General Adventure:

• Robert Louis Stevenson - The Black Arrow, Treasure Island, et al; the root of all adventure, unless you count Homer.
• Edgar Rice Burrows - Tarzan, John Carter, et al; the beginnings of modern adventure (OK, so this dates me, but that's life!).
• Louis L'Amour - A jack of all trades - stevedore, cowboy, seaman, prize fighter, miner, hobo, soldier - and through all this a prolific reader who published his first short story in 1937. His early efforts were adventure fiction set primarily in the South Pacific before and after WWII, which he served in as a Lieutenant after completing OCS. Later in life he discovered the western genre for which he is most well known by today's readers and TV viewers (from Hopalong Cassidy to How the West Was Won through The Sacketts, et al.). His last, and best in my mind, military novel is Last of the Breed, where a Native American Air Force pilot is shot down over Siberia. The story of his survival is the definition of action and adventure.
• Nevil Shute- On the Beach, Trustee of the Toolroom, et al. Nevil Shute Norway, born in London, worked as an aeronautical engineer at Vickers before setting up his own aeronautical firm. Worried that his reputation as a fiction writer would damage his engineering career, he wrote without using his surname Norway, hence the "Shute" on his books. He served in both world wars and was a commander in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in World War II, working on secret projects. Another author who knows of what he writes!
• Pat Frank - Alas, Babylon The original nuclear doomsday novel, Alas, Babalon is set principally in rural Florida after a catastrophic exchange of nuclear weapons. At the time I read this I was the Army's Strategic Nuclear Plans and Programs Staff Officer in the Pentagon. Talk about striking home! Where Shute's On the Beach is a tragic aftermath story, Alas, Babylon tells of the tensions leading up to nuclear war and how survivors coped.
• James Michener - Caravans, et al. One of the authors I really regret not meeting. I read an article in the Riyadh English language newspaper about his workshops in the Tampa Bay area, but he left us before I was able to get back in country. If you read only one book about Afghanistan, Caravans should be the one. Written in the early Sixties to portray Afghanistan of the late Forties, the place and the people as Michener described Afghanistan are exactly as reported by our our military today.
• Thomas Perry - In The Butcher's Boy, Perry creates a unique style where the antagonist, a truly mean guy, is also the main character who gains the reader's support, if not sympathy - but even better are Perry's Jane Whitefield series - a personal witness protection program that often goes awry, with a significant Native American influence. And the main character is a woman - strong, tough, but caring enough to risk her own life for others. Perry has continued his line of hits with his latest novel, Dead Aim.
• Nevada Barr - Anna Pigeon is a National Park Service Enforcement Ranger with a propensity for trouble. A unique character, another adventurous woman succeeding in what is often a man's world in a series set in National Parks across the States. Perry and Barr prove that adventure and action aren't just a man's thing.
• C. J. Box has a great series about a Joe Pickett, a Game Warden in Wyoming and his family - great outdoors adventure - and a really neat web site opening flash.
• Lee Childs....more to come
• John Stanford...more to come

Military Adventure:

