Brain dead action books on Project Gutenburg

Cafe Society
#1

Are there any?

I finished Great Expectations, and I downloaded Tale of Two Cities, and I tried reading it, but it bored me. I don’t really want to read another “makes you a better person”/“more cultured” book before I head back to school. So what books are there on project gutenburg that will have a lot of action.

They had pirates and sailing ships, and WWI before 1923, so they must have wrote something about them. Which action books have stood the test of time, and have now found themselves in the new world library, and found themselves on Project Gutenberg

Thanks

#2

Don’t read Moby Dick, unless you have a creepy fascination with whales.

#3

I just downloaded some Knut Hamsun titles from PG; one of my top 5 fave authors of all time. Not action, but pretty readable.

#4

Alexandre Dumas’s stuff… yes it is “classic” and “will make you a better person” and blah, blah, blah. But, really, “The Three Musketeers” is pretty much a bunch of swordfights.

#5

There’s quite a selection from H. Rider Haggard, creator of Allan Quatermain, from King Solomon’s Mines and several other novels, and (the original) She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.

#6

Whoo whoo - covergence! I’d just asked in another thread about what people thought of Three Musketeers.

Both books you mentioned by Dickens - Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations - I thought were like a dose of cod liver oil. On the other hand, I loved, just loved Bleak House.

H. Rider Haggard has lots of stuff on Project Gutenburg. Try King Solomon’s Mines. Good cracking fun.

Or Mark Twain’s wonderful Life on the Mississippi.

Or R.L Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

Or Rafael Sabatini’s Captain Blood. I haven’t read it, but hear it’s good.

#7

Not really an adventure story, but Three Men in a Boat has some moments in it that are ROTFLMAO funny.

#8

Oh yeah, Twain! Puddnhead Wilson is a very dark masterpiece; surprisingly modern.

#9

Or howbout Edgar Allan Poe, or Wilkie Collins, the inventor of the mystery novel, IIRC.

#10

Sorry; meant to recommend Collins’s The Moonstone specifically.

#11

John Buchan - author of The Thirty-Nine Steps - does a good line in Boy’s Adventure. Ripping stuff. I love it! I particularly liked Huntingtower, but any of the Hannay novels are a good read too. He does spooky short stories - well, there’s plenty to choose from of his work on PG.

#12

Idlewild recommends John Buchan. I say ‘Hell yeah!’

#13

They’ve got Edgar Allen Poe. Not so much “brain dead action” as “intelligent horror,” but very accessible to modern readers.

#14

Come on, people! Edgar Rice Burroughs! Tarzan, Mars, At the Earth’s Core! You can’t get better action than that!

You might also like Howard Pyle, even though his stuff is listed under “Juvenile”.

On a different front, Stephen Leacock is very funny, as is
P. G. Wodehouse. Maybe it’s just me.

#15

Howbout Rudyard Kipling? Gunga Din and all that?

#16

ER Burroughs was already mentioned, and John Carter is about as brain dead as you can get and still have it be interesting.

#17

A serious recommendation: if you haven’t read L. Frank Baum’s Oz novels, you should.

#18

Baroness Emmuna Orczy wrote one of the best action books ever, the story of Sir Percy Blakeney an english bon-vivant aristocrat that secretely saves french aristocrat from the guillotine in revolutonary france. Scarlett Pimpernel

Anthony Hope wrote one of the best action book ever it is the story of another english aristrocrat that defies the family warning never to visit the Kingdom of Ruritania.

The Prisioner of Zenda

Julio Verne is a classic. You want adventure try his best known books. The one I chose for you is an strange one. This is a rare Verne, it doesn’t deal with technology, it’s a plain old fashioned adventure story.
In zarist siberia a tartar revolution breaks out, comunication are broken and the zar’s brother is in danger. The best courier is sent to warn him about the traitor that has sweared to kill him, his name is:

Miguel Strogoff
John Ridd is a simple and peacefull farmer but he has to fight beacause in a nearby valley the evil Doones, a terrible band of outlaws, threaten everything he loves including the girl he wants to marry, Lorna Doone

King Richard “lionheart” is absent from his kingdom, his brother Juan the landless rules in his place. A kingdom without a king is a place where anarchy rules, in the chaos england’s best knight will try to do his duty. Ivanhoe
I could write cheesy movie commercials :slight_smile: enough fo one day.

#19

I can’t believe nobody’s brought up JACK LONDON by now. Yes, that’s right, ** JACK LONDON. ** 'Cuz, ya see, ** JACK LONDON ** wrote some of the best short stories ever produced in any language, and frankly nobody ever wrote better adventure tales than his stories of the Yukon and the South Seas. Ya want adventure? Ya want action? Ya can’t do better than

JACK
LONDON!!!

#20

Sorry. Too much coffee.