Time for an Adventure! - Recommend books

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So I've been getting into some of the Warhammer books as of late and its given me a hunger for some adventure stories. A lone adventurer; a handful of adventuring companions etc... against the world. Or at least against dark wizards, evil kings, noble houses and the like. Something that isn't building toward the whole epic side of fantasy with a billion characters; heck maybe even adventures that don't involve saving whole kingdoms or plunging whole realms into war.

Your good old standard adventure! Something that goes along at a nice active pace full of swords and maybe even some swashbuckling and quaffing!
 
Assuming you already have Conan, then:

The Dying Earth stories by Jack Vance
The Lankhmar stories by Fritz Lieber
Nifft the Lean by Robert Shea
Rumo by Walter Moers
The Earthsea books bu Ursula K le Guin

I will think of others in a minute.
 
The Black Company series by Glen Cook
Kane by Karl Wagner
Solomon Kane, Kull the Conqueror, and Bran Mak Morn by Robert E. Howard
Cyrion by Tanith Lee
More Warhammer with the Witch Hunter trilogy by C. L. Werner
 
Bit more modern but still fits, I think:
Chris Wooding's Tales of the Ketty Jay. Just the four books, but all of them full of rollicking adventure.
 
I read a book called Pioneers by Phillip Mann which was pretty good.

I'd also recommend F. Paul Wilson's Adversary Cycle. (The Keep, The Tomb, The Touch, Reborn, Reprisal and Nightworld.) They're more horror than SF, but they are a well written and exciting read with some pretty decent characters. Each book stands well on it's own, so don't feel pressured into reading them in any order.

The Stainless Steel Rat series were great fun.
 
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Has it got to be sf or fantasy? How about historical open-air adventure? You could try Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, if possible in an edition illustrated by N. C. Wyeth.
 
A lone adventurer; a handful of adventuring companions etc... against the world. Or at least against dark wizards, evil kings, noble houses and the like.

That sounds like heroic fantasy, of which the master is David Gemmell. :)

His best are probably:

Legend
Sword in the Storm
The Lion of Macedon


The second is very much Celtic-inspired, the last a fantasy Ancient Greece setting. Legend would probably be the best place to start, though. :)
 
I'm not going to recommend fantasy
What about the Three Musketeers by Dumas?
I was about 12 when I read it, still remember it being a good read.

Scott's Ivanhoe.

Dennis Wheatley's Forbidden Territory, although dated it's still worth a read.
 
Subterranean by James Rollins
Amazonia by James Rollins
Excavation by James Rollins
Robot Titans of Gotham by Norvell Page
The Ship Of Ishtar by Abraham Merritt
The Moon Pool by Abraham Merritt
The Metal Monster by Abraham Merritt
Lest Darkness Fall by L Spague De Camp
The Peshawar Lancers by S M Sterling
Conan The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E Howard
The Reign of Wizardry by Jack Williamson
The Kane The Mystic Swordsman Series by Karl Edward Wagner
Gathering Chronicles of Empire by Brian G Turner
Silverlock by John Myers Myers
Straken by Toby Frost
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers
King Solomons Mines by H Rider Haggard
She by H Rider Haggard
The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Land that Time Forgot , The People that Time Forgot and Out of Times Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve
The High Crusade by Poul Anderson
Typewriter in the Sky by L Ron Hubbard
The Mines of Behemoth by Michael Shea
The Lost Continent by C J Cutclife Hynd
The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin by Seabury Quinn
The Dark World by Henry Kuttner
Black Gods Kiss by C l Moore
The Martian War by Kevin J Anderson
Map of Time by Felix J Palmer
Map of the Sky By Felix J Plamer
Map of Chaos by Felix J Palmer
 
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The Sword of Shannara. Yes there are lots of Shannara books but the first can be read as a stand alone novel. It was a stand alone novel when I read it.
 
