Robert Adams Books in Order
Explore Robert Adams books in order, with quick summaries, series guides for Horseclans and more, plus simple advice on where to start reading.
Last updated: July 4, 2026
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Publication Order
27 books
The Coming of the Horseclans
by Robert Adams
1975
Centuries after nuclear war, the immortal Milo Morai leads the Horseclans toward a promised eastern homeland. His march across ruined America brings war with city-states, prophecy, and the start of a vast saga.
Swords of the Horseclans
by Robert Adams
1976
Milo's growing Confederation faces enemies on all sides, and holding it together may be harder than building it. This sequel leans into campaign strategy, alliances, and large-scale battle.
Revenge of the Horseclans
by Robert Adams
1977
A century after Milo's early conquests, a fierce uprising threatens the Horseclans' hard-won realm. Young Bili Morguhn is thrown into leadership just as faith, vengeance, and civil war collide.
A Cat of Silvery Hue
by Robert Adams
1979
Bili Morguhn is called on again as Milo tries to crush a dangerous Ehleenee rising. The result is a fast-moving blend of war, strategy, and clan politics in a fractured future America.
Castaways in Time
by Robert Adams
1979
Sebastian Bass Foster and five unexpected guests survive a monstrous storm, only to find themselves in an England that never existed. Modern knowledge helps, but in Arthur III's war-torn realm it can also get them killed.
The Patrimony
by Robert Adams
1980
Tim Sanderz returns from the Horseclans to claim his inheritance, only to find Sanderz Hall wrapped in conspiracy. Family betrayal, siege warfare, and a fresh Witchmen plot make this more than a fight over property.
The Savage Mountains
by Robert Adams
1980
Milo pushes the Horseclans into the Armehnee mountains, where savage tribes and the hidden Witchmen are waiting. It is a frontier campaign with ambushes, old science, and big stakes for the Confederation.
Horseclans Odyssey
by Robert Adams
1981
Milo gathers the clans with a promise of homeland and an end to wandering, but first they must rescue stolen children. The march turns into a hard road of vengeance, prophecy, and open war.
The Death of a Legend
by Robert Adams
1981
After a disaster unleashed by the Witchmen, Bili and his companions are driven into a nightmare landscape. Mutated enemies and impossible choices turn survival into a new battle.
The Witch Goddess
by Robert Adams
1982
Stranded in a brutal land shaped by ancient catastrophe, Bili and his allies face foes who wield more than swords. The threat of lost science and dark belief gives this adventure a sharper edge.
A Woman of the Horseclans
by Robert Adams
1983
Bettylou Hanson is cast out by her own people and rescued by the Horseclans, where she finds a new life and a larger destiny. Her story shows how one outsider can become a legend among the Kindred.
Bili the Axe
by Robert Adams
1983
Bili Morguhn steps fully into the spotlight as warrior, leader, and clan champion. Raids, politics, and brutal combat test whether his growing legend is backed by the judgment needed to keep his people alive.
Champion of the Last Battle
by Robert Adams
1983
Bili and Prince Byruhn prepare the last defense of New Kuhmbuhluhn as the Skohshuns close in. A siege outside the walls and a nightmare creature inside turn the fortress into a trap.
Horses of the North
by Robert Adams
1985
Old hatreds flare into a northern blood feud, pulling Horseclans riders into a hard campaign of loyalty, vengeance, and survival. The cold frontier setting gives this entry a harsher, more isolated feel.
The Seven Magical Jewels of Ireland
by Robert Adams
1985
Bass is drawn deeper into the altered past and into a struggle centered on Ireland, kingship, and a dangerous quest. He is not the only traveler in play, and the widening conflict grows stranger by the day.
A Man Called Milo Morai
by Robert Adams
1986
A deadly feud between clans Linsee and Skaht threatens to drag the Kindred into wider war. Milo Morai must stop the bloodshed, or crush it, before the conflict tears the clans apart.
Of Quests and Kings
by Robert Adams
1986
Bass Foster is hurled into a violent seventeenth-century England that belongs to no history book. Forced into command, he must navigate war, rival clans, and the dangerous weight of being treated like a savior.
The Memories of Milo Morai
by Robert Adams
1986
Ancient ruins and old-world secrets put the future of the Horseclans at risk. To survive, Milo must rely on the long memory that has made him both leader and legend.
Madman's Army
by Robert Adams
1987
After a crushing victory, Milo's Confederation must deal with the wreckage of a tyrant's war machine. Scattered armies, treachery, and unstable alliances keep the fighting alive long after the crown falls.
Of Chiefs and Champions
by Robert Adams
1987
A reactivated time projector pulls more people into the unstable past, widening the chaos around Arthur's Britain. New arrivals mean new loyalties, new rivalries, and even more pressure on Bass and his allies.
