If you’ve never heard of him, Adam Corby is a little known fantasy writer from the early 1980s, known mostly for The Former King (1981) and The Divine Queen (1982). I got interested in him because his manuscript for that series offers a great case study on how two different — and major — fantasy editors worked.

• “The Mysterious Case of Adam Corby: or, Two 1980s Fantasy Editors at Work.”

Later, I got even interested in Corby himself after discovering just how impressive his entire Doom-quest of Ara-Karn tetralogy was … as in, probably in the top 3 or 4 fantasy series of his entire decade.

• “The Mysterious Adam Corby — Revealed.”

Since most of Corby’s worked was never officially published, and since his online texts are inaccessible and terribly formatted, I’ve taken it upon myself to post his fantasy novels as PDFs here. They’re all licensed as Creative Commons, and, hopefully, this website will help grant his work greater visibility.

THE DOOM-QUEST OF ARA-KARN

Corby’s most important work, and only one to be (partially) published during his life time. The first two came with the disastrous Timescape Books; the other two were self-published almost thirty years later.

• The Former King (Timescape, 1981)
• The Divine Queen (Timescape, 1982)
• The Iron Gate (2009)
• Darkbridge (2009)

Blood by Moonlight

Historical fantasy set in 18th-century Ireland. Like Doomquest, this novel is a grim yet powerful Romance.

Novellas & Shorter Works

• The Killing Sword (2009); an Arthurian tale about Balyn the Wild.
• The Juniper Tree (2009); a modern retelling of the Grimm’s fairy tale, a favorite of Tolkien’s.
• Swan’s Path (2009); a tale about an Icelandic woman at the close of the Viking Age.
• Traxx (2009); a not-quite-successfull horror novella with intimations of Freud’s uncanny and E.T.A. Hoffman’s “The Sandman.”