John Gwynne - Malice. The blurbs promise a mix of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, how true that is or is just for marketing is another question.
 
Lone wanderer? Just like hitmouse said... Conan.

Or... you could pick up the story of the Bloody Nine in Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy (Conan leaves The Seven Samurai to join Gandemort, the Black Widow, and Percy Weasley in saving the world while a crippled Winston Churchill chases the Cambridge Five and defends Constantinople from the Turks and meanwhile the Seven Samurai save Roman England from Angles, Saxons and Orcs). His next three books fit into the First Law world, but are stand alone novels.... Best Served Cold (it's basically the Countess of Monte Cristo written by Quentin Tarantino), The Heroes (imagine Ivar the Boneless leading the Great Heathen Army with his allies William Wallace and Sitting Bull against Richard III and the Lancastrians for three days at Gettysburg), and Red Country (the best description I can give is that it's a combination of the western movies Unforgiven, True Grit, and How the West was Won starring Conan and Katniss).

If you want something along the lines of even more Lord of the Rings.... then Brooks' Shanarra stories, Iron Tower trilogy by Dennis McKiernan, David Edding's Belgariad, Raymond Feist's Riftwar (lots of characters), Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, and Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams all feature the sincerest form of flattery, I mean fellowships out to save the world.... and then The Sundering duology by Jaqueline Carey tells Tolkien's story from the Witch King's perspective.

Not out to save the world, just a part of it... Katherine Kurtz' Deryni series, The Curse of Chalion by Lori McMaster Bujold, Legend by Gemmell (As straight forward a tale as it gets. Imagine Conan at sixty-five.), and the Farseer Trilogy of Robin Hobb.

But if it's not fantasy that you require.... The Count of Monte Cristo is Dumas' best... Les Miserables (definitely read an abridged version) by Victor Hugo plumbs the heights and depths of conscience, patriotism, family, and duty... Homer's The Odyssey keeps the tension going and going to the inevitable bloodbath... Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is not merely the best western I've ever read, it's one of the best stories I've ever read... I also love James Fennimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans which features a fictional small fellowship in a real historical setting of romance, betrayal, war, venedetta, and race relations...

And speaking of historical fiction... Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC... Michael Curtis Ford's Ten Thousand deals with Xenophon's Anabasis.

But the ultimate in a true story, i.e. real history of a fellowship on an incredible journey into fantastic lands populated by amazing peoples where they don't save anyone, but themselves... Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose.

That's my two cents...
 
The Count of Monte Cristo is Dumas' best... Les Miserables (definitely read an abridged version) by Victor Hugo plumbs the heights and depths of conscience, patriotism, family, and duty....

I'm curious, why an abridged version of Les Mis? I've got an unabridged translation sitting on my shelf and I'll admit it's pretty intimidating. I've heard that there are some parts, particularly descriptions of Waterloo and the Paris sewer system, that really drag, but those parts don't sound THAT bad to me, or at least no worse than his peers' need to describe minutae (Melville and whaling...).
 
But the ultimate in a true story, i.e. real history of a fellowship on an incredible journey into fantastic lands populated by amazing peoples where they don't save anyone, but themselves... Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose.

And Endurance by Alfred Lansing.
 
@soulsinging Uh... the version I have is abridged... and I uh.... heard the omitted parts are lengthy descriptions of the sewers... and I was told that... uh... I did not want to read them. So I blindly passed on this information believing I am enlightened.... but I admit I've not read an unabridged edition.
 
I would second The Anubis Gates and On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, also The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, if someone hadn't already beaten me to it.

Randy M.
 
@soulsinging Uh... the version I have is abridged... and I uh.... heard the omitted parts are lengthy descriptions of the sewers... and I was told that... uh... I did not want to read them. So I blindly passed on this information believing I am enlightened.... but I admit I've not read an unabridged edition.
No need to be embarrassed... I'm very clearly fishing for permission to go the abridged route too! :p
 

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