Free summaries
Adventure — page 3
211 public-domain adventure books, summarised. Page 3 of 5.
The Hour of the Dragon
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
A king who carved his throne from the chaos of a violent life finds himself stripped of his crown, his memory, and his kingdom, forced to climb back from the depths of a nightmare to reclaim his destiny.
Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1930
Unknown
The future is a sprawling, dangerous laboratory where machines outpace morality and the boundaries of reality are as thin as a fog-drift. Here, the gears of industry grind against the limits of the human spirit.
The People of the Black Circle
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
Conan, a barbarian mercenary, must navigate a treacherous landscape of mountain sorcerers and shifting political loyalties to rescue a kidnapped princess and secure his own destiny as a warlord.
Shadows in Zamboula
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
The city of Zamboula is a place of shadows and secrets, where the law belongs to the ruthless and the night belongs to the hungry. A solitary wanderer discovers that in this sprawling desert outpost, survival requires a blade as sharp as one's wits.
Shadows in the Moonlight
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
The edge of the world is a dangerous place, but for an outcast woman and a wandering barbarian, it is the only refuge left in a world that sells its own children.
The last dragon
Dan Totheroh
The meadow and the woodlot are the threshold to a world where childhood play becomes startlingly real, proving that a dragon in the nursery is only as impossible as you choose to believe.
Daredevil
Leslie Charteris
The shadow of an unseen organization threatens the heart of London, and only a man with a penchant for high-stakes peril stands between the city and total ruin.
Law-star for an outlaw
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
The life of an outlaw is a lonely vigil, but for one man, clearing a dead relative’s tarnished name becomes a dangerous, high-stakes hunt that forces him to confront a hidden evil lurking in a quiet town.
The man who mastered time
Ray Cummings
The boundaries of our reality are thinner than they appear. A single machine, a simple twist of a dial, can strip away the present and drop a man into the terrifying vastness of the deep future.
The magic ring, Vol. 1 (of 3)
La Motte-Fouqué, Friedrich Heinrich Karl, Freiherr de
A young knight enters a world of shifting spells and chivalric duty, where every encounter is a test of character and every blade speaks of ancient, heavy vows.
Fighting for fortune
Roy Franklin
A young man accused of a crime he did not commit must outwit a web of local corruption and prove his character to reclaim his future.
The Hunniwell boys and the platinum mystery
L. P. (Levi Parker) Wyman
An electric aircraft hums silently over the Pacific, carrying two brothers into the path of a desperate mystery. Beneath the cliffs of Hawaii, they must outwit a shadow to secure a fortune hidden in the sand.
The trail of deception
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
The law of the range is written in lead and sweat, but the law of the heart is a far more dangerous mystery for a man who has never held a gun or sat a horse.
The tomb of Ts'in
Edgar Wallace
The tomb of a long-dead Emperor holds a two-million-pound fortune, but for those who seek to plunder it, the price of greed may be an eternity spent in the dark.
Skeeter Bill comes to town
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
A towering, laconic drifter walks into a town built on lies, intent only on celebrating a child’s birthday but finding instead a mystery that demands he set the record straight.
Maugis, ye sorcerer
Lord Gilhooley
The life of a legendary sorcerer is reconstructed from secret manuscripts, revealing a tale of honor, betrayal, and the heavy price of defying an emperor.
Snow-blind
Albert M. (Albert McKune) Treynor
The radio crackles through the sub-zero silence of the Saskatchewan barrens, carrying a message for a man who is already living a lie. In the frozen wilderness, identity is as shifting as the drifting snow, and the line between hunter and hunted vanishes with the light.
The magic ring, Vol. 2 (of 3)
La Motte-Fouqué, Friedrich Heinrich Karl, Freiherr de
A golden-armored champion emerges from the shadows of history, binding his fate to a ring of power and a web of mystical prophecy.
Wanted—?
Eugene Cunningham
The truth is often buried in the sand, waiting for a man quiet enough to hear it. A young lawman tracks a killer across the Texas frontier, only to find the trail leading into his own heart.
The magic ring, Vol. 3 (of 3)
La Motte-Fouqué, Friedrich Heinrich Karl, Freiherr de
A tarnished heirloom holds the power to bend reality and command the spirit, binding a circle of noble souls in a desperate, sprawling quest across the map of the medieval imagination.
Sergeant Dick of the Royal Mounted Police
John G. (John Gabriel) Rowe
A lone rider meets a family living in a fortress on a lake, only to find himself in a desperate war against elusive, masked outlaws.
Moon of madness
Sax Rohmer
The trail leads from a shimmering, sun-drenched cruise in Madeira to the fog-choked, dangerous streets of London. A high-stakes game of shadows, secrets, and stolen intelligence begins with a single, daring rescue.
Jewels of Gwahlur
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
The fortune of a thousand years is hidden in a dead city, guarded by ghosts and monsters—but the greatest threat to its recovery is the greed of the living.
The Nowadays Girls in the Adirondacks
Gertrude Hall Brownell
The world is wide, the woods are deep, and the Nowadays Girls have no intention of staying indoors. With a motorboat at their command and a spirit of adventure in their hearts, they discover that life’s greatest mysteries are best solved with a steady hand and a group of loyal friends.
