SM Stirling Books in Order
Explore Michael Z Williamson's books with S. M. Stirling, with reading order, short summaries, project background, and notes on where to begin.
Last updated: July 5, 2026
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Publication Order
57 books
Snowbrother
by SM Stirling
1985
In the far-future ruins of civilization, Shkai'ra grows up in a harsh tribal world where survival comes first and trust is scarce. It is lean, wintry fantasy with old wounds and stubborn endurance.
The Sharpest Edge
by SM Stirling
1986
In the corrupt city of Illizbuah, a wandering swordswoman is drawn into intrigue among priests, rulers, and hidden powers. The book mixes far-future fantasy, urban danger, and hard choices.
Marching Through Georgia
by SM Stirling
1988
In an alternate World War II, the slaveholding Draka fight in the Caucasus and reveal how terrifying their society has become. The book mixes campaign action with a cold look at power built on conquest.
The Cage
by SM Stirling
1989
Betrayed, enslaved, and left for broken, Megan Thanesdoom escapes and sets out for revenge. Her road home becomes a fast-moving adventure of allies gained, enemies hunted, and old scores finally faced.
Under the Yoke
by SM Stirling
1989
After the Draka conquer Europe, resistance survives in secret while collaborators and occupiers learn what their new masters really are. It is a grim occupation novel about fear, loyalty, and slow-burning revolt.
The Stone Dogs
by SM Stirling
1990
The cold war between the Alliance and the Draka turns hot through espionage, conquest, and weapons that could end civilization. Fred and Marya Lefarge are caught at the center of the final, ugliest phase of the struggle.
Shadow's Son
by SM Stirling
1991
Megan Thanesdoom learns that her kidnapped son may still be alive, and the search pulls her back into politics, danger, and old loyalties. The Fifth Millennium world stays personal even when the stakes get large.
The Forge
by SM Stirling
1991
On the fallen colony world of Bellevue, young officer Raj Whitehall discovers Center, a surviving battle computer with plans for civilization's return. Their alliance turns one gifted commander into the hinge of a world war.
Saber and Shadow
by SM Stirling
1992
This expanded version of The Sharpest Edge returns to the Fifth Millennium, where swordswomen, priests, and schemers collide in the corrupt city of Illizbuah. It is far-future fantasy with street intrigue and a hard edge.
The Hammer
by SM Stirling
1992
Raj Whitehall leads a brutal southern campaign across Bellevue, fighting outnumbered battles while court politics snap at his heels. It is a military adventure built on maneuver, discipline, and thin margins.
Prince of Sparta
by SM Stirling
1993
A young ruler in Pournelle's CoDominium future learns that power is never secure for long. Mercenaries, court politics, and battlefield lessons shape a hard military coming-of-age story.
The Anvil
by SM Stirling
1993
Raj Whitehall has nearly broken the back of Bellevue's enemies, but success makes him dangerous to men at court. With Center advising him, he has to finish the war without losing the state he is trying to save.
The Steel
by SM Stirling
1993
Raj's victories have not ended the struggle for Bellevue. As rivals maneuver and the war widens, he must keep his Companions together and push Center's plan forward before the old order destroys itself.
The Rose Sea
by SM Stirling
1994
This Fifth Millennium adventure turns toward sea routes, fragile alliances, and the kind of danger that grows once a journey leaves home behind. It keeps the series' mix of trade, swordplay, and political strain.
The Sword
by SM Stirling
1995
Raj Whitehall's long campaign to reunite Bellevue enters a sharper political phase as victory brings new enemies. Battles still matter, but court intrigue and succession questions may be even deadlier.
Drakon
by SM Stirling
1996
A Draka warrior from a nightmare future lands in 1990s New York and decides modern Earth is ripe for conquest. Police, spies, and one very dangerous fugitive race to stop a new Domination from being born.
The Chosen
by SM Stirling
1996
Civilization on Hafardine has sunk even lower than on Bellevue, and Adrian Gellert becomes the next man pushed toward history. Guided by unseen allies, he faces a stagnant empire that badly needs change.