Trumpets of War
by Robert Adams
1987
With Mad King Zastros dead, Milo tries to restore peace to a southern realm gutted by war. Bandits, broken loyalties, and uneasy new allies make the cleanup almost as dangerous as the conquest.
Of Myths and Monsters
by Robert Adams
1988
The castaways are thrown into a realm shaped by Native American legend, where mythic dangers feel all too real. It is one of the series' stranger turns, with unfamiliar enemies and higher uncertainty.
The Clan of the Cats
by Robert Adams
1988
When Milo and his warriors hole up in an ancient tower against ravenous wolves, they uncover a far deadlier secret below. The book mixes survival action with eerie clues about the origins of the clans' great cats.
The Stairway to Forever
by Robert Adams
1988
Down on his luck, Fitzgilbert discovers a hidden passage beneath his new house and falls into another world. What begins as exploration quickly becomes a strange mission filled with unlikely allies and real danger.
Monsters and Magicians
by Robert Adams
1989
Fitz has found power, love, and purpose in the other world, but the Elder Gods want more from him. Kingship, war, and fresh enemies force him to decide whether he can bear the role chosen for him.
Of Beginnings and Endings
by Robert Adams
1989
The scattered travelers race toward a reckoning in war-torn Britain as old choices and broken timelines close in. Home, history, and survival are all on the line in this final volume.
Guideposts To Danger
by Robert Adams
1990
This was announced as the third Stairway to Forever novel, but Robert Adams died before it was completed. It stands as an unfinished continuation of Fitz's story, not a full novel.
Where should I start?
If you want the main post-apocalyptic saga: The Coming of the Horseclans → Swords of the Horseclans → Revenge of the Horseclans
If you want the strongest Bili arc: Revenge of the Horseclans → A Cat of Silvery Hue → The Death of a Legend → Bili the Axe
If you prefer time-travel adventure: Castaways in Time → The Seven Magical Jewels of Ireland → Of Quests and Kings
If you want more of Milo himself: A Man Called Milo Morai → The Memories of Milo Morai → Trumpets of War
If you want portal fantasy: The Stairway to Forever → Monsters and Magicians
Author bio
Robert Adams was the pen name of Franklin Robert Adams, born in Danville, Virginia, on August 31, 1933. He spent his early years on a tobacco farm in Pittsylvania County, and when his father was invalided out of military service in 1945 the family moved to Richmond. That mix of rural Virginia, military life, and practical know-how stayed with him, and you can feel it all through his fiction.
Before he was a published novelist, Adams served during the Korean War period and was later recalled to the U.S. Army during the Berlin Crisis of 1961 to 1962. He went back to school, spent time in business, and lived a life that was a long way from literary fashion.
Then he turned to writing full time in 1969.
His breakthrough came with The Coming of the Horseclans in 1975, the novel that launched the long-running Horseclans saga. The premise was big and pulpy in the best way: a shattered future North America, sword fights instead of modern armies, telepathic bonds with horses and great cats, and an immortal war leader named Milo Morai trying to pull scattered peoples into something like a civilization again.
Readers who stay with Adams usually do it for momentum. His books move. Even when he pauses for background, you can feel the military mind at work in the scouting, logistics, sieges, and command decisions. Swords of the Horseclans, Revenge of the Horseclans, and Bili the Axe show the pattern clearly: hard-riding adventure, rough politics, ugly choices, and battle scenes written by someone who cared about how campaigns actually function.
He did not stay in one lane. In the Castaways in Time books, beginning with Castaways in Time and continuing with The Seven Magical Jewels of Ireland, Adams plays with time travel and alternate history, dropping modern people into a dangerous medieval Britain that never existed in any textbook. Late in his career he also launched The Stairway to Forever, a portal fantasy series that sends Fitzgilbert into a strange world of hidden passageways, old powers, and a job he never asked for.
Another part of Adams's appeal is that his fiction feels built from real interests rather than borrowed atmosphere. He loved history, horses, weapons, and fieldcraft, and he wrote as if terrain, weather, exhaustion, and supply lines mattered. His novels can be blunt and rough-edged, but that same bluntness is part of what makes them memorable.
He also worked as an editor, often with Pamela Crippen Adams and Martin H. Greenberg, on a string of anthologies in the 1980s. By the early 1980s he was living in Seminole County, Florida, with his mother, cats, and an elderly Labrador Retriever. He liked hunting, fishing, horseback riding, pistol shooting, and gourmet cookery, and he had been active in the Society for Creative Anachronism before an embolism in 1980 slowed him down.
He died in Apopka, Florida, on January 4, 1990, at fifty-six. Adams left behind the kind of books readers tend to discover, pass around, and debate for years. If you like your fantasy and science fiction fast, martial, strange, and very sure of their own worlds, his work still has real bite.
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