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100 Best Fictional Adventure Stories

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Here are 100 of the best fictional adventure stories around.

Chosen for their excitement, these stories will have you sitting on the edge of your seat.  When available, I have also included a link to an online Google Books edition of the story for your immediate enjoyment.  Have fun!

(or perhaps you were looking for 100 of the Best True Adventure Books)


callofwild 100 Best Fictional Adventure Stories 1.  The Call of The Wild, by Jack London; The plot concerns a previously domesticated and even somewhat pampered dog named Buck, whose primordial instincts return after a series of events finds him serving as a sled dog in the treacherous, frigid Yukon during the days of the 19th-century Klondike Gold Rushes in which sled dogs were bought at generous prices.  BUY NOW!

2.  Hatchet by Gary Paulsen; A tale of survival, Hatchet traces the story of young Brian, who is left stranded in the Canadian wilderness when his plane crashes. Forced to survive with little food or gear, Brian’s will to live is put to the test.  BUY NOW!

3.  Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson; Easily the best known adventure novel, this is Stevenson’s masterpiece. The son of an innkeeper, young Jim Hawkins finds himself thrust into the world of piracy as he joins Long John Silver in the search for buried treasure.  

treasureisland 100 Best Fictional Adventure Stories

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4. Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss; Stranded on a desert island as a result of a catastrophic shipwreck, a family is forced to survive with nothing but the natural resources available. Eventually, they are able to create an impressive compound within which they are able to live at ease in their jungle surroundings.   BUY NOW!

5. Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling; Follow the adventures of Harvey Cheyne, son of a railroad tycoon, as he is thrown overboard on a steamship journey, only to be rescued by fishermen who eventually mold him into a true seafarer.  BUY NOW!

6. She by H. Rider Haggard; A college professor and his young apprentice follow instructions on a broken pottery shard that lead them to a fabled lost city in the jungles of Africa, where they encounter She Who Must Be Obeyed, the seemingly immortal ruler of the land.  BUY NOW!

7. Ayesha: The Return of She by H. Rider Haggard; Set sixteen years after the events of She, this novels follows the same characters as they travel to the far reaches of the earth seeking out a reincarnation of She Who Must Be Obeyed.  BUY NOW!

8. King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard; Adventurer Allan Quatermain is drafted into a search and rescue party that leads into the great unknown of unexplored Africa, where entire civilizations are discovered and rumors of the location of the mines of King Solomon lead the team on one of the greatest adventures in all of literature.  BUY NOW!

9. Southern Mail/Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupery; A two for one deal, this book chronicles the dangerous lives of the early mail pilots as told by Saint-Exupery, author of Wind, Sand and Stars and himself an accomplished pilot.  BUY NOW!

10. The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle; This timeless classic by Arthur Conan Doyle inspired the imagination of countless young boys and spawned what is now known as the Lost World genre. Inside its pages the protagonist, Professor Challenger, plays tour guide on an undiscovered plateau in South America, filled with dinosaurs and other mystical creatures that time seemingly forgot.  BUY NOW!

11. The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling; Rudyard Kipling’s famous short story about two wandering British adventurers who somehow manage to become kings of Kafiristan, only to suffer a drastic fall from power.  BUY NOW!

12. The Adventures of Captain Hatteras by Jules Verne; In this, one of Verne’s lesser known works, Captain Hatteras enlists a team with the goal of reaching the North Pole. Along the way wills are tested as they face sub-zero temperatures and possible starvation, and eventually the men begin to whisper of mutiny. Typical of Verne’s works, the book is packed with classic adventure start to finish.  BUY NOW!

13. The Tiger of Mompracem by Emilio Salgari; Full of high seas adventure, this is the first in Italian author Emilio Salgari’s celebrated Sandokan series, which follows the pirate Sandokan, known as the Tiger of Malaysia, on his swashbuckling escapades.  BUY NOW!

14. The Pirates of Malaysia by Emilio Salgari; Sequel to The Tigers of Mompracem, this one is every bit as action packed as the first. Follow the notorious pirate Sandokan as he faces his greatest challenge yet.  BUY NOW!

15. The Two Tigers by Emilio Salgari; In this, the last of the Sandokan series to be translated to English, watch as Sandokan faces off against none other than the Thuggee cult, an actual sect later made famous in the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  BUY NOW!

