The Coming of the Horseclans (Horseclans 1) [Paperback]

Robert Adams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1982

Prophecy Written in Blood! After two hundred years of seaching for other immortals, the Undying High Lord Milo Morai has returned to the Horseclans to fulfill an ancient prophecy and lead them to their destined homeland by the sea. But in their path wait the armed might of the Ehleenee and an enemy even more treacherous-the Witchmen-pre-Holocaust scientists who have survived the centuries by stealing other men's bodies to house their evil minds and who have in their hidden stronghold the means of destroying all who will not become their willing slaves. Can even Milo save the Horseclans from the bloodthirsty Ehleenee and the malevolent Witchmen who would rip him to shreads to discover his secret of immortality?

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1 pages
• Publisher: Roc (July 1, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451137485
• ISBN-13: 978-0451137487
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,133,601 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A March Towards Destiny, February 29, 2004

By 

Bookworm (Maine, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Coming of the Horseclans (Paperback)

The Horseclans novels are like olives -- you either acquire a taste for them or you don't. They're not great literature, which is why I gave this book a score of only 3, but if you get caught up in the saga, it won't matter. You'll want more, and there are a lot of them!

The story is set in precataclysmic North America, approximately 600 years after nuclear war, man-induced plagues, and worldwide seismic disturbances have thrown humanity into a brutal pre-industrial age. Much of California and the East Coast have sunk into the sea. What remains of the eastern states, from Canada to Georgia, has been settled by waves of dark-skinned and dark-haired adventurers from Europe (Spaniards, Greeks, Armenians, etc.) called the Ehleenee. While these early settlers were rugged fighters in the mold of Athenians and Spartans, the current crop are little more than decadent dictators ruling over downtrodden peasant farmers.

This first book in the series details the odyssey of the War Chief of the horseclans, Milo of Morai, a mutant immortal from the 20th century, as he leads the nomadic people of the horseclans from the high plains of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. After 200 years of searching for other immortals, Milo has returned to the clans to fulfill an ancient prophecy and lead them to their destined homeland by the sea. Since, unbeknownst to the horseclans, earthquakes long ago sent their original home, Ehlai (Los Angeles), to the bottom of the ocean, Milo convinces them to travel east rather than west. In their way stands the armed might of the Ehleenee and the treacherous Witchmen -- pre-Holocaust scientists who have survived the centuries by repeatedly stealing new bodies to house their minds and who have their own designs for ruling existing civilization.

These books are primarily military science fiction and not for the faint of heart. There are lots of vivid descriptions of battles, torture and ghastly wounds. The prose is spare and very action-oriented. While not a fan of military fiction in general, I was sucked in by the animal component of the series. The clanspeople have the ability to communicate telepathically with their specially bred war horses and with a mutant wild cat, the "prairie cat," which sounds like a blend of puma, sabertooth, and cheetah. I'm also obssessed with translating the terminology of the time -- it becomes a kind of game -- figuring out what words like Ehlai (LA), Pitzburk (Pittsburg), Karaleenos (Carolinas), Neekohl (Nicole), Kuk (Cook), Hwallis (Wallace) all mean. If you like Larry Niven's Man-Kzinn Wars series, you might enjoy the horseclans saga.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not literature -- just great fun, November 10, 2009

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Coming of the Horseclans (Horseclans 1) (Paperback)

While working through the sf shelves recently at my local used paperback bookstore, I came across a stack of barbarian-adventure novels by the late Robert Adams from the 1970s and `80s. They've been out of print for some time (I see they're back now) and, frankly, I'd forgotten all about them. The "Horseclans" series (of which this is the first installment) is probably his best known work, set six hundred years after a nuclear/biological/geological holocaust, a world in which the survivors of America have become horse nomads and the east coast has been resettled by incomers from Greece and Eastern Europe. Milo Moray is one of the few survivors from the Olde Days (yes, he appears to be effectively immortal) and he has returned from a long, wandering journey to retake leadership of the clans and to lead them to a new future on the coast. The action is headlong and the prose, while sometimes a bit purple, is actually quite enjoyable. Adams is up-front about simply providing entertainment, but he manages to blend in some quasi-libertarian commentary as well. He's also knowledgeable about military matters, so the verisimilitude is strong. There's a dozen and a half books in the series, and they don't demand to be read exactly in order, but this first one sets up the milieu, so this is where you should start. Grab any copies of Adams's books you can locate and settle in for some pure escapism.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bloody, Brutal Fantasy Debut, August 20, 2007

By 

Marcus Damanda "author of Teeth: A Horror Fan... (Woodbridge VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Coming of the Horseclans (Mass Market Paperback)

Here's a book it seems no one has heard about, and that's too bad. I read my first HORSECLANS book in high school, and it left an impression. For those who enjoyed 300 (or the better, lesser-known BLOOD OF HEROES), it seems that this book might have come out in the wrong decade.

THE COMING OF THE HORSECLANS introduced a fantasy series that reveled in brutality; that painted a picture of a world we'd all be glad not to live in. It shares a kinship with John Norman's GOR series; but HORSECLANS is written better, and it's not hung up on that whole slave-girl-exploitation dreck. In other words, underneath the blood and the guts and the sex, there's a bona-fide story. Woo-hoo!

(This review has been posted by Marcus Damanda, author of the vampire novel "Teeth: A Horror Fantasy.")