The world below
S. Fowler (Sydney Fowler) Wright
A man finds himself in a future world so alien that humanity is merely a relic, and its masters—the Amphibians—view him with the detached curiosity one might reserve for a common garden insect.
Cursed be the treasure
H. B. (Henry Burgess) Drake
The past is a phantom, but in this tale, the dead have a way of reaching out from the shadows to pull the living into their unfinished business.
Dancing Devil range
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
The desert air is thick with mystery and the scent of sagebrush as two drifters arrive in a valley where a bank has vanished, a girl has been murdered, and a young man sits in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.
Karl Grier
Louis Tracy
A man walks the streets of London in a top hat, hiding a terrifying secret: he once possessed a sixth sense that allowed him to reach across oceans and pull the strings of human fate.
The valley of eyes unseen
Gilbert Collins
The mystery of a lost civilization in the remote mountains of Tibet, where the boundaries between scientific genius, physical presence, and the supernatural dissolve, awaits those who dare to seek the truth.
The Arctic legions
A. De Herries (Augustus De Herries) Smith
The relentless, rhythmic thunder of a thousand hooves serves as the backdrop for a desperate, claustrophobic showdown between a lawman and a killer trapped by the forces of nature.
The First of the English: A Novel
Archibald Clavering Gunter
A sea-tossed sailor gambles his life in the lion’s den, seeking not just the enemy’s gold, but the heart of the most dangerous woman in the Netherlands.
Red Nails
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
When a barbarian adventurer and a pirate queen stumble upon a forgotten city in the deep jungle, they find its inhabitants locked in a cycle of ancient, blood-drenched hatred that threatens to consume them both.
Astounding Stories, August, 1931
Various
Beyond the thin, fragile veil of the modern world, strange civilizations, alien geometries, and lethal technologies wait to be unleashed by the curious. Step through the gate and face a reality where science is both a savior and a sharpened blade.
The Secret of the Ninth Planet
Donald A. Wollheim
The solar system is dimming, its life-giving warmth siphoned away by an unknown adversary. A young man, an experimental spaceship, and the desperate hope of humanity race across the void to face a cosmic thief.
Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930
Various
The boundaries of our world are far more fragile than they appear. Beneath the crust, behind the clouds of Venus, and inside the silent laboratories of men, the impossible is merely a calculation waiting to be solved.
Astounding Stories, June, 1931
Various
This collection of early science fiction offers a window into the rapid, inventive, and often breathless storytelling that defined the pulp era. Through a series of novelettes and serialized novels, the authors propel characters through time, across the solar system, and into the dark heart of scientific obsession.
Brood of the Dark Moon: (A Sequel to "Dark Moon")
Charles Willard Diffin
The path home lies across a void of lethal cold, where the stars watch silently as broken people struggle against a cruel, cosmic design.
Astounding Stories, May, 1931
Various
The future is not a destination, but a volatile laboratory where science and humanity collide. Step into a world of soaring machines, cosmic mysteries, and the desperate struggle to preserve our fragile civilization.
France and England in North America, Part III: La Salle, Discovery of The Great West
Francis Parkman
A solitary Frenchman stakes his life and fortune on an impossible dream, charting a vast, untamed wilderness that will eventually define a continent.
The Black Moth: A Romance of the XVIIIth Century
Georgette Heyer
The wicked Duke of Andover meets his match in a penniless, disgraced nobleman who risks the gallows to rescue the woman they both desire.
The Crimson Gardenia and Other Tales of Adventure
Rex Beach
In the frozen reaches of the North and the sultry heat of the tropics, men of iron will find their fates unmade by the reckless, dangerous pull of the human heart.
From Kingdom to Colony
Mary Devereux
The struggle for independence is rarely fought in halls of power alone; it is won in the quiet rooms of households, where the smallest choice can betray a country or save a heart.
Adventures of a Young Naturalist
Lucien Biart
Step into a world where the wilderness is both a classroom and a test of character. Follow a father, his son, and their guide as they traverse the lush, untamed landscapes of 19th-century Mexico.
Air Service Boys Flying for Victory
Charles Amory Beach
Can two young pilots turn the tide of the Great War from the cockpit of a bomber? With the Argonne Forest as their stage, they trade safety for the skies to secure a victory that history will never forget.
The Buccaneer: A Tale
Hall, S. C., Mrs.
The sea-wasp of the coast, a vessel of shifting loyalties, cuts through the mists of 1656 to entangle the lives of a restless Buccaneer and the shifting power of a Protectorate on the edge of collapse.
In Doublet and Hose: A Story for Girls
Lucy Foster Madison
In the twilight of the Elizabethan era, a spirited girl exchanges her skirts for the doublet and hose of a page, embarking on a dangerous journey to save her father from the consequences of political intrigue.
By Conduct and Courage: A Story of the Days of Nelson
G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
A young orphan with a hidden legacy rises from the poverty of a fishing village to the quarterdeck of the Royal Navy, chasing honor and fortune through the smoke of history’s most decisive sea battles.
When dreams come true
Ritter Brown
A man of vast fortune wanders into the heart of the Mexican desert, seeking something he cannot name, only to find himself entangled in a web of ancient prophecy, racial tension, and a love that defies the boundaries of his world.