets the ride started with a rush, like the first downward plunge of a roller coaster.