The Rising
by SM Stirling
1996
A young spacer is pulled into a much larger conflict in this opening Flight Engineer novel, where technical skill is only the start of surviving among warships, merchants, and ambitious powers. It is classic collaboration-era space opera.
Island in the Sea of Time
by SM Stirling
1998
Nantucket and the Coast Guard ship Eagle are hurled back to the Bronze Age in an instant. Survival is hard enough, but a rival from the modern world plans to use guns, knowledge, and ambition to conquer the past.
Against the Tide of Years
by SM Stirling
1999
Nantucketers build alliances, ships, and trade in the ancient world, but one of their own has chosen conquest instead. William Walker's growing empire forces the islanders toward a wider and more dangerous war.
The Privateer
by SM Stirling
1999
The middle Flight Engineer book shifts from training and survival toward piracy, commerce raiding, and broader political trouble. It keeps the series in space-opera mode, with engineering know-how mattering as much as courage.
The Reformer
by SM Stirling
1999
On the fallen world of Hafardine, Adrian Gellert tries to rebuild a decaying empire before it collapses again into darkness. This branch of The General universe shifts from conquest to the harder work of real reform.
Drakas!
by SM Stirling
2000
This anthology opens up the Draka universe with stories by several writers set across the Domination's grim history. It adds texture to the world, from military campaigns to the everyday logic of a slave empire.
Infiltrator
by SM Stirling
2000
The first official prose sequel to Terminator 2 follows Sarah and John Connor as a new infiltrator works to rebuild Cyberdyne and restore Skynet's future. The threat is smarter, more human, and harder to spot.
On the Oceans of Eternity
by SM Stirling
2000
Nantucket's long war with William Walker reaches its climax across an altered Bronze Age world. Sea power, alliances, and the fate of whole civilizations ride on who can master the oceans first.
The Independent Command
by SM Stirling
2000
The Flight Engineer trilogy ends with bigger fleets, harder choices, and command responsibilities that can no longer be dodged. What began as a personal adventure turns into a test of leadership on an interstellar scale.
The Sky People
by SM Stirling
2001
Stirling imagines the Venus of old pulp adventures as a real place, hot, dangerous, and full of ruins and alien life. A Cold War expedition quickly turns into a fight over who will understand the planet first.
Rising Storm
by SM Stirling
2002
Sarah and John Connor try to stay ahead of Skynet's new plans as the reshaped timeline hurtles back toward Judgment Day. The trilogy widens from stalking terror to a larger war in the making.
The Peshawar Lancers
by SM Stirling
2002
After a nineteenth-century disaster devastates Europe, the British Empire survives from India. Two young officers uncover a conspiracy that threatens the raj's fragile order in a world of cavalry, railways, and imperial intrigue.
Conquistador
by SM Stirling
2003
A hidden passage leads to an alternate California untouched by European conquest, and a small group of veterans decide to exploit it. Wealth comes fast, but so do empire, betrayal, and the cost of living a double life.
The Future War
by SM Stirling
2003
The final T2 novel jumps fully into the war against the machines, where John Connor's resistance has to survive long enough to send history back on itself. It gives the franchise the all-out future battlefield the films only glimpsed.
Dies the Fire
by SM Stirling
2004
A sudden global change makes electricity, engines, and gunpowder stop working, collapsing the modern world overnight. In Oregon, a pilot, a folk singer, and a ruthless medievalist build very different answers to the end of civilization.
The Protector's War
by SM Stirling
2005
Eight years after the Change, Mike Havel and Juniper Mackenzie have built strong communities in the Willamette Valley. Norman Arminger wants their land, and the fight between freedom and feudal rule is about to turn open.
A Meeting at Corvallis
by SM Stirling
2006
The war for Oregon reaches a turning point as the Bearkillers, Clan Mackenzie, and their allies confront Norman Arminger's expanding Protectorate. Strategy, diplomacy, and one decisive campaign will shape the post-Change West.
The Sunrise Lands
by SM Stirling
2007
A generation after Corvallis, Rudi Mackenzie rides east on a quest toward Nantucket, where answers may wait. Behind him, the Church Universal and Triumphant is growing into a deadly, organized threat.
