The Adversary Cycle is a series of seven novels written by American author

F. Paul Wilson Francis Paul Wilson (born May 17, 1946, in Jersey City, New Jersey) is an American medical doctor and author of horror, adventure, medical thrillers, science fiction, and other genres of literary fiction. His books include the Repairman Jack n ...

. While it was originally known as "The Nightworld Cycle" (this name is even printed in the front of some early editions of ''Nightworld''), John Clute, in his section on F. Paul Wilson's work in ''

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (SFE) is an English language reference work on science fiction, first published in 1979. It has won the Hugo, Locus and British SF Awards. Two print editions appeared in 1979 and 1993. A third, continu ...

'', kept referring to "the Adversary." The author liked that better and so renamed the cycle.

Novels

The seven novels that comprise The Adversary Cycle are (in chronological order): *'' The Keep'', July 1981, *''The Tomb'', November 1984, *''The Touch'', April 1986, *'' Reborn'', May 1990, *''Reprisal'', August 1991, *'' Nightworld'', May 1992, *''Signalz'', July 2020, ISBN 978-1-951510-43-5 However, the book series does not fall into a strict chronological order, with alternative orderings suggested. For example, Wilson's websiteWilson, F.P. (2015). The Adversary Cycle. RepairmanJack.com (F. Paul Wilson's official site). Available at: http://repairmanjack.com/books/the-adversary-cycle/. ccessed 4/9/2015/ref> suggests an order of ''The Keep'', ''Reborn'', ''The Touch'', ''The Tomb'', ''Reprisal'', ''Signalz'', and ''Nightworld''. ''The Tomb'' and ''The Touch'' were initially written as stand-alone novels; it is only in ''Nightworld'' that they were retroactively made part of the Cycle as their respective protagonists all come together to fight the final battle against the Otherness. Although these seven books make up the "core" of "The Adversary Cycle", many more novels and short stories tie into the series. For example, ''The Tomb'' is also the start of the

Repairman Jack Repairman Jack is a character in a series of novels by F. Paul Wilson. Jack initially was just one protagonist in a string of related novels, but then gained his own series known as The Repairman Jack series. This series of novels uses realisti ...

series of novels, which quickly became deeply entwined with the Adversary Cycle. They take place in the last three years before ''Nightworld'' and include some of the main characters from the original Adversary Cycle. This is all part of the "Grand Unification" theme of Wilson's works known as The Secret History of the World.

References

Book series introduced in 1981 Horror novel series Novel series {{Horror-novel-stub