16. Congo by Michael Crichton; Follow an expedition into the Congo that is part rescue operation, part treasure hunt as the team searches for lost comrades and seek out a diamond mine that may hold the diamond needed to complete their ambitious research. The fate of the previous team is discovered when the group is attacked by man eating gorillas that inhabit the region. The book is much better than the movie which was later based on it.  BUY NOW!

17. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton; Join a team of scientists at the ultimate island amusement park, John Hammond’s “biological preserve” known as Jurassic Park, where dinosaurs, genetically engineered by Hammond’s scientists, roam the earth once again. Disaster strikes when corporate sabotage leads to a power outage, significantly reducing the effectiveness of the electrical fences keeping the dinosaurs separated from the park visitors.  BUY NOW!

18. The Lost World by Michael Crichton; Join Ian Malcolm, believed dead after the event of Jurassic Park, as he is forced once again into the company of monsters, this time on a rescue mission of his own. Instead of Isla Nublar, Malcolm must travel to Isla Sorna, aka Site B, where dinosaurs run wild throughout the island.  BUY NOW!

19. The Odyssey by Homer; Homer’s epic poem, which serves as a continuation of the events of The Iliad, is one of the first great adventure stories. Following the fall of Troy, Odysseus begins his journey home to Ithaca but is thwarted in his efforts when an angry Poseidon throws him off course, beginning a timeless adventure that is as good now as it was when written nearly 3000 years ago.  BUY NOW!

20. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien; Venture out of the shire with a young Bilbo Baggins as he discovers a world that few hobbits will ever see, pursued at length by the mysterious Gollum, from whom Bilbo had taken the enigmatic Ring of Power. Bilbo’s courage and cunning are put to the test as he attempts to relieve a very powerful dragon of his treasure horde.

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21. The Lord of the Rings Series by J. R. R. Tolkien; Little introduction is needed for this, J. R. R. Tolkien’s tour de force. Tolkien’s masterful attention to detail comes to light with the peoples, places, and languages of Middle Earth, which are painted with such fine strokes that they could easily be taken to have really existed. Journey with Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring as they endeavor to stamp out the darkness brought to Middle Earth with the return of Sauron and his minions.  BUY NOW!

22. The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien; Published posthumously, this collection of tales by Tolkien works as a literary precursor to the events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, chronicling the formation of Middle Earth and the history of its early peoples, and concluding as the events in the more famous trilogy begin to unfold.  BUY NOW!

23. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson; Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic coming of age tale of the young Scotsman David, who, upon the death of his parents, seeks out his uncle to claim his inheritance. His uncle, wishing to claim the inheritance as his own, sells David into slavery in the American colonies. Adventure is found as David fights his way back to Scotland to confront his uncle and claim his birthright.  BUY NOW!

24. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne; This literary classic follows the exploits of the strange and mysterious Captain Nemo and his ship the Nautilus. BUY NOW!

25. The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne; This lesser know book by Jules Verne is actually a sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, although the storylines have little in common. A group of American Civil War prisoners of war escape via a hijacked hot air balloon, which eventually crashes on a mystical island where they have to fight for their survival.  BUY NOW!

26. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne; Sure, eighty days may seem like plenty of time to go around the world these days, but when Phileas Fogg wagered 20,000 British pounds he could do it back in 1872, he was certainly being optimistic. Trains, steam ships, and even the occasional elephant ride are employed in the circumnavigation as he attempts to make good on his claim.  BUY NOW!

27. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas; This legendary account of the adventures of d’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers follows these proud swashbucklers as they defend the honor of queen and country.  BUY NOW!

28. Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie; The timeless character of the boy who refused to grow up needs little introduction. Fly along with Pan as he and the Lost Boys face off against the notorious Captain Hook and his band of pirates. This masterpiece of literature by J. M. Barrie has been the bedtime story of choice for growing boys for nearly one hundred years.  BUY NOW!

29. True at First Light by Ernest Hemingway; In this, his fictional memoir, Ernest Hemingway details lion hunting with his wife in East Africa at the time of the 1953 Mau Mau uprising. Fact meets fiction as he balances a robust hunting schedule, duties as a game warden and local protector of the people, and a secret tribal marriage to a local tribeswoman.  BUY NOW!