In the Courts of the Crimson Kings
by SM Stirling
2008
An expedition to a living Mars is pulled into canal-city politics, desert travel, and the troubles of a very old civilization. Stirling plays planetary romance straight, with modern characters dropped into a dying world.
The Scourge of God
by SM Stirling
2008
Rudi Mackenzie continues his perilous journey across a shattered America while the fanatical Sethaz tightens his grip in the West. The road east is full of allies, ruins, and enemies who think destiny is theirs.
The Sword of the Lady
by SM Stirling
2009
Rudi's long journey east brings him closer to Nantucket and the truth behind the Change, while his friends fight for survival back home. Quest fantasy and post-collapse statecraft meet head-on here.
A Taint in the Blood
by SM Stirling
2010
Ellen Tarnowski thinks she has been betrayed by the man she loves, then learns he belongs to a hidden race behind vampire and werewolf legends. Her heartbreak becomes the doorway into a secret war.
The High King of Montival
by SM Stirling
2010
A generation after the Change, Rudi's quest for answers leads back to Nantucket and toward a crown he never sought. Old powers are stirring, and the post-Change world is starting to feel mythic as well as broken.
The Tears of the Sun
by SM Stirling
2010
War with the Church Universal and Triumphant spreads across the changed West as Rudi and his allies press the fight. The book widens the map and shows how costly it is to turn hard-won unity into victory.
Clan of the Claw
by Michael Z Williamson
2011
In a Bronze Age world where dinosaurs never died out, the feline Mrem face a reptilian empire built on slavery and magic. This shared-world novel follows linked adventures in a brutal conflict over who gets to rule the future.
The Council of Shadows
by SM Stirling
2011
Ellen and her Shadowspawn allies are drawn deeper into a hidden struggle among near-human predators who have shaped history from the dark. The conspiracy gets wider, and far more dangerous.
Lord of Mountains
by SM Stirling
2012
Now crowned Artos the First, Rudi Mackenzie has won major battles but not the war. To finish it, he must face the enemy's last strength and the weight of prophecy in the high country.
Shadows of Falling Night
by SM Stirling
2013
The Shadowspawn war spreads into open crisis as old bloodlines, hidden courts, and human loyalties collide. The finale pushes the series toward a larger reckoning without losing its urban-fantasy secrecy.
The Given Sacrifice
by SM Stirling
2013
Montival and its allies gather for a last, costly struggle against forces that are hostile to human freedom and human life. The stakes are not just military, but spiritual and civilizational.
The Golden Princess
by SM Stirling
2014
A new generation takes over the Change world as Princess Órlaith faces a rising imperial threat from Korea. To secure alliance with Japan, she and Reiko set out to find the legendary Grass-Cutting Sword.
By Tooth and Claw
by SM Stirling
2015
In the dinosaur-haunted Exiled world, a band of Mrem fights sickness, hunger, and capture while trying to save their clan. The scale is intimate, but the struggle for survival is relentless.
The Change
by SM Stirling
2015
This shared-world anthology expands the Emberverse far beyond Montival. Stories from different writers show how people survived, traded, fought, and rebuilt after the Change in places from Australia to the Mediterranean.
The Desert and the Blade
by SM Stirling
2015
Órlaith and her allies press on with their dangerous quest for the Grass-Cutting Sword, a relic that could strengthen Montival's alliance with Japan. The journey runs through hostile country where politics and myth are equally sharp.
Prince of Outcasts
by SM Stirling
2016
Swept across the Pacific, Prince John must survive pirates, sea monsters, and shifting island loyalties far from Montival. Back home, his apparent loss forces his family to prepare for a larger war.
The Sea Peoples
by SM Stirling
2017
Change Year 46 finds Órlaith and Prince John at the center of a widening struggle on land and sea. While John is far from home among island powers, Montival prepares for war against human and inhuman foes.
Black Chamber
by SM Stirling
2018
In a 1916 where Theodore Roosevelt is back in power, a secret American intelligence service hunts a plot that could shatter coastal cities. Alternate history and spy-thriller energy fit together neatly here.
