Adventure in the Looniverse!

Only the Best
not at all in order of preference

Many people look down on this particular form of literature, labeling it as mere escapism. I really don't know why; trying some, any escape is quite legit to me. Happily, many of the best authors agree with that, even those who also wrote other stuff. Some keep to their forte, which is just fine, too. The funny thing to me is that they often seem to be yearning more for adventure than their average reader. Take guys like Desmond Bagley or John D. MacDonald, who sometimes seem to try acting out their Heroes' role.
Like in all literature, there's much horrible stuff on the market. Why even consider those preposterous, racist, sexist and often downright stupid books? But I always do insist upon a measure of plausibility. Which is why I have this personal blacklist to avoid future spending of my dear money on them no-goods.

Here's a shortcut alphabetical list to all those on this page
but I'd advise browsing
Desmond Bagley - Arthur Conan Doyle - Peter Fleming - C.S. Forester - Ernest K. Gann - Jan de Hartog - James Hilton - Hammond Innes - Rudyard Kipling - Jack London - Gavin Lyall - John D. MacDonald - Herman Melville - Alain René le Sage - Robert Louis Stevenson - B. Traven - Mark Twain - Jules Verne - H.G. Wells - Yoshikawa Eiji

Ernest K. GannNot only adventure novels, but some rattlin' good ones!
Ernie Gann is best known for his aviation stories, but there's much more to him than that. Many of his adfventure books, especially, have been filmed.
You're cordially invited to check him out.

Jan de HartogPeople have been putting him down, saying he merely wrote boys' books for grown-ups. Petty spoilsports.
Of course, when you're happy enough to have been reading him, you know he wrote many other things as well, or even better. But there's no denying, and why should I — he did write great adventures.

Peter FlemingAha! Caught you, huh? You never heard of him. Now ain't that a real shame.
I only read one book of his, Brazilian Adventure ; but recently more have been reprinted.
Peter Fleming was an English film critic who in the early 1930s joined an expedition to search for Colonel Falwell, an explorer who had disappeared in the interior of Brazil. He takes much delight in describing the gang he belongs to as a bunch of bungling nincompoops on a demented mission, not sparing himself. Very funny and great reading.
Colonel Falwell also figures in Tintin's Broken Ear.

Alain René le SageThe only book I've read by this guy is Gil Blas de Santillano , a delightful picaresque novel (I won't blame you for not yet knowing this means about knaves—only knew the Dutch word myself.) I'm sorry I never read more.

Yoshikawa EijiThere's only one book of his I ever got a chance to read, well, five plus one, come to think of it: Musashi, about the legendary samurai who even wrote a book himself on the art of warfare. No doubt Musashi is right: never give your enemy a chance. But who needs war?
His character certainly comes across much more sympathetic in Yoshikawa's books, which read like a Japanese Jan de Hartog (with the one same fault: too mystic for me.) Kurosawa owes this man a lot... Grand and sweeping. They compare it with Shogun and Gone with the Wind, but both have so much less class than this one, it's pitiful. To give you one example, the leading character somewhere has to kneel down and apologize to a carpenter's square after having stepped on it. Right. I'm yearning for more.
[Urinating monk exclaims:] That feels good! Am I one with the universe, or is the universe one with me?
(If you, too, have always wondered what a Crytomeria tree looks like, here's one.)
The Way of the Samurai
The Art of War
The Way of the Sword
The Bushido Code
The Way of Life and Death

In the early 1950s Inagaki Hiroshi turned the book into a trilogy
for Toho Films, starring Mifune Toshiro. It's really fine.
Samurai Trilogy
I Musashi Miyamoto
II Duel at Ichijoji Temple
III Duel at Ganryu Island.

Muyamoto Musashi
A Book of Five Rings
the classic guide to strategy - if you really want to win.

The creator of Sherlock Holmes, need I tell you? next to Forester's Hornblower the most popular character in English literature, also wrote adventure novels. Like The Lost World , need I tell you? I think they're more readable. The supreme test of an adventure novel may be, what film do they make out of it? (But it doesn't always work out.) This movie version of The Lost World I found more enjoyable than the original book. The very title has recently been recycled.

Hammond Innes What this guy obviously did was travel around, have a look at a country and come back to combine all those impressions in an adventure novel. (I do the same thing, only to come back with more photographs than anybody could possibly find a use for - least of all I.) He wrote the most vivid description of a North Sea storm I ever read (Maddon's Rock.)
It's not every day you see a shipload of munitions dedicated to the service of God on the banks of the Thames.

Desmond BagleyBagley, like Innes, liked to travel around and put his lively imagination to work on what he saw. His plots are pretty preposterous, and who's dumb enough to really care? Be grateful that they do hang together.
He could squeeze a dollar until it cried uncle.