30. The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan; Follow Richard Hannay as he runs from the law in the Scottish countryside, seeking both to prove his innocence and to decipher the clues that could change the fate of Britain in World War I. Part Sherlock Holmes, part Da Vinci Code.  BUY NOW!

31. The Sea Wolf by Jack London; The fascinating tale of a wealthy man, Humphrey Van Wheydon, who is cast into the sea when his ship collides with another in a heavy fog. The man is eventually rescued by a seal hunting expedition, the captain of which is a brutal man called the Sea Wolf who decides to keep Van Wheydon on board as a servant. An adventure story on the surface, this story provides critical insight into man’s inhumanity to man upon closer examination.  BUY NOW

32. Roughing It by Mark Twain; Mark Twain offers his own perspective of the Old West as he journeys through it. Stagecoaches, gold, prospecting, and an antagonist that seems to come right out of a Spaghetti Western make for exciting reading cover to cover. Placed under fiction since though Twain claimed these stories are true, it is generally accepted that some are somewhat embellished.

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33. The Beach by Alex Garland; The search for a fabled beach, said to be perfect in every way, leads a small group of young backpackers on the adventure of a lifetime. However, upon finding the beach, they discover that something so perfect is hard to keep secret.  BUY NOW!

34. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville; Melville’s masterpiece concerning Captain Ahab’s insatiable quest to exact revenge on the great white whale that crippled him, as told by Ishmael, a sailor on board Ahab’s ship.  BUY NOW!

35. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe; The famous account of the castaway Robinson Crusoe as he makes a life for himself on a remote island off the coast of South America, structured as if it was written by Crusoe himself.  BUY NOW!

36. Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini; An Irish physician is wrongly convicted of treason, but escapes execution and flees. Making his way to the Caribbean, he eventually becomes one of the most notorious pirates of the high seas. While fiction, the exploits of Captain Blood are loosely based on the life of the pirate Henry Morgan.  BUY NOW!

37. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope; An English tourist to fictional Ruritania is swept up into extraordinary circumstances when he is chosen to impersonate the recently kidnapped king in an attempt to evade the political upheaval that would likely occur if the king’s abduction was made public.  BUY NOW!

38. Lord of the Flies by William Golding; A story of adventure and survival on the surface, this classic also provides an in-depth evaluation of human nature and society. A plane crash on a deserted island results in no adult survivors, forcing the youngsters who did survive to fend for themselves until rescue can arrive. Troubles ensue as the boys attempt to form a society of their own, and the power of the leaders begins to corrupt their principles.  BUY NOW!

39. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad; The story of the Kurtz, an ivory trader in the Belgian Congo who has “gone native,” as told by Marlow, the man sent to retrieve him. A complex critique of human nature wrapped in an adventure story.  BUY NOW!

40. Inca Gold by Clive Cussler; A dashing adventurer in the vein of Indiana Jones or James Bond, Dirk Pitt finds himself as the only thing standing between smugglers and a centuries old Incan treasure horde hidden high in the Peruvian Andes.

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41. Sahara by Clive Cussler; Another outing of Cussler’s daring adventurer, this story follows Dirk Pitt as he searches for the wreck of a civil war era iron-side ship and the treasure it contains in the most unlikely of places.  BUY NOW!

42. Treasure by Clive Cussler; Team up once again with Dirk Pitt as he seeks out the legendary treasures of the Library of Alexandria in this modern classic.  BUY NOW!

43. The Lighthouse at the End of the World by Jules Verne; Another lesser known Jules Verne novel, The Lighthouse at the End of the World is the story of three men who man a lighthouse on an island off the southern tip of South America. The men are forced to battle to survive when the lighthouse comes under attack by pirates, who plan to use the light to crash unsuspecting ships on the nearby reef.  BUY NOW!

44. Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory; Malory’s centuries old interpretation of the legend of King Arthur is a masterpiece of the literary world. Broken down into several separate tales of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, it tackles love, betrayal, war, and a never ending quest for the Holy Grail.  BUY NOW!

(or The Once and Future King by Terence Hanbury White for more tales on King Arthur and his Knights)  BUY NOW!

45. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne; Descend through the mouth of a volcano and into the depths of the unknown on an expedition to reach the center of the earth in this adventure classic.  BUY NOW!

46. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs; The timeless title character, first introduced here, inspired over twenty sequels and several feature films. Raised by gorillas, Tarzan seeks out the truth of his origins and finds himself at odds with the gorilla king that murdered his father.  BUY NOW!

47. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas; While primarily considered a dramatic tale of revenge and vindication, The Count of Monte Cristo also provides a healthy dose of adventure to its readers. Swordfights, prison escapes, and hidden treasure contribute to the transformation of ordinary man Edmond Dantes into the mysterious persona of the Count of Monte Cristo.  BUY NOW!

48. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling; A collection of yarns suitable for the young adventurer, these timeless tales make the perfect bedside stories for a young boy. Most notable are the accounts of the life of Mowgli, the young boy raised by wolves, and of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the valiant mongoose.  BUY NOW!

49. In Search of the Castaways by Jules Verne; A bottle discovered on a beach is found to contain a message from Captain Grant of the Brittania, long believed to be lost at sea. The information in the message leads to the launch of a rescue mission, but with only partial coordinates and clues in a foreign tongue, the rescuers have little information to work with.  BUY NOW!

50. The People of the Mist by H. Rider Haggard; Fortune hunters travel to Africa in search of the fabled People of the Mist, who are rumored to have an unequalled cache of jewels hidden away. Masquerading as gods, the fortune hunters find more than they bargained for when they are caught in a power struggle between the king and the priests under control of the people’s crocodile god.  BUY NOW!

51. The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard; equal parts ringing steel, thunderous horse hooves, and spattered blood. Far from being a stereotype, his creation of Conan is the high heroic adventurer. His raw muscle and sinews, boiling temper, and lusty laughs are the gauge by which all modern heroes must be measured.  BUY NOW!

52. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs; About the prospector John Carter, who goes to sleep in a mysterious cave in the Arizona desert and wakes up on the planet Mars. While there he meets with many incredible adventures and weird and bazaar Martian creatures.  BUY NOW!

53. Journey by James A. Michener; this story deals with British adventurers and their trek across Canada during the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush. 

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54. One Thousand And One Arabian Nights – Sir Richard Burton, translator; Sharazad, that seductive storyteller who took the bull by the horns and dared to marry the sultan Shariyar who had been driven mad by the infidelity of his former wife and tried to exorcise the demons of her adultery by marrying a new wife every morning and slaying her that same night.  BUY NOW!

Sharazad knows that a good tale can tame the savage beast much in the way music can, and she keeps the Sultan enchanted night after night with the tales that still enchant us in our own time.

We all know about Aladdin and his magic lamp, and Ali Baba and the forty thieves, but there are loads of other treasures in this collection.  BUY NOW!

55. Last of the Breed by Louis L’Amour; Known mostly for his library of cowboy books, L’Amour tackles the cold war genre. Fun, satisfying, and unlike anything you’ve ever read or heard about him.  BUY NOW!

56. The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov; What deceptively starts out as a series about an Encyclopedia turns out to be one heck of an inter-stellar adventure as the most brilliant man ever known lays the groundwork for preventing the total degeneration of mankind and the rise of a new galactic empire.   BUY NOW!

57. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson; In California of the near future, when the U.S. is only a “Burbclave” (city-state), the Mafia is just another franchise chain (CosaNostrastet Pizza, Incorporated) and there are no laws to speak of, Hiro Protagonist follows clues from the Bible, ancient Sumer and high technology to help thwart an attempt to take control of civilization.  BUY NOW!

58. The Walking Drum by Louis L’Amour; Warrior, lover, scholar, Kerbouchard is a daring seeker of knowledge and fortune bound on a journey of enormous challenge, danger and revenge.  BUY NOW!

59. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George; A story of a young boy running away from home to escape city life and survive in the mountains.  BUY NOW!

60. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Sir Doyle; the exploits of Holmes and Watson.  BUY NOW!

61. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry; Augustus McRae, Woodrow Call, and Jake Spoon, three has-been Texas Rangers, hatch a half-baked scheme to abandon their dusty lives in the un-town of Lonesome Dove on the Rio Grande, and embark on a cattle drive to the upper reaches of Montana.  BUY NOW!

62.   The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle; the classic story of social justice and outrageous cunning. Robin Hood is champion of the poor and oppressed by twelfth-century England against the cruel power of Prince John and the brutal Sheriff of Nottingham. He takes refuge with his Merrie Men in the vast Sherwood Forest, emerging time and again to outwit his enemies with daring and panache.  BUY NOW!

