The paperback copy we have - I can’t find it right now, unfortunately - had a little blurb about a sequel being on the way.
Steven R. Boyett. Also wrote the novel Ariel, which was damn good for a 21-year-old.
I tell you what, if I ever go to the Tokyo Tower and I don’t get to go be a magical princess in Bishonen World, I am going to be seriously pissed.
“Man of Two Worlds” by Raymond F. Jones. Read it in High School, but the only thing I remember is one character’s name is William Douglas, maybe? And another is “Organizer Cady.”
My son certainly enjoyed it, I remember that. He would have been about 15 when he read it.
Google tells me little about any possible sequel to Architect. Well, actually, it tells me nothing.
This general area of the genre is known as “Lost world” stories. H. Rider Haggard was another master of the style.
An interesting historical volume is A Journey in Other Worlds by John Jacob Astor (yeah, the guy on the Titanic)
I see someone has already brought up the Japanese anime 12 kingdoms, so I thought I’d mention that the show is based on a series of novels which are, generally speaking, significantly better than the animated adaptation. I think that an English translation of the first book has been published or is about to be, and if it’s anywhere near as amusing as the Japanese version, I think it’d be worth a read.
A few :
The Spellsong Cycle from LE Modesitt Jr, where a professionally trained singer from Earth is summoned to a world where song makes magic. Given her training and knowledge, turn-armies-to-ash and level-cities levels of magic. Very good, high body count.
Here Abide Dragons by Andre Norton, people from modern Earth end up in an apparently uninhabited ( at first ) world.
In David Weber’s novella Sword Brother modern American soldiers and their armored vehicle take a side trip to his fantasy setting. It puts into perspective just how formidable the main character Bahzell is when the demons he’s fighting are a serious challenge to them and their modern firepower & armor as well.
Drinking Midnight Wine by Simon Green, a man from our world of Veritie ends up in the magical world of Mysterie. Another good one.
Doc Sidhe, a homage to Doc Savage where the protagonist ends up transported from our world, the “grim world”, to the “fair world”. A place where technology is roughly like a larger than life 1930s, but with magic added, and the populace burns at the touch of iron. I reread this one and it’s sequel often.
Moon Dreams and sequels by Brad Strickland; an advertising guy ends up in a world where magic can be worked by speaking any word or phrase that hasn’t been used before - and the locals don’t speak English. So he can say “This sword is NEW and IMPROVED !”, and it is. Not exactly serious, but amusing.
Alan Dean Foster’s Spellsinger books are set in a world populated mostly by anthropomorphic animals, and the main character is accidentally summoned by a wizard looking for an engineer. His job title was “sanitation engineer”, see . . .
Crystal Sorcerers, where WWII airmen end up in a fantasy world where they can work magic, since they lack the gene that prevents most of the locals from doing so.
The Gandalara Cycle, Randall Garret’s series about a modern man who mysteriously finds himself in the body of a not-quite-human young man in the mostly-desert land of Gandalara. One of my favorite series.
I’ve read many books by H. Rider Haggard.
Since ebooks came out I let them play as I do stuff that doesn’t need speech or to much mental concentration. The books are done in a day or two. I could tell you what they are all about without prompting, if my memory was dependable anymore.
I had totally forgotten that book! When I was about 10-12, that was my older brothers favorite book. He raved about it.
The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay has 4 US university students transported to a fantasy world with Celtic overtones. It’s pretty good stuff, but his later work (particularly Tigana, The Lions of Al-Rassan and Song for Arbonne) are fantastic, but they don’t fit the OP.
In David Drake’s Ranks of Bronze the Roman survivors of Crassus’ army that was defeated at Carrhae are purchased by aliens, and used to fight wars for them. They’ve got some Prime Directive type rules that if you want to fight against primitives, you have to use primitive means yourselves, and predicably, advanced aliens don’t really want to fight with swords & shields.
A wizard named “Clothahump”, as it happens…
For an interesting take on this, see Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. Energy-suppression technology becomes so advanced that soldiers are reduced to using bows, arrows, swords and spears.
Mmm… the first Fionavar Tapestry book is awesome. The second one has a lot of good stuff. The third one gets creatively bankrupt and sucks donkey balls, IMHO.
Set in the same universe is David Weber’s The Excalibur Alternative; a bunch of English soldiers and their families are taken for the same reason. The Romans are mentioned near the end of the book. It’s available at the Baen Free Library as well.
Edit expired; I should say that the fate of the Romans is mentioned near the end of the books. Their effectiveness is the motivation for the English being grabbed.
I pretty much agree (but probably wouldn’t go as far as the donkey balls). But the other three I mention are better than any of them.
The there theres one of the best SF novels of all time (as it tell’s me on the cover).
Glory Road - Robert A. Heinlein.
I don’t think Glory Road is Heinlein’s best, but it’s a fun read.
Would The Door into Summer count?
There’s another Heinlein book, whose title I will remember as soon as the edit window expires.
Quag Keep, by Andre Norton.
Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars novels have already been mentioned. There are also his Venus novels. Pirates of Venus is the first in the series.
Flash Gordon has already been mentioned. In the comic books, Adam Strange also travels to another world. If you count time travel, then Buck Rogers does, too. The comic strip Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was based on the novel Armageddon 2419 A.D., by Philip Frances Nowlan.