Horseclans is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

series by American writer Robert Adams, set in a

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

that had been thrown back to a medieval level by a full-scale

nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear wa ...

Background

The books mainly concern the doings of the "Horseclans", a nomadic people originating from the "Sea of Grass"—the

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, a ...

from present-day southern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

to central

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, and from the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

to the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

. The Horseclansmen are portrayed as fierce, noble and often gifted with

telepathy Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...

, which came in handy for their dealings with their

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

s and "cats"— sabertoothed tigers that had been revived by scientific means in the years before the nuclear war. Some people, including the Horseclans' founder and mentor-figure, Milo Morai, were "Undying"—effectively

immortal Immortality is the ability to live forever, or eternal life. Immortal or Immortality may also refer to: Film * ''The Immortals'' (1995 film), an American crime film * ''Immortality'', an alternate title for the 1998 British film ''The Wisdom of ...

or at least unaging and almost impossible to kill by means other than suffocation, drowning and decapitation. The Undying were also

sterile Sterile or sterility may refer to: *Asepsis Asepsis is the state of being free from disease-causing micro-organisms (such as pathogenic bacteria, viruses, pathogenic fungi, and parasites). There are two categories of asepsis: medical and surgi ...

, which was a source of anguish for some of them. The known Undying were: * Milo (who did not know his own age due to amnesia caused by a head wound in 1936) * Bookermann (once a German cavalry officer) * Mara (an Ehleen noblewoman who marries Milo) * Aldora (an orphaned Ehleen girl taken in by one of the Horseclans) * Demetrios (the Ehleen High Lord and the only Undying to perish during the course of the books) * Drehkos (Nobleman of Morguhn involved in the Great Rebellion) * Tim and Giliahna (the children of a Horseclans chief) * Neeka (an Ehleen physician who later also marries Milo) In addition, Bookerman mentions two other Undying, one of whom he claims is dead.Book 13, ''Horses of the North'', Chapter XII Although not among the Undying, two other major characters are extremely long-lived, Hari Krooguh being almost two hundred years old when last mentioned in the books, and Bili Morguhn, aka Bili the Axe, remaining active until his death from bear-inflicted injuries at the age of almost a century. In addition, both Hari and Bili possess extraordinarily strong mental powers of telekinesis and illusion (as does Aldora). The Horseclans looked down on "dirtmen", or farmers, and by extension all non-

nomads A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...

, although they later resettled on the East coast. Many "Dirtman" communities were descended from odd, out-of-the-mainstream groups of Americans, and often had religious beliefs that were unpleasant at best. The main civilization in North America during most of the books is that of the "Ehleens"—a conglomeration of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

-speaking

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

peoples who had invaded the eastern half of North America and set up kingdoms. The main Ehleen kingdom, Kenooryos Ehlas (New Greece), was dominated by a thoroughly corrupt, debased version of the

Greek Orthodox Church The term Greek Orthodox Church ( Greek: Ἑλληνορθόδοξη Ἐκκλησία, ''Ellinorthódoxi Ekklisía'', ) has two meanings. The broader meaning designates "the entire body of Orthodox (Chalcedonian) Christianity, sometimes also cal ...

, and the conduct of whose rulers was, in some ways, also reminiscent of

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

kings. Other peoples the Horseclans dealt with were "Ganiks", "Mehrikans", and "Ahrmenee". The "Ganiks" were degraded descendants of

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

communes, whose religion of "Orghanikonservashun" (organic-conservation) forbade them to eat animal meat (but not human meat; Ganiks were enthusiastic

cannibals Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, bo ...

), bathe, or hot-work metal (due to the pollution caused by burning coal). "Mehrikans" were descendants of present-day

Americans Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States of America.; ; Although direct citizens and nationals make up the majority of Americans, many dual citizens, expatriates, and permanent residents could also legally claim Ame ...

. "Ahrmenee" were descendants of present-day

Armenians Armenians ( hy, հայեր, ''hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...

living in the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. The ...

. In a similar fashion to the world of

Robert E Howard Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906June 11, 1936) was an American writer. He wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He is well known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subg ...

's Conan and of

Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...

novels, civilization is seen as having a softening and corrupting influence in comparison to the hardy Ahrmenee and the Horseclans, although not to the extent that they outweigh the peace and prosperity that Milo and others work towards.

Novels

The novels of the Horseclans series are the following: # ''The Coming of the Horseclans'' (1975) # ''Swords of the Horseclans'' (1976) # ''Revenge of the Horseclans'' (1977) # ''A Cat of Silvery Hue'' (1979) # ''The Savage Mountains'' (1979) # ''The Patrimony'' (1980) # ''Horseclans Odyssey'' (1981) # ''The Death of a Legend'' (1981) # ''The Witch Goddess'' (1982) # ''Bili the Axe'' (1982) # ''Champion of the Last Battle'' (1983) # ''A Woman of the Horseclans'' (1983) # ''Horses of the North'' (1985) # ''A Man Called Milo Morai'' (1986) # ''The Memories of Milo Morai'' (1986) # ''Trumpets of War'' (1987) # ''Madman's Army'' (1987) # ''The Clan of the Cats'' (1988) In addition to the novels, there are two short story anthologies containing stories by both Robert Adams and others set in the Horseclans setting: ''Friends of the Horseclans'' (1987) and ''Friends of the Horseclans 2'' (1989). The ''

GURPS The ''Generic Universal RolePlaying System'', or ''GURPS'', is a tabletop role-playing game system designed to allow for play in any game setting. It was created by Steve Jackson Games and first published in 1986 at a time when most such systems ...

'' system had a worldbook (''

GURPS Horseclans GURPS Horseclans is a role-playing worldbook, one of the first that was published for the GURPS game system. Horseclans was a science fiction series by Robert Adams, set in a North America that had been thrown back to a medieval level by a nucle ...

'') and a solo adventure ('' GURPS Bili the Axe - Up Harzburk!'') devoted to the series.

Cover art

The original series, published by Signet, featured artwork by fantasy illustrator Ken Kelly. Part of the series was later published by Futura in the United Kingdom with new cover art by Luis Royo. Mundania Press is planning on re-publishing the entire series, the first of which (''The Coming of the Horseclans'') features artwork by Stacey L. King. At some point there were also covers done by

Carl Lundgren Carl Leonard "Lundy" Lundgren (February 16, 1880 – August 21, 1934) was an American baseball and football player and coach. Lundgren played football and baseball for the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign and played eight seasons of ...

of 1960s psychedelic album-cover fame and Christos Achilleos for UK-only editions.

References

External links

*http://www.kenkellyart.com/ Ken Kelly's artwork site *http://www.luisroyo.com/ Luis Royo's official home page *{{isfdb series, id=148 *http://www.mundania.com Re-publishing Robert Adams Work *https://web.archive.org/web/20091027131304/http://geocities.com/evilsnack/horse.htm The Horseclans Project *http://ofearna.us/books/adams.html (Franklin) Robert Adams at The BookShelf Fantasy books by series Science fiction book series