Rudyard Kipling He's out of fashion these days, which merely means he's not as enormously popular as a century ago.
This colonial writer still has a large following in India (just like P. G. Wodehouse.) He's good. His most popular seems to be Kim , and that's well-deserved but still debatable, if there were any accounting for tastes.
Check out his comments on the Bandar-Log from The Jungle Book .

You feel he ought to be under Humor, maybe? You may have a point. But there are so many other categories he fits in as well. In short, the guy may not fit in anywhere—for which I love him madly. But he did write great adventure novels: the Tom Sawyer novels (yes, there are more than the one you've read); the immortal Huckleberry Finn . (And don't forget Life on the Mississippi .)

Gavin LyallI don't find him nearly often enough, but will always pick him up. Not bad at all. And no presumptions at high-class.

Duncan KyleAnother one who's quite good. Funny guy; grows on you. Try it, you'll like it.

Herman MelvilleFor now, only think of Moby Dick or Typee —see what I mean?

B. TravenI only read two of his, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre which is very good if not very surprising, and The Death Ship , which is really fine. As good a description of slave work as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle . Made me lust for more. If you want to know more about the B. Traven enigma, read The Secret of Sierra Madre: The Man Who Was B. Traven by Will Wyatt

C.S. ForesterYeah, yeah, I know the guy wrote much other stuff. What else is new? He wrote an enormous stack of good old plain adventure as well, right?
The Hornblower series, his greatest hit, is maritime war adventure—mostly.
Here's a list of all his works I've been able to find.

John D. MacDonaldAnother guy generally considered a detective, mystery or thriller writer, where you'll find another picture, more in that style. Than which nothing could be finer with me. Anyway, I think of him as an adventure writer. To me his best books are Crossroads on one of those mail-order rip-off churches; Condominium , about a Gulf hurricane; and the Travis McGee The Green Ripper . If you find it boring when he fulminates about the Florida tourists and accompanying urbanization, just skip it. Some of that stuff actually is pretty good.
The one thing I really can't stand about Travis McGee is how he keeps running into wimmins who have lost all interest in sex, but old spit-eye turns them on again. John D.'s audience probably is much more mature than he thinks: Never underestimate your clientèle. Or maybe it was a favorite real fantasy of his? Once again, what can you do but hope for the best.
I read a religious comic book. All about Samson yanking down that temple. Samson looked like Burt Reynolds. Delilah looked like Liz Taylor. The temple looked like the Chase Bank. (The Green Ripper)

Don't get put off by that semi-cult around him. Jack London is a fine author. There's one book of his in which dogs think about human beings as the gods, to give you one reason to check him out. Hint: Try The Call of the Wild . One of his best is the short story The Seed of McCoy , with its great punch line.

My, was the guy Victorianly bearded. To the gills... But that's mere kvetsching ad hominem. Mostly, he gets classified as science fiction, where you'll find more on him, but his novels were published as Wonderreizen, Wondrous Travels; at least, in Holland. In France they were called the equivalent of Miraculous Travels; still, travels.
To me, it is good old adventure; and fine, indeed.

Robert Louis StevensonMore on him later (when I've got time). Here, I just give the first line of his masterpiece, Treasure Island .
See if you can put it down after reading that sentence! I dare you.
CHAPTER ONE
The Old Sea Dog at the 'Admiral Benbow' SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, DR. LIVESEY, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17—, and go back to the time when my father kept the 'Admiral Benbow' inn, and the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, first took up his lodging under our roof.

H.G. WellsHe wrote a lot of good old adventure. You might, again, call much of that stuff science fiction just as well, and it's often done. Not by a long way, though, would you be entitled to label his other stuff adventure.

James HiltonHis Lost Horizon is very nostalgically famous; it's the first Pocket Book ever published. It has lended the name Shangri-La to one of the finest Kinks songs (on their Arthur recording.) The theme of travelers stranding in an isolated place, here Tibet, is nothing new, but it's a pretty good book. Very popular with the aging New Agers, I shouldn't wonder. What ruined the taste for me is the racism in it—only white people can make it to the Superman state.
(Snide side comment: It was first published in 1939.)

personal grey to black list
No offense, but these guys, to my exquisite taste, are too blatant, too machine-produced, too obnoxious or preposterous, or too whatever. In some cases, too plainly bad-written.
I prefer to read books I can enjoy.
— These I read, sometimes, when I'm in the mood, when they come free: (I may not even spell 'em right... so sorreee!)
Arthur Hailey — Michael Crichton — Alistair McLean — Alexandre Dumas — H. Rider Haggard
(— And these, and then some, I avoid like the plague. Now, really: Robert Ludlum — Alexander Kent — Tom Clancy — Clive Custler — Robert Ruark)

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