A rare photo of Robert Adams at a convention.

This past July 31 marked the ninetieth birthday of Robert Adams. While mostly forgotten today, Adams was a towering figure in the SFF Adventure genre during the Eighties. He sold millions of books while also editing numerous worthy anthologies. Robert Adams shouldn’t be forgotten and I hope this—belated—birthday post will make him known to a new potential audience.

I'll state from the outset that details of Mr. Adams' life are very hard to come by. I'm not claiming any sort of conspiracy or memory-holing, but I remember more details being out there back in the '80s and I'm not seeing those details online now. I can think of ten SFF authors from roughly the same era who sold half as many books as Adams--if that--and who never were as omnipresent as Adams was in the Eighties...yet, their entire lives are online. This is a long way of saying that I'm working---to a certain extent--from memory and some speculation. I think that such actions are justified in getting the word out on Adams. That said, I would enthusiastically welcome any and all documented corrections to what follows.

Robert Adams was born in Virginia in 1932 or 1933. Sources differ, but I go with 1933. From there, I seem to remember reading that Robert did some sort of military service. If so, that would likely be Korea. I also recall reading back in the day that Adams was a part of SFF fandom in the South during the '60s and '70s. Along with this, I thought I read that he helped establish the Society of Creative Anachronism in the South with some connection to Hank Reinhardt. This would make sense since I absolutely recall that the 'About the Author' sections in the back of the Horseclans novels stated that Adams forged his own arms and armour.

Speaking of the Horseclans novels...that's where we get onto solid ground. Adams published The Coming of the Horseclans through Pinnacle Books in 1975--probably written when he was roughly forty years old. It described the post-apocalyptic world of the twenty-sixth century. Specifically, the Great Plains of America and the American South. The Horseclans cross the Mississippi and invade the lands of the Ehleenee. The Horseclans of the Plains, culturally, exhibit traits of the Goths, Huns and American cowboys. The Ehleenee are descended from Greek-speaking invaders of North America from several centuries before. Once the Horseclans assimilate to higher tech, the contest could be characterized as 'Crusader-era West Europeans versus Byzantine cataphracts'. Which is the whole point. Did I mention that the Horseclans have telepathic horses and saber-toothed tigers?

The Pinnacle editions didn't set the world on fire. Maybe the time wasn't quite right--which I might discuss in a future post--but Adams moving over to Signet Books and Signet hiring Ken Kelly to do covers certainly didn't hurt sales. By 1983, the Horseclans novels were flying off the shelves. I'd seen them at local grocery stores but I hadn't pulled the trigger. I stopped by a buddy's house (hey, Wade!) and he loaned me A Cat of a Silvery Hue. It was a brutal tale of medievalesque warfare and intrigue, set in the American South five hundred years from now. I was hooked. I went back and borrowed The Patrimony and started buying earlier novels.

The 1979 first edition with a cool Kelly Freas cover. Freas was also the editor.

Meanwhile, Signet republished Robert's earlier novel, Castaways in Time. Five more novels would follow in the series. In 1988, Signet would publish Adams' brand new series novel, Stairway to Forever. Only one more novel in the series would be written before Robert's untimely demise in 1990.

For those who didn't click the ISFDB hyperlink, Adams wrote roughly twenty novels between 1980 and 1990. When opportunity knocked--despite being in his late forties--Robert seized the chance with both hands. Suck on that, GRRM.

Another way we can estimate just how big Adams was in the contemporary Eighties scene are the anthologies he was tapped to edit. In 1984 or 1985, Grandmistress of Fantasy and SF, Andre Norton, asked Robert to co-edit a series of anthologies telling tales set in Norton's 'Witch World'. Magic in Ithkar was published in 1985 and three sequels would follow.

1986 saw the publication of the Barbarians anthology. Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh were co-editors. Both Greenberg and Waugh were and are well-regarded anthologists. Greenberg would work with Adams on several more anthologies. Barbarians and its 1988 sequel are both worthy, stacking up pretty well against the 'Swords Against Darkness' anthos or DAW's Heroic Fantasy. Robert's inclusion of REH yarns in both anthos cements his Howard fandom cred, in my opinion.

Here is where I speculate a new biographical detail in Robert's life. 1987 saw the publication of the fourth 'Ithkar' antho. From there on out, every single, solitary anthology that Robert edited was also co-edited by one 'Pamela Crippen Adams'. It would appear that, late in life, Robert found love. I have no idea if Adams was married previously before his marriage to Pamela, but I would bet my timeline is about right.

Between 1985 and 1990, Robert Adams co-edited thirteen anthologies, all the while, averaging two novels a year. That's over thirty novels and anthologies in one decade. Ken Kelly painted the covers for every Adams novel and also for several of the anthologies.

Robert Adams was diagnosed with cancer and died within six months--on January 4, 1990--according to my sources. He was only fifty-seven years old.

If Mrs. Adams wishes to contact me with more details via this website or in the comments section, I would very much welcome it.