63.  Ben Hur by Lew Wallace; After his boyhood friend Messala’s fanatic loyalty to Rome makes him a powerful enemy, Judah Ben-Hur is found guilty of an attempted murder he did not commit. His family is banished and he is enslaved on a warship.  BUY NOW!

64. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott; Ivanhoe, a trusted ally of Richard-the-Lion-Hearted, returns from the Crusades to reclaim the inheritance his father denied him.  BUY NOW!

65. Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes; Don Quixote, errant knight and sane madman, with the company of his faithful squire and wise fool, Sancho Panza, together roam the world and haunt readers’ imaginations.  BUY NOW!

66. Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner; a tale of smuggling set among the cliffs, caves, and the downs of Dorset.  BUY NOW!

67. Shogun, by James Clavell; This story follows the adventures of marooned English sailor John Blackthorne in late medieval Japan during the tumultuous years when Tokugawa Ieyasu (here called Toranaga) was uniting all of Japan under his rule by any means necessary.  BUY NOW!

68. Hornblower series by C.S. Forester; The books about Horatio Hornblower include some of the most interesting and exciting novels ever written about warfare at sea during the days of sailing ships.  BUY NOW!

69. Solomon Kane by Robert E. Howard; Set in the 1600s, these tales are a striking combination of horror and fantastic adventure that remain among Howard’s most intense. A lone swordsman on a mission to rid the world of evil, Kane wanders across Europe and Africa, endlessly fighting mad villains, winged vampires, and black magic.  BUY NOW!

70. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis; four children travel repeatedly to a world in which they are far more than mere children and everything is far more than it seems. Richly told, populated with fascinating characters, perfectly realized in detail of world and pacing of plot, and profoundly allegorical, the story is infused throughout with the timeless issues of good and evil, faith and hope.  BUY NOW!

71. Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian; the exploits of Captain Jack Aubrey of the British Royal Navy and his good friend Dr. Stephen Maturin, naval surgeon and spy. Set during the Napoleonic wars the book takes place mostly on the open ocean, and is rich in historical detail.

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72. The Terror: A Novel by Dan Simmons; Two ships stuck in the ice near the North Pole are plagued by a magical polar bear. Throw in a little Eskimo mythology, and this makes for a fine read.  BUY NOW!

73. Beowulf; written in Old English sometime before the tenth century A.D., describes the adventures of a great Scandinavian warrior of the sixth century.  BUY NOW!

74. His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novi; Here be dragons, beasts that can speak and reason, bred for strength and speed and used for aerial support in battle. Each nation has its own breeds, but none are so jealously guarded as the mysterious dragons of China.  BUY NOW!

75. When the Lion Feeds by Wilbur Smith; Filled with action scenes in war and the early heady days of the gold rush, and adventure among the vast game herds of the African wilderness, this novel is dominated by the towering compelling personality of Sean, whose life story is continued in The Sound of Thunder and A Sparrow Falls.  BUY NOW!

76. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells; he narrator, identified only as “The Time Traveler,” has created a machine capable of moving through time. He boards the machine and rushes headlong into the future–where he finds himself in the strangely utopian society of the “Eloi.”

But unbeknownst to the time traveler, that society is built on the back of a much darker one, the underground world of the “Morlock,” who supply the Eloi’s every need in order to harvest them like cattle.  BUY NOW!

77. West from Singapore by Louis L’Amour; Collection of short stories of a captian and his crew as they work to thwart the Japanese and later the Nazis in 1930’s Southeast Asia.  BUY NOW!

78. Night over the Solomon’s by Louis L’Amour; Similar vein time and setting to West from Singapore, but assorted tales of pilots and sea captains.  BUY NOW!

79. Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey; In the remote border country of southern Utah, a man is about to be whipped by the Mormons in order to pressure Jane Withersteen into marrying against her will.

The punishment is halted by the arrival of the hero, Lassiter, a gunman in black leather, who routs the persecutors and then gradually recounts his own history of an endless search for a woman abducted long ago by the Mormons. Secrecy, seduction, captivity, and escape: out of these elements Zane Grey fashioned his magnificent classic of the American West.  BUY NOW!

80. Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway; This tale of an aged Cuban fisherman going head-to-head (or hand-to-fin) with a magnificent marlin encapsulates Hemingway’s favorite motifs of physical and moral challenge.  BUY NOW!

81. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlin; A recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the universe and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against humankind’s most frightening enemy.  BUY NOW!

82. Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper; The classic tale of Hawkeye-Natty Bumppo-the frontier scout who turned his back on “civilization,” and his friendship with a Mohican warrior as they escort two sisters through the dangerous wilderness of Indian country in frontier America.  BUY NOW!

83. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain; the story of a teenaged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious.  BUY NOW!

84. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift; Shipwrecked castaway Lemuel Gulliver’s encounters with the petty, diminutive Lilliputians, the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the abstracted scientists of Laputa, the philosophical Houyhnhnms, and the brutish Yahoos give him new, bitter insights into human behavior. 

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85. A Night to Remember by Walter Lord; The sinking of the Titanic as it really happened.  BUY NOW!

86. The Lensman Series by E. E. Smith; pre-WWII science fiction at its best. a tale which has been called the greatest space opera of all time. Written with an economy of words, this story is all action, and full of battles, strange entities and beautiful women – everything pulp fiction is known for.  BUY NOW!

87. The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle; In the year 3016, the Second Empire of Man spans hundreds of star systems, thanks to the faster-than-light Alderson Drive. No other intelligent beings have ever been encountered, not until a light sail probe enters a human system carrying a dead alien. The probe is traced to the Mote, an isolated star in a thick dust cloud, and an expedition is dispatched.  BUY NOW!

88. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming; Bond…James Bond is the name. And the game is extreme Baccarat. Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel – premier introduction of the post WWII, fantastical cold war intrigues of Her Majesty’s Secret Service’s Master Spy, Agent 007, Bond – is a riveting read.  BUY NOW!

89. Two Years Before The Mast by Richard Dana – a stunning depiction of “going off to sea”  BUY NOW!

90. Dune by Frank Herbert; the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the “spice of spices.” Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence.  BUY NOW!

91. The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux; the paranoid and brilliant inventor Allie Fox takes his family to live in the Honduran jungle, determined to build a civilization better than the one they’ve left. Fleeing from an America he sees as mired in materialism and conformity, he hopes to rediscover a purer life. But his utopian experiment takes a dark turn when his obsessions lead the family toward unimaginable danger.  BUY NOW!

92. Rogue Male, by Geoffrey Household; A self-reliant individualist sets out to assassinate a dictator who is either Hitler or Stalin (Household deliberately fudges the identity, making it clear that he considers one totalitarian to be the same as another). Then he goes on the run and must survive by his wits while secret policeman track him down.  BUY NOW!

93. For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway; Robert Jordan, the passionate American teacher joins a band of armed gypsies in the Spanish Civil War. He believes one man can make a difference. The whole novel covers just 68 hours, during which Jordan must find a way to blow up a key bridge behind enemy lines.  BUY NOW!

94. A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul; chronicles both an internal journey and a physical trek into the heart of Africa as it explores the themes of personal exile and political and individual corruption.  BUY NOW!

95. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven; tale about a man with no sense of direction in life and finding two companions to travel along with while finding gold; and what greed can do to a persons psychological thinking.  BUY NOW!

96. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein; the story of Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars. Michael is raised by Martians, and he arrives on Earth as a true innocent: he has never seen a woman and has no knowledge of Earth’s cultures or religions.  BUY NOW!

97. Beau Geste by PC Wren; a story of three orphaned brothers who join the French Foreign Legion. A column of the Legion rushes to relieve a beleaguered outpost only to find all of its defenders dead at their posts.  BUY NOW!

98. Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott; the adventures of a businessman’s son, Frank Osbaldistone, who is sent to Scotland and finds himself drawn to the powerful, enigmatic figure of Rob Roy MacGregor, the romantic outlaw who fights for justice and dignity for the Scots. This is an incomparable portrait of the haunted Highlands and Scotland’s glorious past.  BUY NOW!

99. The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay; The Power of One has everything: suspense, the exotic, violence; mysticism, psychology and magic; schoolboy adventures, drama in the boxing ring.  BUY NOW!

100. The Stand by Stephen King; Survivors of a chemical weapon called superflu confront pure evil

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. . . And don’t forget to check out our sister page:

100 of the best true adventure books around

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