• General Sir John Hackett; et al. - The Third World War - a fictional account of how many of the senior generals in NATO in the late '70's believed a NATO vs. Soviet Union conflict in Europe would play out - maybe a little dry, but for those of us stationed in Europe at the time, a sobering challenge;
• Harold Coyle - Team Yankee, et al. - his first book was a small unit slice of the Third World War based on the overall battle portrayed in Hackett's The Third World War. In his latest book, They are Soldiers, Coyle's platoon leader of twenty years ago in the Fulda Gap, now the Army Chief of Staff, sends his son off to serve with the National Guard on "Peacekeeping" duties in the Middle East. A great reflection of the contrasts between Active and Reserve/NG mindset, the now being overwhelmed by the reserve component unit and individual current combat achievements.
• Steven Coonts - Flight of the Intruder, et al. - Navy Air Vietnam to tomorrow, with a lot of Middle Eastern action in the newer books and now, real Sci-Fi with Saucer: The conquest.
• Dale Brown - Flight of the Old Dog, et al. - Heavy Bomber quasi science fiction.
• Tom Clancy - Hunt for Red October, et al. Even the latest Clancy books, huge tombs with evidence of "writing by committee," are excellent war stories with engaging characters. Still on the top of my personal list.
• W. E. B. Griffin - Brotherhood of War series presents an insider's view of what it was like to be a soldier from 1944 to 1970 - WWII to Vietnam, along with his Men at War series with the fledgling OSS in WWII. He has also written highly acclaimed police and Marine series that I have yet to read. Oh, to be so prolific - and GOOD! And he has continued the tradition with a new series starting with By Order of the President, a counter-terrorism novel.
• Ken Follett - Follett adds Hornet Flight, a new WWII tale, to his long list of espionage thrillers that will keep you up far past your bedtime and his latest biological warfare thriller, White Out, will be available around November, 2004.
• Ralph Peters - Red Army, et al. Retired US Army Intelligence Officer and author of  several other outstanding novels and scholarly works on modern warfare. Different from most novels, but with the protagonist twist I first saw in Perry's Butcher's Boy,  Peter's Red Army is written entirely from the perspective of Soviet military - enlisted and officer ranks. Intellectually capable of analyzing Clausewitz - and as entertaining as Clancy - Peters' Beyond Terror helps explain the mess the world is in from both geopolitical and military strategic perspectives. Contemplative issues for those interested in serious discussions.
• Do NOT pass up the opportunity to read Nelson DeMille's Up Country. DeMille (a LT in the 1st Cavalry Division in 1968's Vietnam) takes you back to Khe Sanh and drags you through the jungles of Vietnam, the cities of Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, the battlefields many of us experienced in the raw. DeMille's other novels are all very realistic, often forecasting the political realities of today - unfortunately.

Florida (I have met each of these authors, except John D, whom I knew through the wisdom of Dr. Ed Hirsberg. Each is committed to tell their version of what Florida is really about):

• John D. MacDonald - Travis McGee series - the classic series that uses a tough guy to expose environmental disasters set in Lauderdale and environs - I feel an affinity for JDM - he also finished his military career as a Lieutenant Colonel after service in India with the OSS, and only then began his writing career - oh, if only I shared a bit of his talent....;
• Les Standiford - Deal series set in the Miami area;
• James Hall - Thorn series set in Miami and the Keys - a new Thorn due out January 2005;
• Randy Wayne White - Doc Ford series set on the Florida Suncoast, with travels to Cuba and other exotic spots. In his latest, Tampa Burns, Doc Ford stops by some of my favorite Suncoast restaurants;
• Diane Vogt - Willa Carter series set in Tampa;
• Tim Dorsey - writes about the outrageous Florida that really exists;
• Sterling Watson - a mentor who writes both "literary" and gritty Florida crime. His latest is Sweet Dream, Baby.

Historical Fiction:

• Bernard Cornwall - Sharpe series - begins with Richard Sharpe as a British Private in the British colony of India, takes you through the India and Napoleonic wars in Spain and France with Sharpe finally as a Regimental Commander at the battle of Waterloo, and ends with the exile of Napoleon. New Sharpe books continue to appear, along with other Cornwall historical classics such as Stonehenge, which explains how and why all those big rocks ended up on a British plain. All wonderful action adventure, with characters who are as real as Clancy's Jack Ryan. And, lo and behold, I just discovered his Starbuck series set in the American Civil War, more great historical fiction so realistic and well researched that you can learn history by reading the books.
• George McDonald Fraser - Flashman series - A scoundrel who participated in many historical events including the Charge of the Light Brigade and the Custer’s defeat by Sitting Bull at the battles of the Little Horn and Big Horn Rivers. Lots of good old gratuitous sex, and extraordinarily accurate historical settings. Flashman is a bit bigger than real, but always good for a history lesson and a humorous escapade. The next excerpt from the "Flashman Papers", Flashman on the March, Covering the 1868 Flashman's Campaign to Abyssinia is due out early in 2005. Fraser also wrote an engaging memoir about his combat service during the Burma campaign during World War II.

• T. E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the source of much cultural wisdom about the Middle East people and factual descriptions of the geography and climate, and The Mint, a shocking exposé about the abuses of the British military system. 
• Lowell Thomas - With Lawrence in Arabia. 

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