The Sky-Blue Wolves
by SM Stirling
2018
In the last Change novel, Crown Princess Órlaith tries to hold together the peace won by her father while old enemies and stranger threats close in. Politics, prophecy, and hard fighting all come due at once.
Theater of Spies
by SM Stirling
2019
Luz O'Malley and Ciara Whelan go undercover in wartime Europe to uncover a German weapon that could change the balance of World War I. It is the Black Chamber series at its most globe-trotting and spy-driven.
Shadows of Annihilation
by SM Stirling
2020
With the Great War locked in stalemate, Black Chamber agents race to protect a vital American gas facility from German attack and sabotage. The book blends espionage, alternate history, and looming industrial horror.
Conan - Blood of the Serpent
by SM Stirling
2022
Set early in Conan's wandering life, this standalone novel sends the Cimmerian against armies, sorcerers, and monsters in the Hyborian Age. It is a straight-ahead sword-and-sorcery chase with plenty of blood on the blade.
Where should I start?
If you want post-apocalyptic survival and rebuilding: Dies the Fire → The Protector's War → A Meeting at Corvallis
If you want time travel and Bronze Age history: Island in the Sea of Time → Against the Tide of Years → On the Oceans of Eternity
If you want dark alternate history: Marching Through Georgia → Under the Yoke → The Stone Dogs → Drakon
If you want military SF collaborations: The Forge → The Hammer → The Anvil
If you want a strong standalone first: The Peshawar Lancers or Conquistador
Author bio
S. M. Stirling was born in Metz, France, to a Canadian father and an English mother, and he spent parts of his childhood in more than one country. That early mix of places shows up in his fiction, which is often curious about how societies work, how cultures travel, and what people do when history suddenly swerves.
He has always sounded like someone who enjoys asking the practical question right after the big impossible one.
He studied in Canada, earned a law degree, and then veered away from law. Before writing full time, he worked a variety of jobs, and in 1984 he published his first novel, Snowbrother. By 1988 he was making his living as a novelist, which gave him room to range across the kinds of books that would become his signature, alternate history, post-apocalyptic fiction, military SF, and fantasy with a strong interest in how people actually live.
A lot of readers first meet him through the books that take a huge premise and then patiently work through the consequences. In Island in the Sea of Time, modern Nantucket is flung back to the Bronze Age, and the appeal is not just the shock of time travel. It is the way the story follows ships, farming, trade, disease, language, and politics, all the awkward details a lesser book might skip. Stirling is very good at making a whole community matter, not just a chosen hero.
He can go much darker than that. The Draka novels, beginning with Marching Through Georgia, imagine a slaveholding empire so vicious that alternate history turns into full nightmare. Then Dies the Fire shifts into a different register again, asking what happens when electricity, engines, and gunpowder stop working overnight and the Pacific Northwest has to rebuild from scratch. What begins as survival fiction slowly grows into a long story about new societies, new loyalties, and the old human urge to turn memory into myth.
He likes big hooks, but he likes second- and third-order consequences even more.
Standalones and side roads matter too. The Peshawar Lancers turns imperial adventure into a tense conspiracy story after a global catastrophe, while Conquistador uses a hidden path to another California to dig into greed, idealism, and the speed with which a private scheme can become a private empire. Even in collaborations, whether with David Drake, Jerry Pournelle, or James Doohan, he tends to be drawn to command problems, logistics, and the awkward place where ideals meet force.
Certain themes keep returning across the bibliography. He writes a lot about collapse and rebuilding. He likes frontiers, expeditions, cavalry, sea voyages, and people who have to learn useful skills fast. His books often ask what leadership is for, what belief can build or destroy, and what a society is really made of once the easy assumptions are gone.
He has long been based in New Mexico, and he has described his interests in simple terms: history, anthropology, archaeology, the sciences, and martial arts. That feels like a fair guide to the work too. Pick up almost any Stirling novel and you will probably find a bold historical thought experiment, a lot of practical detail, and at least one person trying very hard to build something durable in a world that does not want to stay stable.
Edited by
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